_Letter from Miss Martineau to the Editor._ _Tynemouth, May 20, 1844._ MY DEAR FRIEND,--Your interest in this Lowell book can scarcely equal mine; for I have seen the factory girls in their Lyceum, and have gone over the cotton-mills at Waltham, and made myself familiar on the spot with factory life in New England; so that in reading the "Offering," I saw again in my memory the street of houses built by the earnings of the girls, the church which is their property, and the girls themselves trooping to the mill, with their healthy countenances, and their neat dress and quiet manners, resembling those of the tradesman class of our country. My visit to Lowell was merely for one day, in company with Mr. Emerson's party,--he (the pride and boast of New England as an author and philosopher) being engaged by the Lowell factory people to lecture to them, in a winter course of historical biography. Of course the lectures were delivered in the evening, after the mills were closed. The girls were then working seventy hours a week, yet, as I looked at the large audience (and I attended more to them than to the lecture) I saw no sign of weariness among any of them. There they sat, row behind row, in their own Lyceum--a large hall, wainscoted with mahogany, the platform carpeted, well lighted, provided with a handsome table, desk, and seat, and adorned with portraits of a few worthies, and as they thus sat listening to their lecturer, all wakeful and interested, all well-dressed and lady-like, I could not but feel my heart swell at the thought, of what such a sight would be with us.