front, stronger hands than theirs will take the reins, and bring out the load in safety. We are not so near destruction as it would seem from _your_ standpoint, and because a few poor, vain, foolish women, with little money and less brains and shriveled hearts, have betaken themselves to the boarding-houses of New York City, and are living false, empty, silly, idle lives for _show_, it does not make it that this is the character or life of _all_ the women of America, nor that well-regulated _homelife_ is not the rule of the country, _for it is_; and I, who am a part of it, and have lived it, and over and among it, all my lifetime, know it _well_. Shall we judge France and its whole people by the courtesans of Paris, or Germany by Berlin? Oh! my friend and brother, do, I beseech of you, get another standpoint, and a wider outlook and a clearer, purer atmosphere than New York City with its floodtide of immigration before you judge, in final judgment, the whole population, male and female, of this great country. I thank you very much for the hope expressed that we may meet in Paris in ’78, but there is small prospect of this. I shall scarcely cross the ocean again. I have much to do to save my strength with no unnecessary waste, but the hope expressed that we may meet before that time is something nearer home, and more within the range of _possibilities_. I should never dare by any means to invite you to visit me, and I never go to your part of the country, so the prospect of our meeting is small. Perhaps I ought to explain the above remark, having very incautiously made it, and I will. I am a so much more simple person in my mode of life than you have probably ever seen (except those whom poverty compelled to simplicity) that you would not feel happy or homelike in my house. I am simple in my tastes, and plain, avoiding luxuries from choice and _principle_, both about my house and in its dress, and my table and its furnishings. My living is simple as a hermit’s, heavy meats, and wines, teas, and coffees are unknown at my table, my rooms plain. I have only my housekeeper--no retinue of servants at all, no show, no ornaments, no excuses; but with all this there is great peace and quiet, no worry, no fret, no fears of what the world will think or say, no pressure in any direction, abundant supplies for all _necessities_, no scandal either spoken or listened to, no backbiting, and no “skeleton in the closet,” not even the _shadow_ of one. Now, all this simplicity and plainness, and the absence of excitement and luxurious surroundings and living, must be so different from all that you are accustomed to that you could not be happy or even comfortable among it, so I should never _dare_ invite you to visit me, even if you were journeying near me, and so, when you see that I do not, you will understand the true reason and assign the right motive on my part and not feel piqued or