Various

“ An opposite theory of human society is, in fact, finding its confirmation in these events,—that which tells us that we all have need of each other, and that the goal towards which society actually moves is not an heroic despotism, but a real community, in which each member shall contribute his gifts and faculties to the common store, and the common government shall become the work of all. For, if the victory in this struggle has been won, it has been won, not by a man, but by the nation; and that it has been won not by a man, but by the nation, is your glory and the pledge of your salvation. ”

“ The height of Niagara and the close compression of its vast volume make it a grander sight than the Falls of the Columbia,—but no other cataract known to me on this continent rivals it for an instant. The great American Falls of Snake are much loftier and more savage than either, but their volume is so much less as to counterbalance those advantages. Taking the Falls of the Columbia all in all,—including their upper and lower rapids,—it must be confessed that they exhibit every phase of tormented water in its beauty of color or grace of form, its wrath or its whim. ”

“ All that he knows he knows profoundly, nor does it require an Artesian bore to bring that knowledge bubbling to the surface. His mastery over his intellect is as great as that of Liszt over the piano-forte,—it is a slave to do his bidding. He is the result of a thousand years of culture. A "Double-First" never gives way to enthusiasms; his heart never gets into his head. Impulse is snubbed as though it were a poor relation; and argument is carried on by clear, acute reason, independent of feeling. Woe unto the American who loses his temper while duelling mentally with a "Double-First"! ”

“ A matter for despair as regards bad butter is that at the tables where it is used it stands sentinel at the door to bar your way to every other kind of food. You turn from your dreadful half-slice of bread, which fills your mouth with bitterness, to your beefsteak, which proves virulent with the same poison; you think to take refuge in vegetable diet, and find the butter in the string-beans, and polluting the innocence of early peas,—it is in the corn, in the succotash, in the squash,—the beets swim in it, the onions have it poured over them. ”

“ Nothing done on our side, I should think, can have been more galling, as nothing has been so injurious to your success. For myself, in common with all who think as I do on these questions, I abhor the blockade-runners; I heartily wish that the curse of ill-gotten gain may rest on every piece of gold they make; and never did I feel less proud of my country than when, on my way hither, I saw those vessels in Halifax sheltered under English guns. But blockade-running is the law; it is the test, in fact, of an effective blockade. ”

“ Carlyle may now perceive that we have something more than a foul chimney burning itself out over here:—strange that a seer should thus mistake the glare of a mountain-torch! We have not made war from a mere ebullition of spite, or as an experiment, or for any base and temporary purpose; but this is a war for humanity, and for all time. That we are in deadly earnest, that the heart of the nation is in it, and that this is no effervescent and fickle heart, the momentous Tuesday stands before the world as the final proof. ”

“ It spread far even among the classes which have shown the greatest want of sympathy for you in the present war.
England has diplomatic connections—she has sometimes diplomatic intrigues—with the Great Powers of Europe. For a real alliance she must look here. Strong as is the element of aristocracy in her Government, there is that in her, nevertheless, which makes her cordial understandings with military despotisms little better than smothered hate. With you she may have a league of the heart. We are united by blood. We are united by a common allegiance to the cause of freedom. ”

“ The Englishmen of this day will not prevent those who come after them from being proud of England's grandest achievement, the sum of all her noblest victories,—the foundation of this the great Commonwealth of the New World. And you will not prevent the hearts of your children's children from turning to the birth-place of their nation, the land of their history and of their early greatness, the land which holds the august monuments of your ancient race, the works of your illustrious fathers, and their graves. ”

“ A tourist through England can seldom fail, at the quietest country-inn, of finding himself served with the essentials of English table-comfort,—his mutton-chop done to a turn, his steaming little private apparatus for concocting his own tea, his choice pot of marmalade or slice of cold ham, and his delicate rolls and creamy butter, all served with care and neatness. In France, one never asks in vain for delicious café-au-lait, good bread and butter, a nice omelet, or some savory little portion of meat with a French name. ”

“ Pretty and well-dressed women were to be seen in High Street, and they never, except by mistake or disaster, wandered through Salt Lane. Standing in his door, and observing them according to his thoughtful fashion, Dexter remembered that his daughter was growing rapidly into a tall, handsome girl, and foresaw that she could not always be a child. He saw young misses going past with their school-books in their hands, and if he followed them with his eyes as far as eyes could follow, it was not for any reason save such as should have made them love and trust the man. ”

“ The real origin of your nation is the key to the present relations between you and the different parties in England. This is the old battle waged again on a new field. We will not talk too much of Puritans and Cavaliers. The soldiers of the Union are not Puritans, neither are the planters Cavaliers, But the present civil war is a vast episode in the same irrepressible conflict between Aristocracy and Democracy; and the heirs of the Cavalier in England sympathize with your enemies, the heirs of the Puritan with you.
The feeling of our aristocracy, as of all aristocracies, is against you. ”

“ The political dominion of England over it, since it has had a free constitution of its own, has dwindled to a mere thread. It is as ripe to be a nation as these Colonies were on the eve of the American Revolution. As a dependency, it is of no solid value to England since she has ceased to engross the Colonial trade. It distracts her forces, and prevents her from acting with her full weight in the affairs of her own quarter of the world. It belongs in every sense to America, not to Europe ”

“ But there is greatness still in the heart of the English nation.
And you, too, have you not known in the course of your history a slack-tide of faith, a less aspiring hour? Have not you, too, known a temporary ascendancy of material over spiritual interests, a lowering of the moral tone, a readiness, for the sake of ease and peace and secure enjoyment, to compromise with evil? Have not you, too, felt the tyranny of wealth, putting the higher motives for a moment under its feet? ”

“ As the champions of Democracy, you may claim, and you receive, the sympathy of the Democratic party in England and in Europe; that of the Aristocratic party you cannot claim. You must bear it calmly, if the aristocracies mourn over your victories and triumph over your defeats. Do the friends of Democracy conceal their joy when a despotism or an oligarchy bites the dust?
The members of our aristocracy bear you no personal hatred. An American going among them even now meets with nothing but personal courtesy and kindness. ”

“ There are more women who know how to make good cake than good bread,—more who can furnish you with a good ice-cream than a well-cooked mutton-chop; a fair charlotte-russe is easier to come by than a perfect cup of coffee, and you shall find a sparkling jelly to your dessert where you sighed in vain for so simple a luxury as a well-cooked potato.
Our fair countrywomen might rest upon their laurels in these higher fields, and turn their great energy and ingenuity to the study of essentials. To do common things perfectly is far better worth our endeavor than to do uncommon things respectably. ”

“ Now while the halcyon broods through the Sabbath-days of winter, and, looking from her nest, sees the waves of a summer calm and brightness,—now while she meditates, with the eggs under her wings, of a fast-approaching time when she shall teach her song to the little flock that's coming,—let us also dream. The thing that hath been shall be. Contentment, peace, and love! Fairy folk shall not personate this blessedness for us. Who is your next-door neighbor? One face shines serenely before me, and says, "The world is redeemed!" ”

“ The true housewife makes her bread the sovereign of her kitchen,—its behests must be attended to in all critical points and moments, no matter what else be postponed. She who attends to her bread when she has done this, and arranged that, and performed the other, very often finds that the forces of Nature will not wait for her. The snowy mass, perfectly mixed, kneaded with care and strength, rises in its beautiful perfection till the moment comes for fixing the air-cells by baking. A few minutes now, and the acetous fermentation will begin, and the whole result be spoiled. ”

“ But the English people idolize Garibaldi, and receive him with a burst of enthusiasm unexampled in fervor. The English people love Garibaldi, and Garibaldi's name is equally dear to all American hearts. Is not this—let me ask in passing—a proof that there is a bond of sympathy, after all, between the English people and you, and that, if as a nation we are divided from you, it is not by a radical estrangement, but by some cloud of error which will in time pass away? ”

“ Do they deem it wise to put a still greater strain on the already groaning timbers of the Constitution? Do they think that the suspension of trade and emigration, with the price of labor rising and the harvests of Illinois excluded from their market, would help you to cope with the financial difficulties which fill with anxiety every reflecting mind? Do they think that four more years of war-government would render easy the tremendous work of reconstruction? But the interests of the great community of nations are above the private interests of America or of England. ”

“ Overrun with vermin, perishing with cold, breathing a stifled, tainted atmosphere, no space allowed them for rest by day, and lying down at night "wormed and dovetailed together like fish in a basket,"—their daily rations only two ounces of stale beef and a small lump of hard corn-bread, and their lives the forfeit, if they caught but one streak of God's blue sky through those filthy windows,—they have endured there all the horrors of the middle-passage. ”

“ Now in the little tour that you and I have been taking this summer, I have been thinking of the great abundance of splendid material we have in America, compared with the poor cooking. How often, in our stoppings, we have sat down to tables loaded with material, originally of the very best kind, which had been so spoiled in the treatment that there was really nothing to eat! Green biscuit with acrid spots of alkali,—sour yeast-bread,—meat slowly simmered in fat till it seemed like grease itself, and slowly congealing in cold grease,—and above all, that unpardonable enormity, strong butter! ”

“ No reader of this magazine is so young as not to remember, that, between the first of June and the first of August last, a Peace simoom swept over the country, throwing dust into the people's eyes, and threatening to bury the nation in disunion. All at once the North grew tired of the war. It began to count the money and the blood it had cost, and to overlook the great principles for which it was waged. Men of all shades of political opinion—radical Republicans, as well as honest Democrats—cried out for concession, compromise, armistice,—for anything to end the war,—anything but disunion. ”