Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/239

Rh If people could but know how much I suffer from this nervous indisposition they would excuse an apparent unfriendliness which exists neither in my disposition nor my heart. In the evening I composed myself by listening to the melodious reading of young Mr. V.

One day I visited the celebrated manufactory of Lowell, accompanied by a young agreeable countryman of mine, Mr. Wachenfelt, who has been resident here for several years. I would willingly have declined the journey, because it was so cold, and I was not well, but they had invited strangers to meet me, got up an entertainment, and therefore I was obliged to go. And I did not regret it. I had a glorious view from the top of Drewcroft Hill in that star-light cold winter evening, of the manufactories of Lowell lying below in a half-circle, glittering with a thousand lights like a magic castle on the snow-covered earth. And then to think, and to know, that these lights were not ignes fatui, not merely pomp and show, but that they were actually symbols of a healthful and hopeful life in the persons whose labour they lighted; to know that within every heart in this palace of labour burned a bright little light, illumining a future of comfort and prosperity which every day and every turn of the wheel of the machinery only brought the nearer. In truth there was a deep purpose in these brilliant lights, and I beheld this illumination with a joy which made the winter's night feel warm to me.

Afterwards I shook hands with a whole crowd of people in a great assembly, and the party was kept up till late in the night. The following morning I visited the manufactories and saw “the young ladies” at their work and at their dinner; saw their boarding-houses, sleeping-rooms, etc. All was comfortable and nice as we had heard it described. Only I noticed that some of “the young ladies” were about fifty, and some of them not so very well clad, while others again were too fine. I was most