Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/275

Rh If I were able to present to your Majesty those American women who appear to me to be the purest representative type of the Eve of the New World, your Majesty's glance would rest upon them with an expression of satisfaction, both as regards the sense of beauty and of moral feeling.

I see your Majesty's own gentle being thrilled by the recognition of a kindred being, and seem to hear from your Majesty's lips this judgment.

“They resemble the most beloved women of our hemisphere; their grace of person is not less than their steadfastness in principle. But they have something more than the women of Europe. Their glance seems to me to embrace a larger world; their intelligence, a larger activity; and their heart seems to me large enough to embrace and elevate the human community in all its spheres.”

Probably it is only just to say that the human being of the New World is not better than he of the old; but he stands on more advantageous ground, under more favourable circumstances as regards free and true development. Human nature, both in the individual and in the community at large, may become more perfected; because here every private advantage may become that of all; the circle of society is more complete.

But it is time for me to conclude, and I must already, I fear, have wearied your Majesty by the length of my letter. The interest of the subjects, and the interest which your Majesty expressed in them, must be my excuse.

I shall now very shortly leave the South. Its witchery is great, but my bias is now towards the North. The tree of freedom grows more vigorous amid its granite hills. And as it grows in the Northern States of America, grows it also in our Scandinavian North. But what this North possesses, and which America possesses not, is an antiquity full of song and saga, of glorious prophecy and symbolism, of gods and heroes who gave to Scandinavia so large, so peculiar, so romantic a life. It is this