his manliness, and wide range of knowledge. When
Jouffroy writes his lectures, I am not conversant with all his
topics of thought, but I can appreciate his lucid style and
admirable method. When Webster speaks on the currency, I do
not understand the subject, but I do understand his mode of
treating it, and can see what a blaze of light streams from
his torch. When Harriet Martineau writes about America, I
often cannot test that rashness and inaccuracy of which I hear
so much, but I can feel that they exist. A want of soundness,
of habits of patient investigation, of completeness, of
arrangement, are felt throughout the book; and, for all
its fine descriptions of scenery, breadth of reasoning, and
generous daring, I cannot be happy in it, because it is not
worthy of my friend, and I think a few months given to ripen
it, to balance, compare, and mellow, would have made it so. * *

'Certainly you show no spirit of harshness towards this
country in general. I think your tone most kindly. But many
passages are deformed by intemperance of epithet. * * Would
your heart, could you but investigate the matter, approve such
overstatement, such a crude, intemperate tirade as you have
been guilty of about Mr. Alcott,--a true and noble man,
a philanthropist, whom a true and noble woman, also a
philanthropist, should have delighted to honor; whose
disinterested and resolute efforts, for the redemption of poor
humanity, all independent and faithful minds should sustain,
since the "broadcloth" vulgar will be sure to assail them; a
philosopher, worthy of the palmy times of ancient Greece;
a man whom Carlyle and Berkely, whom you so uphold, would
delight to honor; a man whom the worldlings of Boston hold
in as much horror as the worldlings of ancient Athens did
Socrates. They smile to hear their verdict confirmed from
the other side of the Atlantic, by their censor, Harriet
Martineau.

'I do not like that your book should be an abolition book. You
might have borne your testimony as decidedly as you pleased;
but why leaven the whole book with it? This subject haunts us
on almost every page. It _is_ a great subject, but your book
had other purposes to fulfil.

'I have thought it right to say all this to you, since I felt
it. I have shrunk from the effort, for I fear that I must