e learned that this taste is merely whimsical. Of two
patterns which differ only by a few threads more or less of a particular
color, the one will be sold readily, the other lie on the shelf, though
it frequently happens that after the lapse of a season the latter
becomes the most fashionable. Comparatively, tattooing is not the
hideous custom which it is called. It is not barbarous merely because
the printing is skin-deep and unalterable.

I cannot believe that our factory system is the best mode by which men
may get clothing. The condition of the operatives is becoming every day
more like that of the English; and it cannot be wondered at, since,
as far as I have heard or observed, the principal object is, not
that mankind may be well and honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that
corporations may be enriched. In the long run men hit only what they aim
at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim
at something high.

As for a Shelter, I will not deny that this is now a necessary of
life, though there are instances of men having done without it for
long periods in colder countries than this. Samuel Laing says that "the
Laplander in his skin dress, and in a skin bag which he puts over his
head and shoulders, will sleep night after night on the snow... in a
degree of cold which would extinguish the life of one exposed to it in
any woollen clothing." He had seen them asleep thus. Yet he adds, "They
are not hardier than other people." But, probably, man did not live long
on the earth without discovering the convenience which there is in a
house, the domestic comforts, which phrase may have originally signified
the satisfactions of the house more than of the family; though these
must be extremely partial and occasional in those climates where the
house is associated in our thoughts with winter or the rainy season
chiefly, and two thirds of the year, except for a parasol, is
unnecessary. In our climate, in the summer, it was formerly almost
solely a covering at night. In the Indian gazettes a wigwam was the
symbol of a day's march, and a row of them cut or painted on the bark of
a tree signified that so many times they had camped. Man was not made
so large limbed and robust but that he must seek to narrow his world
and wall in a space such as fitted him. He was at first bare and out of
doors; but though this was pleasant enough in serene and warm weather,
by daylight, the rainy season and the winter,