, and prepared the food, and did their full share of the duties
of house-keeping. Another thus describes them: 'There we behold woman
in her true glory; not a doll to carry silks and jewels; not a puppet
to be dandled by fops, an idol of profane adoration, reverenced to-day,
discarded to-morrow; admired, but not respected; desired, but not
esteemed; ruling by passion, not affection; imparting her weakness,
not her constancy, to the sex she should exalt; the source and mirror
of vanity. We see her as a wife, partaking of the cares, and guiding
the labors of her husband, and by her domestic diligence spreading
cheerfulness all around; for his sake, sharing the decent refinements
of the world, without being fond of them; placing all her joy, all her
happiness, in the merited approbation of the man she loves. As a mother,
we find her the affectionate, the ardent instructress of the children
she has reared from infancy, and trained them up to thought and virtue,
to meditation and benevolence; addressing them as rational beings, and
preparing them to become men and women in their turn.

"'Could there be happiness or comfort in such dwellings and such a state
of society? To those who are accustomed to modern refinements, the truth
appears like fable. The early occupants of log-cabins were among the
most happy of mankind. Exercise and excitement gave them health; they
were practically equal; common danger made them mutually dependant;
brilliant hopes of future wealth and distinction led them on; and as
there was ample room for all, and as each new-comer increased individual
and general security, there was little room for that envy, jealousy,
and hatred which constitute a large portion of human misery in older
societies. Never were the story, the joke, the song, and the laugh
better enjoyed than upon the hewed blocks, or puncheon stools, around
the roaring log fire of the early Western settler. The lyre of Apollo
was not hailed with more delight in primitive Greece than the advent of
the first fiddler among the dwellers of the wilderness; and the polished
daughters of the East never enjoyed themselves half so well, moving to
the music of a full band, upon the elastic floor of their ornamented
ball-room, as did the daughters of the emigrants, keeping time to a
self-taught fiddler, on the bare earth or puncheon floor of the
primitive log-cabin. The smile of the polished beauty is the wave of the
lake, where the breeze plays gently