thankful; for, if there are any of God's creatures that need lecturing,
it is this one that is forever advising us. I thought of all men, from
Father Gregory down to Horace Bushnell, who had wearied their brains to
describe woman's sphere, and how signally they had failed.

Throughout my lyceum journeys I was of great use to the traveling
public, in keeping the ventilators in the cars open, and the dampers in
fiery stoves shut up, especially in sleeping cars at night. How many
times a day I thought what the sainted Horace Mann tried to impress on
his stupid countrymen, that, inasmuch as the air is forty miles deep
around the globe, it is a useless piece of economy to breathe any number
of cubic feet over more than seven times! The babies, too, need to be
thankful that I was in a position to witness their wrongs. Many, through
my intercessions, received their first drink of water, and were
emancipated from woolen hoods, veils, tight strings under their chins,
and endless swaddling bands. It is a startling assertion, but true,
that I have met few women who know how to take care of a baby. And this
fact led me, on one trip, to lecture to my fair countrywomen on
"Marriage and Maternity," hoping to aid in the inauguration of a new era
of happy, healthy babies.

After twenty-four hours in the express I found myself in a pleasant room
in the International Hotel at La Crosse, looking out on the Great Mother
of Waters, on whose cold bosom the ice and the steamers were struggling
for mastery. Beyond stretched the snow-clad bluffs, sternly looking down
on the Mississippi, as if to say, "'Thus far shalt thou come and no
farther'--though sluggish, you are aggressive, ever pushing where you
should not; but all attempts in this direction are alike vain; since
creation's dawn, we have defied you, and here we stand, to-day, calm,
majestic, immovable. Coquette as you will in other latitudes, with
flowery banks and youthful piers in the busy marts of trade, and
undermine them, one and all, with your deceitful wooings, but bow in
reverence as you gaze on us. We have no eyes for your beauty; no ears
for your endless song; our heads are in the clouds, our hearts commune
with gods; you have no part in the eternal problems of the ages that
fill our thoughts, yours the humble duty to wash our feet, and then pass
on, remembering to keep in your appropriate sphere, within the barks
that wise geographers have seen fit to mark."

As I listened to