since, we have had this entertainment in honor
of the revolutions of France and Austria, and nothing could be more
beautiful. The fun usually consists in all the people blowing one
another's lights out. We had not this; all the little tapers were
left to blaze, and the long Corso swarmed with tall fire-flies. Lights
crept out over the surface of all the houses, and such merry little
twinkling lights, laughing and flickering with each slightest movement
of those who held them! Up and down the Corso they twinkled, they
swarmed, they streamed, while a surge of gay triumphant sound ebbed
and flowed beneath that glittering surface. Here and there danced men
carrying aloft _moccoli_, and clanking chains, emblem of the tyrannic
power now vanquished by the people;--the people, sweet and noble, who,
in the intoxication of their joy, were guilty of no rude or unkindly
word or act, and who, no signal being given as usual for the
termination of their diversion, closed, of their own accord and with
one consent, singing the hymns for Pio, by nine o'clock, and
retired peacefully to their homes, to dream of hopes they yet scarce
understand.

This happened last week. The news of the dethronement of Louis
Philippe reached us just after the close of the Carnival. It was just
a year from my leaving Paris. I did not think, as I looked with such
disgust on the empire of sham he had established in France, and saw
the soul of the people imprisoned and held fast as in an iron vice,
that it would burst its chains so soon. Whatever be the result, France
has done gloriously; she has declared that she will not be satisfied
with pretexts while there are facts in the world,--that to stop her
march is a vain attempt, though the onward path be dangerous and
difficult. It is vain to cry, Peace! peace! when there is no peace.
The news from France, in these days, sounds ominous, though still
vague. It would appear that the political is being merged in the
social struggle: it is well. Whatever blood is to be shed, whatever
altars cast down, those tremendous problems MUST be solved, whatever
be the cost! That cost cannot fail to break many a bank, many a heart,
in Europe, before the good can bud again out of a mighty corruption.
To you, people of America, it may perhaps be given to look on and
learn in time for a preventive wisdom. You may learn the real meaning
of the words FRATERNITY, EQUALITY: you may, despite the apes of the
past who strive to tutor y