appeared to be, at once, sad and resolute."

In another passage, he gives this picturesque sketch: "By the side of
the hearth, sits a woman, with a baby on her lap. She nods to us,
without disturbing herself. Like the pioneer, this woman is in the prime
of life; her appearance would seem superior to her condition: and her
apparel even betrays a lingering taste for dress. But her delicate limbs
appear shrunken; her features are drawn in; her eye is mild and
melancholy; her whole physiognomy bears marks of a degree of religious
resignation, a deep quiet of all passion, and some sort of natural and
tranquil firmness, ready to meet all the ills of life, without fearing
and without braving them. Her children cluster about her, full of
health, turbulence, and energy; they are true children of the
wilderness: their mother watches them, from time to time, with mingled
melancholy and joy. To look at their strength, and her languor, one
might imagine that the life she had given them had exhausted her own;
and still she regrets not what they have cost her. The house, inhabited
by these emigrants, has no internal partition or loft. In the one
chamber of which it consists, the whole family is gathered for the
night. The dwelling is itself a little world; an ark of civilization
amid an ocean of foliage. A hundred steps beyond it, the primeval forest
spreads its shades, and solitude resumes its sway."

Such scenes, and such women, the writer has met, and few persons realize
how many refined and lovely women are scattered over the broad prairies
and deep forests of the West; and none, but the Father above,
appreciates the extent of those sacrifices and sufferings, and the value
of that firm faith and religious hope, which live, in perennial bloom,
amid those vast solitudes. If the American women of the East merit the
palm, for their skill and success as accomplished housekeepers, still
more is due to the heroines of the West, who, with such unyielding
fortitude and cheerful endurance, attempt similar duties, amid so many
disadvantages and deprivations.

But, though American women have those elevated principles and feelings,
which enable them to meet such trials in so exemplary a manner, their
physical energies are not equal to the exertions demanded. Though the
mind may be bright and firm, the casket is shivered; though the spirit
may be willing, the flesh is weak. A woman of firm health, with the hope
and elasticity of youth, may be