ade that they cannot but speak of what interests them most to those who
most share the interest. This is a decree of nature by which the decrees
of despots are annulled. The power of a ruler may avail to keep an
observer on his own side the frontier; but, if he has once passed it, it
is his own fault if he does not become as well acquainted with the
prevailing sentiment of the inhabitants, amidst the deadest public
silence, as if it were shouted out to the four winds. If he carries a
simple mind and an open heart, there is no mine in Siberia so deep but
the voice of complaint will come up to him from it, and no home so
watched by priests but that he will know what is concealed from the
confessor. All this would do little more than mislead him by means of
his sympathies, if such confidence were his only means of knowledge;
but, coming in corroboration of what he has learned in the large
elsewhere, it becomes unquestionable evidence of what it is that
interests the people most.

He must bear in mind that there are a few universal interests which
everywhere stand first, and that it is the modification of these by
local influences which he has to observe; and also what comes next in
order to these. For instance, the domestic are the primary interests
among all human beings. It is so where the New England father dismisses
his sons to the West,--and where the Hindoo mother deserts her infants
to seek the shade of her husband through the fire,--and where the
Spanish parent consigns her youngest to the convent,--as truly as where
the Norwegian peasant enlarges his roof to admit another and another
family of his descendants. It is for the traveller to trust the words
and tones of parental love which meet his ear in every home of every
land; and to mark by what it is that this prime and universal interest
is modified, so as to produce such sacrifice of itself. Taking the
affection for granted, which the private discourse of parents and
children compels him to do, what light does he find cast upon the
influence of the priests here, and pride of territory there;--upon the
superstition which is the weakness of one people, and the social
ambition in the midst of poverty which is the curse of another!

He must also find out from the conversation of the people he visits what
is their particular interest, from observing what ranks next to those
which are universal. In one country, parents love their families first,
and wealth next; in