well as melancholy of
our neighbours. If our countrymen laughed more, they would not only be
happier, but better; and if philanthropists would provide amusements
for the people, they would be saved the trouble and expense of their
fruitless war against public-houses. This is an indisputable
proposition. The French and Italians, with wine growing at their
doors, and spirits almost as cheap as beer in England, are sober
nations. How comes this? The laugh will answer that leaps up from
group after group--the dance on the village-green--the family dinner
under the trees--the thousand merry-meetings that invigorate industry,
by serving as a relief to the business of life. Without these,
business is care; and it is from care, not from amusement, men fly to
the bottle.

The common mistake is to associate the idea of amusement with error of
every kind; and this piece of moral asceticism is given forth as true
wisdom, and, from sheer want of examination, is very generally
received as such. A place of amusement concentrates a crowd, and
whatever excesses may be committed, being confined to a small space,
stand more prominently forward than at other times. This is all. The
excesses are really fewer--far fewer--in proportion to the number
assembled, than if no gathering had taken place. How can it be
otherwise? The amusement is itself the excitement which the wearied
heart longs for; it is the reaction which nature seeks; and in the
comparatively few instances of a coarser intoxication being
superadded, we see only the craving of depraved habit--a habit
engendered, in all probability, by the _want_ of amusement.

No, good friends, let us laugh sometimes, if you love us. A dangerous
character is of another kidney, as Caesar knew to his cost:--

'He loves no plays,
As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music;
Seldom he laughs;'

and when he does, it is on the wrong side of his mouth.

Let us be wiser. Let us laugh in fitting time and place, silently or
aloud, each after his nature. Let us enjoy an innocent reaction rather
than a guilty one, since reaction there must be. The bow that is
always bent loses its elasticity, and becomes useless.

MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI.[1]

The authoress of _Woman in the Nineteenth Century_, known also in this
country by her _Papers on Literature and Art_, occupied among her own
people a station as notable as that of De Stael among the French, or
of Rahel von Ense in Ger