and fair recompense for doing it, as readily as he who has gold may exchange it for more portable notes, will the laborer be placed on a footing of justice and rightful independence. He who is able and willing to give work for bread is not essentially a pauper; he does not desire to abstract without recompense from the aggregate of the world's goods and chattels; he is not rightfully a beggar. Wishing only to convert his own muscular energy into bread, it is not merely his, but every man's interest that the opportunity should be afforded him,-nay, it is the clear duty of Society to render such exchange at all times practicable and convenient.

A community or little world wherein all freely serve and all are amply served,-wherein each works according to his tastes or needs, and is paid for all he does or brings to pass,-wherein education is free and common as air and sunshine,-wherein drones and sensualists cannot abide the social atmosphere, but are expelled by a quiet, wholesome fermentation,wherein humbugs and charlatans necessarily find their level, and naught but actual service, tested by the severest ordeals, can secure approbation, and none but sterling qualities win esteem,-such is the ideal world of the Socialist. Grant that it is but a dream,—and such, as yet, it for the most part has been,-it by no means follows that it has no practical value. On the contrary, an ideal, an illusion, if a noble one, has often been the inspirer of grand and beneficent efforts. Moses was fated never to enter the Land of Promise he so longingly viewed afar; and Columbus never found-who can now wish that he had?-that unimpeded searoute westward to India that he sought so wisely and so daringly. Yet still the world moves on, and by mysterious and unexpected ways the great, brave soul is permitted to subserve the benignant purposes of God contemplating the elevation and blessing of Man. And so, I cannot doubt, the unselfish efforts in our day for the melioration of social hardships, though their methods may be rejected as mistaken or defective, will yet signally conduce to their contemplated ends. Fail not, then, humble hoper for "the Good Time Coming," to lend your feeble sigh, to swell the sails of whatever bark is freighted with earnest efforts for the mitigation of human woes, nor doubt that the Divine breath shall waft it at last to its prayed-for haven !

I

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE.

[Letter to the Hon. Robert Dale Owen, 5 March, 1860.—From the Same.]

AM perfectly willing to see all social experiments tried that any earnest, rational being deems calculated to promote the well-being of the human family; but I insist that this matter of marriage and divorce has passed beyond the reasonable scope of experiment. The ground has all been travelled over and over,-from indissoluble monogamic marriage down through polygamy, concubinage, easy divorce, to absolute free love, mankind have tried every possible modification and shade of relation between man and woman. If these multiform, protracted, diversified, infinitely repeated experiments have not established the superiority of the union of one man to one woman for life, in short, marriage,— to all other forms of sexual relation, then history is a deluding mist, and man has hitherto lived in vain.

But you assert that the people of Indiana are emphatically moral and chaste in their domestic relations. That may be: at all events, I have not yet called it in question. Indiana is yet a young State,--not so old as either you or I,—and most of her adult population were born, and I think most of them were reared and married, in States which teach and maintain the indissolubility of marriage. That population is yet sparse, the greater part of it in moderate circumstances, engaged in rural industry, and but slightly exposed to the temptations born of crowds, luxury, and idleness. In such circumstances, continence would probably be general, even were marriage unknown. But let time and change do their work, and then see! Given the population of Italy in the days of the Cæsars, with easy divorce, and I believe the result would be like that experienced by the Roman Republic, which, under the sway of easy divorce, rotted away and perished, blasted by the mildew of unchaste mothers and dissolute homes.

If experiments are to be tried in the direction you favor, I insist that they shall be tried fairly,--not under cover of false promises and baseless pretences. Let those who will take each other on trial; but let such unions have a distinct name, as in Paris or Hayti, and let us know just who are married (old style), and who have formed unions to be maintained or terminated as circumstances shall dictate. Those who choose the latter will of course consummate it without benefit of clergy; but I do not see how they need even so much ceremony as that of jumping the broomstick. "I'll love you so long as I'm able, and swear for no longer than this," what need is there of any solemnity to hallow such a union? What libertine would hesitate to promise that much, even if fully resolved to decamp next morning? If man and woman are to be true to

each other only so long as they shall each find constancy the dictate of their several inclinations, there can be no such crime as adultery, and mankind have too long been defrauded of innocent enjoyment by priestly anathemas and ghostly maledictions. Let us each do what for the moment shall give us pleasurable sensations, and let all such fantasies as God, duty, conscience, retribution, eternity, be banished to the moles and the bats, with other forgotten rubbish of bygone ages of darkness and unreal

terrors.

But if—as I firmly believe-marriage is a matter which concerns, not only the men and women who contract it, but the state, the community, mankind,—if its object be not merely the mutual gratification and advantage of the husband and wife, but the due sustenance, nurture, and education of their children,-if, in other words, those who voluntarily incur the obligations of parentage can only discharge those obligations personally and conjointly, and to that end are bound to live together in love at least until their youngest child shall have attained perfect physical and intellectual maturity,-then I deny that a marriage can be dissolved save by death or that crime which alone renders its continuance impossible. I look beyond the special case to the general law, and to the reason which underlies that law; and I say, no couple can innocently take upon themselves the obligations of marriage until they KNOW that they are one in spirit, and so must remain forever. If they rashly lay profane hands on the ark, theirs alone is the blame; be theirs alone the penalty! They have no right to cast it on that public which admonished and entreated them to forbear, but admonished and entreated in vain,

LITERATURE AS A VOCATION.

[From the Same.]

LITERATURE is a noble calling, but only when the call obeyed by

the aspirant issues from a world to be enlightened and blessed, not from a void stomach clamoring to be gratified and filled. Authorship is a royal priesthood; but woe to him who rashly lays unhallowed hands on the ark or the altar, professing a zeal for the welfare of the Race only that he may secure the confidence and sympathies of others, and use them for his own selfish ends! If a man have no heroism in his soul,no animating purpose beyond living easily and faring sumptuously, - I can imagine no greater mistake on his part than that of resorting to authorship as a vocation. That such a one may achieve what he regards as success, I do not deny; but, if so, he does it at greater risk and by

greater exertion than would have been required to win it in any other pursuit. No: It cannot be wise in a selfish, or sordid, or sensual man to devote himself to Literature; the fearful self-exposure incident to this way of life, the dire necessity which constrains the author to stamp his own essential portrait on every volume of his works, no matter how carefully he may fancy he has erased, or how artfully he may suppose ne has concealed it, this should repel from the vestibule of the temple of Fame the foot of every profane or mocking worshipper. But if you are sure that your impulse is not personal nor sinister, but a desire to serve and ennoble your Race, rather than to dazzle and be served by it; that you are ready joyfully to "shun delights, and live laborious days," so that thereby the well-being of mankind may be promoted,--then I pray you not to believe that the world is too wise to need further enlightenment, nor that it would be impossible for one so humble as yourself to say aught whereby error may be dispelled or good be diffused. Sell not your integrity; barter not your independence; beg of no man the privilege of earning a livelihood by Authorship; since that is to degrade your faculty, and very probably to corrupt it; but seeing through your own clear eyes, and uttering the impulses of your own honest heart, speak or write as truth and love shall dictate, asking no material recompense, but living by the labor of your hands, until recompense shall be voluntarily tendered to secure your service, and you may frankly accept it without a compromise of your integrity or a peril to your freedom. Soldier in the long warfare for Man's rescue from Darkness and Evil, choose not your place on the battle-field, but joyfully accept that assigned you; asking not whether there be higher or lower, but only whether it is here that you can most surely do your proper work, and meet your full share of the responsibility and the danger. Believe not that the Heroic Age is no more; since to that age is only requisite the heroic purpose and the heroic soul. So long as ignorance and evil shall exist, so long there will be work for the devoted, and so long will there be room in the ranks of those who, defying obloquy, misapprehension, bigotry, and interested craft, struggle and dare for the redemption of the world. "Of making many books there is no end," though there is happily a speedy end of most books after they are made; but he who by voice or pen strikes his best blow at the impostures and vices whereby our race is debased and paralyzed may close his eyes in death, consoled and cheered by the reflection that he has done what he could for the emancipation and elevation of his kind.

HE

Frances Miriam Whitcher.

BORN in Whitesboro, N. Y., 1811. DIED there, 1852.

HEZEKIAH BEDOTT'S OPINION.

[The Widow Bedott Papers. 1856.]

E was a wonderful hand to moralize, husband was, 'specially after he begun to enjoy poor health. He made an observation once when he was in one of his poor turns, that I never shall forget the longest day I live. He says to me one winter evenin' as we was a settin' by the fire,-I was a knittin' (I was always a wonderful great knitter) and he was a smokin' (he was a master hand to smoke, though the doctor used to tell him he'd be better off to let tobacker alone; when he was well he used to take his pipe and smoke a spell after he'd got the chores done up, and when he wa'n't well, used to smoke the biggest part of the time). Well, he took his pipe out of his mouth and turned toward me, and I knowed something was comin', for he had a pertikkeler way of lookin' round when he was gwine to say anything oncommon. Well, he says to me, says he, "Silly" (my name was Prissilly naterally, but he ginerally called me "Silly," cause 'twas handier, you know). Well, he says to me, says he, "Silly," and he looked pretty sollem, I tell you-he had a sollem countenance naterally-and after he got to be deacon 'twas more so, but since he'd lost his health he looked sollemer than ever, and certingly you wouldent wonder at it if you knowed how much he underwent. He was troubled with a wonderful pain in his chest, and amazin' weakness in the spine of his back, besides the pleurissy in the side, and having the ager a considerable part of the time, and bein' broke of his rest o' nights 'cause he was so put to 't for breath when he laid down. Why it's an onaccountable fact that when that man died he hadent seen a well day in fifteen year, though when he was married and for five or six year after I shouldent desire to see a ruggeder man than he was. But the time I'm speakin' of he'd been out o' health nigh upon ten year, and O dear sakes! how he had altered since the first time I ever see him! That was to a quiltin' to Squire Smith's a spell afore Sally was married. I'd no idee then that Sal Smith was a gwine to be married to Sam Pendergrass. She'd ben keepin' company with Mose Hewlitt, for better'n a year, and everybody said that was a settled thing, and lo and behold! all of a sudding she up and took Sam Pendergrass. Well, that was the first time I ever see my husband, and if anybody'd a told me then that I should ever marry him, I should a said-but lawful sakes! I most forgot, I was gwine to tell you what he said to me that evenin', and when a body