Chopin is the minstrel, Neukomm the orator of music:  we want them both,—­the mysterious whispers and the resolute pleadings from the better world, which calls us not to slumber here, but press daily onward to claim our heritage.

Paris!  I was sad to leave thee, thou wonderful focus, where ignorance ceases to be a pain, because there we find such means daily to lessen it.  It is the only school where I ever found abundance of teachers who could bear being examined by the pupil in their special branches.  I must go to this school more before I again cross the Atlantic, where often for years I have carried about some trifling question without finding the person who could answer it.  Really deep questions we must all answer for ourselves; the more the pity, then, that we get not quickly through with a crowd of details, where the experience of others might accelerate our progress.

Leaving by diligence, we pursued our way from twelve o’clock on Thursday till twelve at night on Friday, thus having a large share of magnificent moonlight upon the unknown fields we were traversing.  At Chalons we took boat and reached Lyons betimes that afternoon.  So soon as refreshed, we sallied out to visit some of the garrets of the weavers.  As we were making inquiries about these, a sweet little girl who heard us offered to be our guide.  She led us by a weary, winding way, whose pavement was much easier for her feet in their wooden sabots than for ours in Paris shoes, to the top of a hill, from which we saw for the first time “the blue and arrowy Rhone.”  Entering the light buildings on this high hill, I found each chamber tenanted by a family of weavers,—­all weavers; wife, husband, sons, daughters,—­from nine years old upward,—­each was helping.  On one side were the looms; nearer the door the cooking apparatus; the beds were shelves near the ceiling:  they climbed up to them on ladders.  My sweet little girl turned out to be a wife of six or seven years’ standing, with two rather sickly-looking children; she seemed to have the greatest comfort that is possible amid the perplexities of a hard and anxious lot, to judge by the proud and affectionate manner in which she always said “mon mari,” and by the courteous gentleness of his manner toward her.  She seemed, indeed, to be one of those persons on whom “the Graces have smiled in their cradle,” and to whom a natural loveliness of character makes the world as easy as it can be made while the evil spirit is still so busy choking the wheat with tares.  I admired her graceful manner of introducing us into those dark little rooms, and she was affectionately received by all her acquaintance.  But alas! that voice, by nature of such bird-like vivacity, repeated again and again, “Ah! we are all very unhappy now.”  “Do you sing together, or go to evening schools?” “We have not the heart.  When we have a piece of work, we do not stir till it is finished, and then we run to try and get another;