soever their station, how noble their descent; and they must be content with the tribute of forgetfulness!
But when Fredrika Bremer declares her resolution to cross the world of waves which roll between us and the Norseland, and the papers, circulating in the huts and hamlets all over our broad land, echo that intention, an emotion of a different kind is stirred, and thousands of glad young voices from the cabin as well as from the villa, exclaim, “Welcome to her!” There is no need to explain who she is, or whence she comes—there is not a hamlet in all the land where the question could not be intelligently answered, accompanied with a hearty “God bless her!”
What has made the difference between them? between these scores of gay, and proud, and rich, and great, who move among us like meteors from time to time, and this one woman, whose soft and steady starlight has reached us long before the path of her orbit had brought her hitherward, to shine brighter and brighter unto the perfect day?
He has made it, Lady of the Norseland, who anointed you high priestess of the affections in their truest and purest exercise! He, who inspired your pen to consecrate and sanctify the Home! He, who constrained you to pour out from its full fountain such rills and rivers of Love and Concord, of Peace and Hope, and every element of the better life!
Then come among us, and be sure of a benediction. Come to our cots as well as to our palaces—to our wild woods as well as to our gardens—to our hearts as well as to our hearths, and you shall find that we too have our “Homes,” our “Brothers and Sisters,” our “Neighbours,” our Lares and Penates, with their shrines and vestals, our loves and lovers, our jealousies and fears, as well as all gentler and lovelier emotions. Come and see.
From the class which the writer of these lines would represent, a welcome especially sincere and warm will everywhere await you. Homes like hers you have entered again and again with a soft and soothing tread—communicating a peace and joy, a contentedness with life and labour and care—a knowledge that others have borne
