too well to imagine that either commands or entreaties would induce him to alter his determination. I also considered, that, if I persisted in pressing my wishes upon him, he would steal away to some secret place and not reappear in sight until the next morning. Finally, I adopted what some might consider a cowardly course, resolving to wait until the old negro was asleep and then steal down to the stable and saddle Ruby myself.

For three hours I waited, and when the full moon arose and shed down her lustre upon the river, and silvered the top of every tree which grew upon the Highlands, I judged it time to proceed to action. Silently I slipped down stairs, crossed the court-yard and opened the stable door.

And now I walked more cautiously, for I heard Claes snornig loudly among the hay, scarcely three yards from me. Softly I stepped along on tip-toes and at length reached the stall of Ruby. Long as it was since I had ridden the noble animal, he seemed to recognize me, for, testifying no fear, he gently rubbed himself against my coat, and essayed a slight whinnying.

I feared lest the sound might awaken Claes, and I thought of the shame I should feel, if the old man were to catch me thus stealing my own property. But the loud breathing did not fail, and, in a minute more, I had slipped the saddle in its place, and had led the horse outside and mounted him.

Then, finding myself once more in a situation to range the fields as I had been accustomed to do in my younger days, the wild exuberance of my feelings could not be restrained, and I burst forth with a loud" tally-ho!"

"Who dat dere?" said Claes, poking his head through a little window which flanked the stable door.

With a muttered curse upon my own heedlessness, I plunged my heels into the sides of the horse and endeavored to make off unseen. All in vain. The negro caught sight of me and dashing through the window-bare-footed and night-capped as he wasgave chase.

"On, Ruby, on!"

Stop, massa! Oh, where de debil do you go?"

But Ruby was too powerful a match for the old negro. We rapidly left Claes behind, yet for some minutes I could see him in his white garments, plunging after me and shouting;

"Stop, dear massa, stop! Oh, de ole one has got into massa, sure 'nuff."

At length however, I lost sight of him, and then could not resist a merry laugh, as I thought upon the figure which the oldest representative of the Marschalks made, stealing his own horse, and flying like a thief from his own servant.

[To be continued.]

LETTER TO DUPONT DE L'EURE ON THE POLITICAL POSITION OF WOMEN.

TO THE AMERICAN PUBLIC:

The following letter to Dupont de l'Eure, is an offering laid on the altar of philanthropy. It contains a scheme of human polity before unwritten; made after much reflection and long study of mankind in civil society, in the past and in the present, particularly as regards the condition of my own sex. I had intended putting it into a pamphlet or small volume, but the Editor of this Magazine (with the former numbers of which I have been much pleased) having requested me to write an article for the present number, it occurred to me that every object contemplated by a separate publication might be answered by putting my thoughts into print here.

That all have a right to express opinions, none will deny. Some may be curious to know, whether in this case, it is really expected that the project stated will at all be acted on in France. That will be as Providence directs. God works by means, and may bless those which to human eyes appear the most insignificant. I believe the principles laid down are correct, and that in whatever degree, whether in France or here, they are acted on, society will be benefitted thereby. The present crisis in France seemed to me a fitting occasion to throw them before the public. I held the same views three years ago, when New York by a call for a convention, threw up her former constitution. But I could not then have appealed to political men here; neither would I, if I were a French woman, now appeal them to the French authorities; for it would at once be said, here is an ambitious woman who wants a new order of things to make a high place for herself. But no prejudice of that kind can, under present circumstances, obscure the right. If I have produced any new truth on this great subject, I am not warranted by experience to expect its rapid development in action. Yet the acorn must be planted, though we must wait long for the oak. E. W.

TO DUPONT DE L' EURE,

SIR-Reflections on the momentous position of France, combined with previous trains of thought concerning the political condition of my sex, have wrought in my mind some views applicable to both, which so far as my knowledge extends, are no where as yet expressed. They may be useful. To you, sir, I am impelled to address them no less from a profound feeling of personal respect than from your public station. This I suppose would lead you to throw before the convention for framing a constitution, any hints

which you should judge to be of value. Frenchmen and Americans are in a state of fraternity, because in Lafayette we have had a common political father. Still more intimate is that fraternity among those who have enjoyed his personal friendship. That honor in its highest sense was yours, as I know from his lips; and I believe that you, sir, were aware, though you may now have forgotten it, that it was in some degree mine also. Then, sir, permit me now to address to you, as I would have done to him, my views as to what justice and policy dictate to your convention, concerning the course to be pursued in regard to women. And with no question of more vital importance or of greater difficulty will you have to contend in the immense work of settling a government for France; it may be for the world, for the eyes of the world are upon you. Universal man looks towards you and anxiously awaits the result of your acts.

Boldly have you cast aside a government which oppressed you, fearlessly have you resolved society into its original elements, and with singleness of purpose are you now seeking to reconstruct, and to build a fabric for the human family, where all may find a happy shelter. Sublime spectacle! May the Almighty give you wisdom to accomplish the good, which, as we trust, He has led you to desire; and thus to make a wiser and a better government than any which the world has yet seen.

Doubtless for this you must search deep into the principles of human nature as they stand connected with the moral and physical laws of God. For in order wisely to construct the ship of state you must not only know the nature of the winds and waves, but of the lights of Heaven, by which its course must be steered.

To me it is evident that the science of legislation is far from its perfection, although I believe the framers of the American gov. ernment made a great advance. They were among the wisest and the best of men; but to construct a perfect government for a nation, as it is the greatest and most complicated, so it is the most difficult of all sciences, and we must expect that it will take mankind proportionally longer to understand it. With all the advantage which men possess to know inanimate agents, (since on these they can experiment as well as speculate) they have but just begun to learn the uses of steam and of the electric fluid. Why then should we doubt that in politics, improvements are not yet to be made, no less signal, than those of the rail road and the telegraph? What would you think, sir, of the mechanician, who having a heavy weight to move by steam, should so miscalculate his force as to make no account of one half, which was generated, but to leave that half so out of reckoning in his machinery as not even to take the pains to know whether it would be, as to his intended direction, a conspiring or an opposing force? His engine must from its nature generate this force, yet he leaves its direction entirely to chance, and when it has so operated as to neutralize that of which he did take note, and for whose proper action he did pro

vide a machinery, then he is astonished, His train has stoppedhe sets himself to the labor of re-arranging and putting it again in motion-yet ever with the same thoughtlessness of a force, for which, if he would provide the proper machinery, he might make it all his own.

Female influence is a force which is and ever must be generated in society, and men as legislators have left its operation to chance. If it aids them, as in this country and now in France, they heed it not; but ascribe national prosperity to causes, which would not sustain the political fabric, if that influence should change its direction. In France, as history abundantly shows, there have been periods, when that influence, corrupted and perverted by rulers otherwise good, has wrought misery,-overturning governments, which might have stood had this been a conspiring instead of an opposing force. Suppose that your Henry the Fourth had added to his great and good qualities, that of a wise regard for the sanc tity of the female character, and the importance of female influence, instead of the libertine recklessness by which in this respect his virtues were the undoing of his country—how many future miseries might have been saved to France; the profligate extravagance of courts-the shameful rule of kings' mistressesexhausting taxes, and demoralizing examples. It is unphilosophical to charge all this upon your past form of government. Had the course of female influence been thus early changed, though a monarchy, France might have been quiet and prosperous. Let this influence operate against her, and she will be neither, though a republic.

There is then a power of female influence constantly at work in society. The wise politician should consider this power and in constructing the machinery of government he should not only guard against its becoming an opposing force, but he should provide a machinery by means of which it will aid to propel the political train in the right direction. If the subject of female rights and influence was at all under the discerning ken of the great and liberal minds of France who are planning the future good of the world, this call on their attention would not now have been made; but we infer that such is not the case. The men of France are called upon to come forward, and by their representatives frame a constitution which they will thus be pledged to support. All the men are called. The slaves too are kindly remembered-but the women-they are forgotten! Yet, is it not expected that they are to be governed by the fundamental laws which are to be made-laws to which they will have given no assent? And is it not expected that there shall be for them, that, for which America fought her independence, taxation without representation?

If it be said, as is truly the case, that men are the natural guardians of women, then we would ask, how is it proposed to convince them that their interests are to be regarded, when they, who alone know them, are to be left wholly unconsulted?

Even in monarchies women have not generally been barred from the succession to the sovereignty, and since the salique law was adopted, Isabella, Elizabeth, Maria Theresa and Catharine II, have demonstrated that the mind of woman is not necessarily feeble, and unequal to questions of law and policy. Why then should women be any longer regarded as incapable of judging of their own rights and responsibilities; and of those of the future nation, of which, if men are the fathers, women are the mothers. In private families is not the mother's counsel of weight and importance? Do not women, when duty calls, exercise a sound discretion in taking care of property? Do they not even in a multitude of cases regulate expenditure with a more strict regard to economy than men? Has it not indeed passed into a proverb, that the mother's loss to a family of children, is ordinarily the most severe bereavement which their tender years can experience? Why then should the national family be deprived of maternal counsels ?*

Women are surely persons, and if so, their rights are equally sacred with those of men, although they have not equal physical strength to maintain them. If wonen are placed by law and custom, in a position where these rights being withheld, no individual. of the sex can rise up and complain, but all must confine their deep sense of wrong to their own bosoms, is therefore this feeling to be disregarded by politicians? What but the long-hidden and bitter discontent of laboring men, deprived of their rights, has thrice within the last half century hurled the despots of France from their thrones; and now has sent the aristocracy to follow the monarchy? What but the secret irritation, which injustice stirs in minds despised, now causes monarchs to tremble? And is no account to be made of that which rises in the minds of women, one half the nation, because though deep, it is not loud? While it remains, it is as a rock beneath the ocean; for it is this, to which socialism, in its varied phases and fearful aspects, owes its force, threatening as it does the moral degradation of the human race. And in France, we hear that this dangerous scheme is greatly prevailing. Will the French Republic stand," asks one of our ablest and best informed journalists, and thus he answers the momentous question. "Wait till the 20th of April. Nine hundred men are to meet on that day in Paris to construct a government. There is a deep infusion of Fourierism in the revolution, and if this element is used for a cement in the walls of the new republic, they will soon be down on the heads of the builders." If it is true that the infidel principles of socialism—twice infidel,

If the plan which I am about to propose is inapplicable at present, it would be an advance in forming those fundamental laws by which women are to be governed, if a certain number of the most highly enlightened women were invited by the male authorities to meet and act as an advisory committee.

†The Editor of the New York Observer.