A
New Atmosphere
BY
AUTHOR OF “COUNTRY LIVING AND COUNTRY THINKING,”“GALA DAYS,” AND “STUMBLING-BLOCKS.”
BOSTON:
FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.
1870.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by
TICKNOR AND FIELDS,
in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts
SEVENTH EDITION.
University Press:
Welch, Bigelow, and Company,
Cambridge.
A NEW ATMOSPHERE.
I.
A vitiated atmosphere is fatal tohealthy development. One may be everso wise, learned, rich, and beautiful, butif the air he breathes is saturated withfever, pestilence, or any noxious vapor, nothingwill avail him. The subtile malaria creeps intohis inmost frame, looks out from his languid eye,settles in his sallow cheek, droops in his totteringstep, and laughs to scorn all his learning andgold and grandeur. He must rid himself of themalaria, or the malaria will rid itself of him.
There are many evils in the world, deep-seatedand deleterious. I rejoice to see noble men andwomen working at the overthrow of these oldDagons; but the processes are many and long.Grievances are suffered which can be redressedonly by the repeal of old and the enactment ofnew laws. Health suffers from ignorance whichscientific discoveries, patient observation, and correct reasoning must dispel. Religion suffers froma narrowness and shallowness which broader anddeeper culture must remove. Heaven send thelaws, the science, and the culture, for these ills areindeed sore and of long continuance; but we neednot wait upon the slow steps of law and science.Every man and woman can begin at this momenta renovation. Behind all law and all literature,the very air we breathe, the moral atmosphere notof books and benches only, but of kitchen andkeeping-room, is impure and unwholesome. Theinterests of humanity demand a purification.
What I am going to say may have been saidbefore; but if so, the present condition of thingsshows that it has been said to too little purpose.I have myself glanced at it askance, but I havenever looked it square in the face. I have spokenships bound to my port, but not freighted withmy cargo. Success to them all! There is sea-roomfor every keel, and use for all their treasures.I am so far from claiming to be original, that Irather marvel there is any necessity for my beingat all. The truths which I design to illustrate lieso on the surface that I should suppose they wouldcommend themselves to the most casual notice.I can account for the obscurity which seems toenshroud them only by supposing that the daysof Eli have reached down to us, and that thereis no open vision. Therefore the truth needsto be repeated and repeated, in different forms and tones, if it is to be made effectual to the pullingdown of strongholds. I will do my part ofthe reiteration. If I can state no new truths, Iwill at least help to ring the old truths into theears of this generation till every unjust judge shallmoan in bitterness of soul, “Though I fear notGod nor regard man, yet, because these wom