as well as to the Rev. Mr. Higginson, I am under pleasant private obligations. I must rest content to seem largely indebted to the "Edinburgh Review," of April 1859, for condensing the results of the census. My materials were collected and arranged, when the article on "Female Industry" reached me; and the differences in treatment were so few, that I at once drew my pen through whatever was not sanctioned by its authority. The ladies who first directed my attention to the Waltham watch-factory, and to the inventors of artificial marble in France, will see from these few words that I am not forgetful.

Boston, November, 1859.

There seems, at first sight, a certain presumption in offering to an American public, at this moment, any book which does not treat of the great interests which convulse and perplex the United States. But experience has shown, that neither the individual nor the national mind can remain continually upon the rack; and both author and publisher have thought that a book upon a serious subject, popular in form and low in price, would find perhaps a more hearty welcome, under present circumstances, than in those prosperous days, when romances and poems, travels and biographies, were scattered over every table by the score.

"Woman's Right to Labor" owed its warm welcome, not to any power or skill in its author, but to the impatient interest of philanthropists in every thing relating to that subject. It remains to be seen, whether as large a portion of the public and the press are prepared to treat with candid consideration the subject of Law.

Both these volumes have been given to the world in their detached form, that they might receive the benefit of general criticism; that errors, inaccuracies, or misapprehensions, might be perceived and rectified before they took a permanent position as part of a larger work. All criticism, therefore, which is honestly intended, will be received with patience and gratitude; but a great deal falls to the lot of the author which cannot come under this head.

If we are told that a "wider acquaintance with the history" of a certain era will modify our views, it is natural to expect that an honest critic will show where the acquaintance fails, and how the views should be modified. When we are told that certain scientific illustrations, "though true in the main, are not accurate in detail," we may reasonably hope to see at least one error pointed out. When neither of these things is done, we sweep such remarks aside, as alike unprofitable to us and our readers.

A wide and generous sympathy in my aims has given me, thus far, all that I could desire of encouragement and appreciation; and this appreciation has come, in several instances, from a "household of faith" far removed from my own, and has been mingled in such cases with an outspoken regret, that one who "wrote so well, and felt so warmly," should not acknowledge on her pages the debt woman owes to Christianity, and unfurl an evangelical banner above a Christ-like work. Because such friends have spoken tenderly, I answer them respectfully; because I never saw any church-door so narrow that I could not pass through it, nor so wide that it would open to all God's glory, I answer them without fear.

And, first, I believe in God, as the tender Father of all; as one who cares for the least of his children, and does not turn from the greatest; as one whose eye marks the smallest inequalities of happiness or condition, and holds them in a memory which does not fail. I believe in Christ as his authorized Teacher, anointed to reveal the fulness of God's love through his own life of practical good-will. I do not expect him to be superseded or set aside; and I do expect, that in proportion as men grow wiser, humbler, and sweeter, their eyes will open only the more widely to the great miracle of his spotless life, to the heavenly nature of his so simple teachings. And, next, I believe in my own work,—the elevation of woman through education, which is development; through labor, which is salvation; through legal rights, which are only freedom to develop and save,—as part of the mission of Jesus on the earth, authorized by him, inspired of God, and sure of fulfilment as any portion of his law. If at any time I have lost sight of this in expression, it is because I have thought it impossible that the purpose and character of my work should be mistaken. I am a slow and patient worker,—patient, because one may well be patient, if God can; and therefore no disappointment, no lack of appreciation, could sour or disturb me.

If I have justified the publication of this essay at the present moment, it may be thought that I shall not be able to justify the principal presumption; namely, that of a woman who undertakes to write upon law.

Such a treatise as this would be valueless, in my eyes, if it were written by a man. It is a woman's judgment in matters that concern women that the world demands, before any radical change can be made. To understand the laws under which I must live, no recondite learning, no broad scholarship, no professional study, can be fitly required. Common intelligence and common sense are all that society has any right to claim of me. Because most women shrink from criticising this law, I have criticised it.

Very recently, the "London Quarterly" said, in speaking of the republication of John Austin's work, that "English jurisprudence would be indebted for one of its highest aids to the reverential affection of a wife, and the patient industry of a refined and intelligent woman;" and Mrs. Austin defends her undertaking on this very ground,—that, if she had not superintended the work, no one else would. If John Austin's firm and penetrating intellect could not hold a score of persons about his lecturer's desk, and if it found its fit appreciation only in the grave, a conscientious woman need not shrink from any branch of his great subject, only because her audience will be small.

In one of his lectures upon Art, John Ruskin says:—

"Every leaf we have seen, connects its work with the entire and accumulated result of the work of its predecessors. Dying, it leaves its own small but well-labored thread; adding, if imperceptibly, yet essentially, to the strength, from root to crest, of the trunk on which it has lived, and fitting that trunk for better service to the next year's foliage."

Let these words, printed on my titlepage, show the modesty of my aim, and the conscientious steadfastness of my purpose. As the leaf is to the tree, so is the individual to society. Tear away a single leaf from the towering crest, and the trunk does not seem to suffer: nevertheless, one small thread withers, one channel dries up, one source of beauty and use fails; and, from that moment, a certain sidewise tendency marks the growth.

To compact carefully one "well-labored thread," is all that I have sought to do,—to write a little book, that women might be won to read, as conscientiously as if it were a heavy tome, to be endlessly consulted by the bench.

In writing these three lectures, I feel quite sure that I must have made use of many significant expressions borrowed from those who have broken the way for me. For many years an extemporaneous lecturer on this and kindred topics, I have so wrought certain modes of expression into the fabric of my thought, that I do not know where to put my quotation-marks. To Mrs. Hugo Reed, for instance, I know I must be under great obligations; and I can only hope, that she will trust me with her thoughts