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MEN AND MODESTY.

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unconsciously and as innocently as the lilies in the garden; and I have come upon a wife and mother, in a public assembly, so dressed for promiscuous gaze that I have involuntarily shut my eyes with shame.

I never saw Lydia Thompson; but from what I have heard of her, have come to the conclusion that her attire is just as modest as that of many ladies whom I meet at fashionable parties. They cast up their eyes in horror at the name of poor Lydia Thompson. They go to see Lydia Thompson! No, indeed! How could their eyes endure the sight of that dreadful woman? No less they themselves offer gratis, to a promiscuous company, every evening, a sight, morally, quite as dreadful. The men, who pay their money to Lydia Thompson and her troupe, know that their dress and their burlesque, however questionable, make at once their business and their livelihood. They cannot make the same excuse for their wives, their sisters, and their sweethearts, if they see them scarcely less modestly attired in some fashionable ball-room. Remember this; if you ever find yourself in such a place, the best men in that room, at heart, are not delighted with such displays. Being men, they will look at whatever is presented to their gaze; more, many will compliment and flatter the very woman, whose vanity at heart they pity or despise; but it will always be with the mental reservation: "My wife should never dress like that!" "I don't want to see my sister dancing round dances for hours in the arms of a man whom even I cannot think of without horror; and if dances with him ," said a young

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again, I'll not go to another German;

man to his mother, this very winter.

This is perpetually the fact; and it is the danger and

the shame of the round dances. Young girls guarded, from babyhood, from all contact with vice, from all knowledge of men as they exist, in their own world of clubs and dissipation, suddenly "come out" to whirl, night after night, and week after week, in the arms of men whose lightest touch is profanation. It would be long before it would dawn upon the girl to dream of the evil in that man's heart; far longer to learn the evil of his life; yet no less, to her, innocent and young, in the very association and contact there is unconscious pollution. There is a sacredness in the very thought of the body which God created to be the human home of an immortal soul. Its very beauty should be the soul of its holiness. Every where in Scripture its sacredness is recognized and enforced. Therein are we told that our bodies are the temples of God. We are commanded to make them meet temples for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; and our very dress, in its harmony and purity, should consecrate, not desecrate, the beautiful home of the soul.

CHAPTER XXVII.

INAUGURATION DAY AT WASHINGTON.

My Own Private Opinion-Sublime Humanity in the Lump-The Climate Disagrees-The Little "Sons of War" Feeling Bad-" Think of the Babies "-Brutal Mothers-The "Boys in Blue "-" Broke their Backs and Skinned their Noses "-Our Heroes-Later Festivities-" Devoted to Art"-Scene in "the Avenue "-A Lively Time-The Mighty Drum-Major -West Point Warriors Criticised-Faultlessly Ridiculous-Pitilessly Dressed" Taken for a Nigger "-Magnificent Display-The Oldest Regiment in the States-The President-The Senators-Invitation of the Coldstream Guards-The Strangers-Generals Sherman and Sheridan-Admiral Porter-Sketches of Well-known Men-The Diplomatic Corps-Blacque Bey-Full Turkish Costume-Sir Edward ThorntonThe Japanese Minister-Senator Sumner Appears-The Supreme Court -Senator Wilson-Cragin, Logan, and Bayard-Vice-President Colfax --Enter, the President-Congress Alive Again-The ValedictoryTaking the Oaths—“ The Little Gentleman in the Big Chair"-IIis Little Speech-His Wife and Family Behind-The New PresidentMemories of Another Scene-Grand Jubilation-The Procession-The Curtain Falls.

I

DON'T like Inauguration day, but I hope you do, or will, when I have told you what a gala day it is to many-to all who stay at home, and catch the splendor which it sheds, through lines of printer's ink.

Surely, there is something inspiriting and uplifting in the sight of massed humanity, in throbbing drums and soaring music, in waving pennons and flashing lances, all laden with heroic memories, all bristling with intelligence and the conscious power of human freedom; but, in our climate, and at the inauguration season of the year, en

thusiasm and patriotism demand a fearful price in nerve, muscle, and human endurance. If you doubt it, think of the West Point. Cadets-those young sons of war, inured to martial training-who sank to the pavements in the ranks, at the last inauguration of President Grant, overcome, and insensible with the bitter cold which chilled and benumbed even the warm currents of their strong young hearts. Think of the babies who shuddered and cried in their mothers' arms, who would see the sight, if baby died!

No less the second inaugural procession of President Grant transcended, in civic and military splendor, any sight seen in Washington since the great review when the boys in blue, fresh from the victory of bloody battlefields, broke their backs and skinned their noses, in the June sun of 1865, for the sake of shouting thousands who came hither to behold them. Oh what a sight was that! when the bronzed and haggard, and aged-in-youth faces of the boys before us, made our hearts weep afresh at the thought of the upturned faces of the boys left behind-some in the cruel wilderness, some in half dug graves on solitary hill-sides, and lonely plains—all left behind forever, for freedom's sake. Who that knew old Washington can forget it? This is another Washington. But here they come! Safe from cold and wind, thanks to I look up. From this window, on Fifteenth street, you can see Pennsylvania avenue past the Treasury building, (whose marble steps are boarded in from the advancing people,) to the Executive Mansion, glittering white through the leafless trees just beyond. Opposite is Lafayette square, the prettiest little park of its size in the United States. Above, you see the towering mansard of Corcoran's building, "Devoted to Art," and

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THE SIGIITS OF INAUGURATION DAY.

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just this side, the lofty brown front of the Freedman's Savings Bank. The avenue opens The avenue opens before you-a broad, straight vista, with garlands of flags, of every nation and hue, flung across from roof to roof. Above glitters an absolutely cloudless sky, dazzlingly blue, and pitilessly cold. The very tree-boughs swing like crystals glittering and freezing in the sun. The air seems full of rushing fiends, or rushing locomotives running into each other with hideous shricks, whichever you please (on the whole, I prefer locomotives, being fresher). Your imagination need not be Dantean to make you feel that there is a dreadful battle going on in the air, above you and about you. The imps come down and seize an old man's hat, and fly off with a woman's veil, and blow a little boy into a cellar. The bigger air-warriors, intent on bigger spoil, sweep down banners, swoop off with awnings, concentrate their forces into swirling cyclones in the middle of the streets, and bang away at plate-glass windows till they prance in their sockets.

Before such unfriendly and tricksy focs, through the biting air, comes the great procession. First, a battalion of mounted police; then West Point, with its band and drum-major. Not a sprite of the air has caught the baton of its drum-major. Not a sting of zero, has stiffened that fantastic arm as he lifts and swings the symbol of his foolishness. He is as inimitable in the bleak and dusty street as when I saw him last, on the velvet sward of West Point, that delicious evening in October. Something utterly ridiculous to look at, is refreshing, and anything more faultlessly ridiculous than the drum-major of West Point I never saw.

I believe it is fashionable to find fault with West Point;

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