234 OUTDOOR STUDIES 
as joy. What recreants must we be, in an age 
that has abolished slavery in America and pop- 
ularized the governments of all Europe, if we 
doubt that the. tendency of man is upward! 
How much that the world calls selfishness is 
only generosity with narrow walls, —a too ex- 
clusive solicitude to maintain a wife in luxury 
or make one’s children rich! In an audience 
of rough people a generous sentiment always 
brings down the house. In the tumult of war 
both sides applaud an heroic deed. A cour- 
ageous woman, who had traversed alone, on be- 
nevolent errands, the worst parts of New York, 
told me that she never felt afraid except in the 
solitudes of the country ; wherever there was a 
crowd, she found a protector. A policeman of 
great experience once spoke to me with admi- 
ration of the fidelity of professional thieves to 
each other, and the risks they would run for 
the women whom they loved; when “ Bristol 
Bill” was arrested, he said, there was found 
upon the burglar a set of false keys, not quite 
finished, by which he would certainly, within 
twenty-four hours, have had his mistress out 
of jail, Parent-Duchatelet found always the 
remains of modesty among the fallen women 
of Paris hospitals ; and Mayhew, amid the Lon- 
don outcasts, says that he thinks better of 
human nature every day. Even among politi- 
