Letters of Lydia Maria Child, with a biographical introduction by John G. Whittier and an appendix by Wendell Phillips.

LETTERS. 251
TO 5MISS A. B. FRANCIS IN EUROPE.
BOSTON, February 21, 1879.
Your letter came, followed by the picture, which
arrived two days before my birthday. The little
Picciola is a perfect beauty. It will be a " joy forever' to look at it. I have always been in love with
Richter's delineation of children. Indeed, the Germans generally excel all other artists in pictures of
children. They give them an indescribable air of
naturalness and simplicity, which I like far better
than the theatrical gracefulness of the French.
I should think one might have rather too much of
art galleries. I always supposed that it would be
confusing to my mind to wander about in a wilderness of pictures. As for "dead Christs and crucifixions," and saints stuck full of arrows, and women
carrying a dead man's head, and other lugubrious
subjects, I dislike them all. One "glorious human
boy " is worth the whole host; to say nothing of my
charming little Picciola.
The labor question continues to seethe and grumble, like a volcano about to explode. Laborers, instead of serving their own interests by leaving off
smoking and drinking, are clamloring for the expulsion of the industrious and frugal Chinese. A great
force is brought to bear upon Congress to procure the
abolition of our treaty with China; a measure which
would be dishonest; and disgraceful to the United
States, and extremely injurious to our trade with
China.
Garrison, Phillips, Ward Beecher, and others are
trying their utmost to prevent such a violation of
principle. H. W. Beecher, in one of his public