THIS is one of my character tests,—to pronounce none of my fellow-creatures wise until they have gone through the crucible of "going abroad." So many who started with a fair average of common-sense have returned from their European tours minus this article, that I need not apologize for my views on this subject. No one can be more reverent in their admiration of all that the slow, busy ages have heaped together in the Old World of the beautiful, and scientific, and curious, and rare. But having looked at and enjoyed them,—having breathed the enervating air of luxury the appointed time,—I think I should gasp again for a strong, crisp breath of that New World, which is my grand birthright. You may scare up hideous abuses of to-day, and point to convulsions of all sorts that are seemingly upheaving us, root and branch. I care not. The greatest of all crimes, in my eyes, is stagnation. We are moving, thank God! There may be rough roads, and ruts, and stones, and rocks in the way, and some of us may be crushed, and maimed, and jolted off, and scarcely know our latitude and longitude for the fogs, and false guides, and dark clouds, and fierce storms of debate. But still we move! We are thinking of something beside a new way of fricasseeing frogs, or "rectifying frontiers." We are neither children or slaves. More! we have a future before us—grander to those who will see it than has any nation on the face of the earth. For one, I glory in it all. And when I see an American, male or female, returning to their native land, sighing for the nice little dishes one gets in Paris, dilating on its superior costuming, prating forever of "The Tuileries," and such like, and finding America "so in the rough," I want to place my arms a-kimbo, my nose within an inch of his, and my eyes focussed—anywhere—so that it will make him feel uncomfortable, and address him thus: My beloved Idiot—Did you, while abroad, ever compare the condition of the "common people," if I may be allowed to allude in your presence to so vulgar and disgusting a theme—did you ever compare the condition of the common people there with those of the same class in your own country? Did you see, in Italy, or France, or England, any such homes for the working-classes as are to be seen, for instance, in New England? Those thrifty kitchens, where neatness proclaims itself from the symmetrical wood-pile in the "shed" to the last shining pewter-plate and spoon on the well-polished dresser? Where even the old dog wipes his paws on the mat before stepping on the snowy floor; where every child can read and write, and "do chores" instead of begging its bread one half the day and lying in the sun the rest. Where the women churn, and bake, and brew, and sew, and have babies, and read books, aye, and write them too. My beloved Idiot, did you ever think of all this? Did you ever think, also, of the difference it would make in your views of "life abroad," if instead of going there with a pocket full of money to spend, you went there to earn it?