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THE

HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD;

IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA.

BY

FREDRIKA BREMER.

TRANSLATED BY MARY HOWITT.

"SING UNTO THE LORD A NEW SONG."--Psalm xevi.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

NEW YORK:

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
329 & 331 PEARL STREET,

FRANKLIN SQUARE.

883h

V. I

Briggs

TO THE READER.

THE only excuse for troubling thee with so long a correspondence is, that if it had not been published in this manner, it would not have been published at all. And my excuse for publishing it at all is, that, for many reasons, I would not abstain from doing so.

In placing these letters in thy hand, dear reader, I should wish that thy mind might be favorably disposed toward them, or, at least, might not be in opposition to the spirit in which these letters were first written. They need it more than any thing which I have yet written, because, I can not conceal it from myself, they suffer from-egotism-the offense of all autobiography. This, while it may not offend the sympathetic feelings of a brother or sister, may easily offend the stranger who does not partake in them. Much, therefore, in the letters which referred to myself, and which was personally agreeable to me, has been omitted in their transcription for the press, but not all, otherwise the ingenuous character of the letters must have been sacrificed, together with the peculiar coloring of my life and its circumstances in America. Much remains of that which individually pleased or annoyed me -perhaps more than should have remained. While transcribing these letters, I have often been unable to realize to myself that I was then preparing them for the public, and not writing them merely to my sister, "my innermost," to whom even the innermost might be revealed,

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