imitate.

To my mind, nothing can be more unjust than the intimation that, in
attempting to supply her own wants (or some of them) in the domain of
Art and Manufacture, America has rushed madly from her sphere and sought
to be Europe. She has already taught Europe many things in the sphere of
Invention, and is destined to teach her many more; and the fact that her
Carriages are condemned as too light and her Pianos as too heavy, her
Reaping Machines as "a cross between a treadmill and a flying chariot,"
&c., &c., by critics very superficially acquainted with their uses, and
who have barely glanced at them in passing, proves nothing but the
rashness and hostility of their contemners. From such unworthy
disparagement I appeal with confidence to the awards of the various
Juries appointed by the Royal Commissioners. They are competent; they
have made the requisite examinations; they (though nearly all European
and a majority of them British) are honorable men, and will render an
impartial judgment. That judgment, I firmly believe, will demonstrate
that, in proportion to the extent of its contributions, no other country
has sent more articles to the Exhibition by which the whole world may be
instructed and benefited than our own.

XVIII.

THE PALACES OF FRANCE.

PARIS, Monday, June 16, 1851.

France, now the most Democratic, was long the most absolutely governed
and the most loyally infatuated among the great Nations of Europe. Her
cure of the dust-licking distemper was Homoeopathic and somewhat slow,
but it seems to be thorough and abiding. Those who talk of the National
passion for that bloody phantom Glory--for Battle and Conquest--speak of
what was, rather than of what is, and which, even in its palmiest days,
was rather a _penchant_ of the Aristocratic caste than a characteristic
of the Nation. The Nobles of course loved War, for it was their high
road to Royal favor, to station and renown; all the spoils of victory
enured to them, while nine-tenths of its calamities fell on the heads of
the Peasantry. But, though all France rushed to arms in 1793 to defend
the National liberties and soil, yet Napoleon, in the zenith of his
power and glory, could only fill the ranks of his legions by the
abhorred Conscription. The great body of the People were even then
averse to the din of the camp and the clangor of battle: the years of
unmixed disaster and bitter humiliation which closed his Military
career, served