to surround himself with all the luxuries of wealth: he is so
afraid of being taken for the plain citizen of a democracy, that he
adopts a hundred distorted ways of bringing some new instance of his
wealth before you every day. His house will be in the most fashionable
part of the town: he will always be surrounded by a host of servants.
I have heard an American complain, that in the best houses of Paris the
society was rather mixed; the taste which prevails there was not pure
enough for him; and he ventured to hint that, in his opinion, there was
a want of elegance of manner; he could not accustom himself to see wit
concealed under such unpretending forms.

These contrasts ought not to surprise us. If the vestiges of former
aristocratic distinctions were not so completely effaced in the United
States, the Americans would be less simple and less tolerant in their
own country--they would require less, and be less fond of borrowed
manners in ours.

Chapter IV: Consequences Of The Three Preceding Chapters

When men feel a natural compassion for their mutual sufferings--when
they are brought together by easy and frequent intercourse, and no
sensitive feelings keep them asunder--it may readily be supposed that
they will lend assistance to one another whenever it is needed. When an
American asks for the co-operation of his fellow-citizens it is seldom
refused, and I have often seen it afforded spontaneously and with great
goodwill. If an accident happens on the highway, everybody hastens to
help the sufferer; if some great and sudden calamity befalls a family,
the purses of a thousand strangers are at once willingly opened, and
small but numerous donations pour in to relieve their distress. It often
happens amongst the most civilized nations of the globe, that a poor
wretch is as friendless in the midst of a crowd as the savage in his
wilds: this is hardly ever the case in the United States. The Americans,
who are always cold and often coarse in their manners, seldom show
insensibility; and if they do not proffer services eagerly, yet they do
not refuse to render them.

All this is not in contradiction to what I have said before on the
subject of individualism. The two things are so far from combating each
other, that I can see how they agree. Equality of conditions, whilst it
makes men feel their independence, shows them their own weakness: they
are free, but exposed to a thousand accidents; and experience soon
tea