ify an inclination, were to be
taken as an index of our national character: the want of all
ease and simplicity, those essential ingredients of agreeable
society, which distinguish these dreary meetings have long been
unfortunately notorious. Too busy to watch the feelings of
others, and too earnest to moderate our own, that true
politeness which pays respect to age; which tries to put the
most insignificant person in company on a level with the most
considerable--virtues which our neighbors possess in an eminent
degree--are, except in a few favored instances, unknown among
us; while affectation, in other countries the badge of ignorance
and vulgarity, is ours, even in its worst shape, when it borrows
the mien of rudeness, impertinence, and effrontery, the
appendage of those whose station is most conspicuous, and whose
dignity is best ascertained. There is more good breeding in the
cottage of a French peasant than in all the boudoirs of
Grosvenor square. . . . 'Frivolity and insipidity are the
prevailing characteristics of conversation; and nowhere in
Europe, perhaps, does difference of fortune or of station
produce more unsocial or illiberal separation. Very few of those
whom fortune has released from the necessity of following some
laborious profession are capable of passing their time agreeably
without the assistance of company; not from the spirit of gaity
which calls upon society for indulgence; not from any pleasure
they take in conversation, where they are frequently languid and
taciturn; but to rival each other in the luxury of the table, or
by a great variety of indescribable airs, to make others feel
the pain of mortification. They meet as if to fight the
boundaries of their rank and fashion, and the less definite and
perceptible is the line which divides them, the more punctilious
is their pride. It is a great mistake to suppose that this
low-minded folly is peculiar to people of rank; it is _an
English disease_.'

No doubt of it; and the question naturally arises, 'Are not these the
proper people to talk about men and manners and society in America?' . . .
'NEVER mind, my dear,' says Baron POMPOLINO, while endeavoring to fit the
fairy slipper of the lovely CINDERELLA upon the long splay foot of one of
his ungainly daughters, 'never mind, my dear, _she is not at all like
you_!' The