ility of our ever
enjoying a luxury as great, and yet as reasonable as this; and if, by
chance, some lucky individual should find the means to embellish his own
abode and his neighbourhood, in this way, some speculation, half a
league off, would compel him to admit an avenue through his laurels and
roses, in order to fill the pockets of a club of projectors. In America,
everybody sympathises with him who makes money, for it is a common
pursuit, and touches a chord that vibrates through the whole community;
but few, indeed, are they who can enter into the pleasures of him who
would spend it elegantly, rationally, and with good taste. If this were
the result of simplicity, it would, at least, be respectable; but every
one knows that the passion at home is for display--finery, at the
expense of comfort and fitness, being a prevalent evil.

[Footnote 15: This word has a very different signification in Italian,
from that which we have given it, in English. It means a _garden_ in the
country; the _house_ not being necessarily any part of it, although
there is usually a _casino_ or pavilion.]

The private hotels are even more numerous than the private gardens, land
not always having been attainable. Of course these buildings vary in
size and magnificence, according to the rank and fortune of those who
caused them to be constructed, but the very smallest are usually of
greater dimensions than our largest town-houses, and infinitely better
disposed; though we have a finish in many of the minor articles, such as
the hinges, locks, and the wood-work in general, and latterly, in
marbles, that is somewhat uncommon, even in the best houses of France;
when the question, however, is of magnificence, we can lay no claim to
it, for want of arrangement, magnitude, and space.

Many American travellers will render you a different account of these
things, but few of our people stay long enough to get accurate notions
of what they see, and fewer still have free access to the sort of
dwellings of which I now speak.

These hotels bear the names of their several owners. In the instances of
the high nobility, it was usual to build a smaller hotel, near the
principal structure, which was inhabited by the inferior branches of the
family, and sometimes by favoured dependants (for the French, unlike
ourselves, are fond of maintaining the domestic relations to the last,
several generations frequently dwelling under the same roof), and which
it is