content with
moderate profits, looking forward to little more than a respectable
livelihood, and the means of placing their children in situations as
comfortable as their own. This is a consequence of the upward tendency
of things in a young and vigorous community, in which society has no
artificial restrictions, or as few as will at all comport with
civilization, and the buoyancy of hope that is its concomitant. The want
of the class, notwithstanding, deprives the Americans of many elegancies
and some comforts, which would be offered to them at as low rates as
they are sold in the countries in which they are made, were it not for
the principle of speculative value, which enters into nearly all of our
transactions. In Paris the man or woman who sells a duchess an elegant
bauble, is half the time content to eat his humble dinner in a small
room adjoining his shop, to sleep in an _entresol_ over it, and to limit
his profits by his wants. The pressure of society reduces him to this
level. With us the thing is reversed, and the consumer is highly taxed,
as a necessary result. As we become more familiar with the habits of
European life, the demand will gradually reduce the value of these minor
articles, and we shall obtain them at the same relative prices, as
ordinary silks and shawls are now to be had. At present it must be
confessed that our shops make but indifferent figures compared with
those of London and Paris. I question if the best of them would pass for
more than fourth-rate in London, or for more than third-rate here;
though the silk-mercers at home might possibly be an exception to the
rule.

The amount of all my experience, on this point, is to convince me, that
so long as one is willing to be satisfied with the habits of American
life, which include a great abundance, many comforts, and even some few
elegancies, that are not known here, such as the general use of carpets,
and that of many foreign articles which are excluded from the European
markets by the different protective systems, but which, also, do not
know a great many embellishments of living that are common all over
Europe, he can get along with a good deal less money in New York, than
in Paris; certainly, with less, if he mix much with the world.

EXCURSION UP THE RHINE, &c.

LETTER VIII.

Preparations for leaving-Paris.--Travelling arrangements.--Our
Route.--The Chateau of Ecouen.--The
_Croisee_.--Senlis.--Peronne.--Cambray.--Arrival a