these classes, until quite lately, carpets were unknown, or at least
they were confined to the very highest class of society. The great
influx of English has introduced them into the public hotels and common
lodging-houses; but I have visited among many French of rank and
fortune, in the dead of winter, and found no carpets. A few of a very
coarse quality, made of rags, adroitly tortured into laboured designs,
are seen, it is true, even in indifferent houses; but the rule is as I
have told you. In short, carpets, in this country, until quite lately,
have been deemed articles of high luxury; and, like nearly everything
else that is magnificent and luxurious, at the point where they have
been taken up, they infinitely exceed anything of the sort in England.
The classical designs, perfect drawings, and brilliant colours, defeat
every effort to surpass them,--I had almost said, all competition.

In all America, except in the new regions, with here and there a
dwelling on the frontier, there is scarcely a house to be found without
carpets, the owners of which are at all above the labouring classes.
Even in many of the latter they are to be found. We are carpeted,
frequently, from the kitchen to the garret; the richness and rarity of
the manufacture increasing as we ascend in the scale of wealth and
fashion, until we reach the uttermost limits of our habits--a point
where beauty and neatness verge upon elegance and magnificence. At this
point, however, we stop, and the turn of the French commences. Now this
is the history of the comparative civilization of the two countries, in
a multitude of other matters; perhaps, it would be better to say, it is
the general comparative history of the two countries. The English differ
from us, only, in carrying their scale both higher and lower than
ourselves; in being sometimes magnificent, and sometimes impoverished;
but, rarely, indeed, do they equal the French in the light, classical,
and elegant taste that so eminently distinguishes these people. There is
something ponderous and purse-proud about the magnificence of England,
that is scarcely ever visible here; though taste is evidently and
rapidly on the increase in England on the one hand, as comfort is here
on the other. The French have even partially adopted the two words
"fashionable" and "comfortable."

One of the most curious things connected with the arts in France, is
that of transferring old pictures from wood to canvass. A l