the country to those not
actually brought up there turns out a delusion. The expensiveness of
life in the city comes of the generous and grand scale on which it there
proceeds, not from the superior cost of the necessaries or comforts of
life. They are undoubtedly cheaper in the city, all things considered,
than anywhere in the country. Where everything is to be had, in the
smallest or the largest quantities,--where every form of service can be
commanded at a moment's notice,--where the wit, skill, competition of a
country are concentrated upon the furnishing of all commodities at the
most taking rates,--there prices will, of course, be most reasonable;
and the expensiveness of such communities, we repeat, is entirely due to
the abundant wealth which makes such enormous demands and secures such
various comforts and luxuries;--in short, it is the high standard of
living, not the cost of the necessaries of life. This high standard
is, of course, an evil to those whose social ambition drives them to a
rivalry for which they are not prepared. But no special pity is due to
hardships self-imposed by pride and folly. The probability is, that,
proportioned to their income from labor, the cost of living in the city,
for the bulk of its population, is lighter, their degree of comfort
considered, than in the country. And for the wealthy class of society,
no doubt, on the whole, economy is served by living in the city. Our
most expensive class is that which lives in the country after the manner
of the city.

A literary man, of talents and thorough respectability, lately informed
us, that, after trying all places, cities, villages, farmhouses,
boarding-houses, hotels, taverns, he had discovered that keeping house
in New York was the cheapest way to live,--vastly the cheapest, if
the amount of convenience and comfort was considered,--and absolutely
cheapest in fact. To be sure, being a bachelor, his housekeeping was
done in a single room, the back-room of a third-story, in a respectable
and convenient house and neighborhood. His rent was ninety-six dollars a
year. His expenses of every other kind, (clothing excepted,) one dollar
a week. He could not get his chop or steak cooked well enough, nor his
coffee made right, until he took them in hand himself,--nor his bed
made, nor his room cleaned. His conveniences were incredibly great. He
cooked by alcohol, and expected to warm himself the winter through on
two gallons of alcohol at sev