r host, there can
be no objection to giving a perfectly frank reply. The women strike
me as being singularly delicate and pretty; well dressed, too, I
might add; but, while there is a great air of decency, there is very
little high finish; and what strikes me as being quite odd, under
such circumstances, scarcely any downright vulgarity, or coarseness."

"A Daniel come to judgment! One who had passed a life here, would not
have come so near the truth, simply because he would not have
observed peculiarities, that require the means of comparison to be
detected. You are a little too indulgent in saying there is no
downright vulgarity; for some there is; though surprisingly little
for the circumstances. But of the coarseness that would be so
prominent elsewhere, there is hardly any. True, so great is the
equality in all things, in this country, so direct the tendency to
this respectable mediocrity, that what you now see here, to-night,
may be seen in almost every village in the land, with a few
immaterial exceptions in the way of furniture and other city
appliances, and not much even in these."

"Certainly, as a mediocrity, this is respectable though a fastidious
taste might see a multitude of faults."

"I shall not say that the taste would be merely fastidious, for much
is wanting that would add to the grace and beauty of society, while
much that is wanting would be missed only by the over-sophisticated.
Those young-men, who are sniggering over some bad joke in the corner,
for instance, are positively vulgar, as is that young lady who is
indulging in practical coquetry; but, on the whole, there is little
of this; and, even our hostess, a silly woman, devoured with the
desire of being what neither her social position, education, habits
nor notions fit her to be, is less obtrusive, bustling, and
offensive, than a similar person, elsewhere."

"I am quite of your way of thinking, and intended to ask you to
account for it."

"The Americans are an imitative people of necessity, and they are apt
at this part of imitation, in particular. Then they are less
artificial in all their practices, than older and more sophisticated
nations; and this company has got that essential part of good
breeding, simplicity, as it were _per force_. A step higher in the
social scale, you will see less of it; for greater daring and bad
models lead to blunders in matters that require to be exceedingly
well done, if done at all. The faults here w