in this
particular, will not compare with it. I have been in some of the best
houses in the British capital, but very few of them rise to the level of
these hotels in magnificence and state, though nearly all surpass them
in comfort. I was at a ball given by the Count ----, when thirteen rooms
_en suite_ were opened. The Duke of Devonshire can hardly exceed this.
Prince Borghese used, on great occasions, to open twenty, if I remember
right, at Florence, one of which was as large as six or eight of our
ordinary drawing-rooms. Although, as a whole, nothing can be more
inconvenient or irrational than an ordinary town-house in New York, even
we excel the inhabitants of these stately abodes, in many of the minor
points of domestic economy, particularly in the offices, and in the
sleeping-rooms of the second class.

Your question, as to the comparative expense of living at home and of
living in Europe, is too comprehensive to be easily answered, for the
prices vary so materially, that it is difficult to make intelligent
comparisons. As between Paris and New York, so long as one keeps within
the usual limits of American life, or is disposed to dispense with a
multitude of little elegancies, the advantage is essentially with the
latter. While no money will lodge a family in anything like style, or
with suites of rooms, ante-chambers, &c. in New York, for the simple
reason, that buildings which possess these elegancies, or indeed with
fine apartments at all, have never yet been erected in the country; a
family can be better lodged in a genteel part of the town for less
money, than it can be lodged, with equal room and equal comforts, in a
genteel quarter of Paris; always excepting the inferior distribution of
the rooms, and other little advantages, such as the convenience of a
porter, &c. all of which are in favour of the latter place.[17] Food of
all kinds is much the cheapest with us, bread alone excepted. Wines can
be had, as a whole, better and cheaper in New York, if obtained from the
wine-merchant, than in any European town we have yet inhabited. Even
French wines can be had as cheap as they can be bought here, for the
entrance-duty into the country is actually much less than the charges at
the gates of Paris. The transportation from Bordeaux or Champagne, or
Burgundy, is not, as a whole, essentially less than that to New York, if
indeed it be any less. All the minor articles of table luxuries, unless
they happen to be of