The beds were usually of ivory or of wood, gilt or covered with silver plates, and sometimes of solid silver decorated with gold.All the furniture was surprisingly rich.The chairs and benches were of ivory; the pots and other vessels, even for the meanest uses, were of gold and silver." (107)Mr.Say has remarked, that there is a large part of the consumption of the French, which is occasioned by their excessive attention to mode and fashion, and that, in this respect, they contrast disadvantageously with the English, who pay more attention to comfort and convenience, and less to the changing fancies by which vanity seeks to distinguish itself.
Instruments have never, in France, been wrought up to orders of so slow return as in England.
I believe it will be found that the strength of the effective desire of accumulation, is higher among the working classes in North America, than in Europe.The influence of vanity in many cases, is certainly less.
The consumption, for instance, of coarse unbleached cotton, for shining, is very great; this is certainly a more comfortable wear for a working man than the finer sorts.It washes more easily, and endures more fatigue.(108) The finer cottons, also, of American manufacture, are of a stouter and more substantial fabric, indicating that the American purchaser looks more to the wear of the article, the European to the delicacy of the fabric.
The same thing may be said of woolens.A substantial firmer in England would scarcely, as one of the same class in North America, think himself decently clad in a winter's suit of which the cloth cost only a dollar per yard, though a comfortable and durable dress.
It is to be observed, that, as vanity is opposed by the social and benevolent affections and intellectual powers, according as the one or the other of these preponderates, the manifestations of that luxury which yet remains, are modified into some resemblance to what it approves.When the intellectual powers are strong, this passion endeavors to elude them by attaching itself to objects that it can represent as of permanent excellence.When the benevolent affections are powerful, it endeavors to gain its ends, by representing them as proceeding from a wish to gratify others, and to share with them things, which are at least generally esteemed rare and valuable.In the former case it escapes opposition, and finds vent in expensive buildings and decorations; in the latter in sumptuous entertainments, and luxuries of the table."In Holland," says Mandeville, "people are only sparing in such things as are daily wanted and soon consumed; in what is lasting they are quite otherwise; in pictures and marble they are profuse; in their buildings and gardens they are extravagant to folly.In other countries you may meet with stately courts and palaces of great extent that belong to princes which nobody can expect in a commonwealth, where so much equality is observed as there is in this; but in all Europe you shall find no private buildings so sumptuously magnificent, as a great many of the merchants'
and other gentlemen's houses.are in Amsterdam, and some other great cities of that province, and the generality of them that build there, lay out a greater proportion of their estates on the house they dwell in, than any people upon the earth." (109) Something of the same genius may, I think, be observed in the expenditure of the North Americans.Their houses are frequently larger than they have use for, so that part of them remains unoccupied.They are, also, often built with a greater regard to show than comfort.There is little substantial difference between a gold and silver watch, but that the former costs double of the latter.Gold watches are perhaps more common in North.America, than in any other part: of the world.It is pure vanity that leads to so general an adoption of this luxury, by classes who in England would not think of it, but it is a vanity that fixes itself on something permanent.
In the end, there is no cheaper way in which a man can write, "I am rich, or at least, I am not absolutely poor," than to carry a gold watch.It is ready to meet all occasions, and all persons.(110) In Britain, on the other hand, the luxuries that mix themselves with the virtues of hospitality are more apt to prevail.There rare wines, and refinements in the dainties of the table are more common.
