But pray remember, when you go there, that in the South every
arrangement is made for the nine hot months, and not for the three cold
and rainy ones you choose to spend there, and perhaps your views may be
somewhat modified in respect of this "miserable people," who, you say,
"have no idea of comfort,"--meaning, of course, English comfort.
Perhaps, I say; for it is in the nature of travellers to come to sudden
conclusions upon slight premises, to maintain with obstinacy
preconceived notions, and to quarrel with all national traits except
their own. And being English, unless you have a friend in India who has
made you aware that cane-bottom chairs are India-English, you will be
pretty sure to believe that there is no comfort without carpets and
coal; or being an American, you will be apt to undervalue a gallery of
pictures with only a three-ply carpet on the floor, and to "calculate,"
that, if they could see your house in Washington Street, they would
feel rather ashamed. However, there is a great deal of human nature in
mankind, wherever you go,--except in Paris, perhaps, where Nature is
rather inhuman and artificial. And when I instance the Englishman and
American as making false judgments, let me not be misunderstood as
supposing them the only nations in that category.
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