whose outside rim was curved into fantastic shapes; that a gold
clock in my bed-room which did not go would give me no aid in
washing myself; that a heavy, immovable curtain shut out the light;
and that papier-mache chairs with small, fluffy velvet seats were
bad to sit on, he answered me completely by telling me that his
house had been furnished not in accordance with the taste of
England, but with that of France. I acknowledged the rebuke, gave
up my pursuits of literature and cleanliness, and hurried out of
the house as quickly as I could. All America is now furnishing
itself by the rules which guided that hotel-keeper. I do not
merely allude to actual household furniture--to chairs, tables, and
detestable gilt clocks. The taste of America is becoming French in
its conversation, French in its comforts and French in its
discomforts, French in its eating and French in its dress, French
in its manners, and will become French in its art. There are those
who will say that English taste is taking the same direction. I do
not think so. I strongly hope that it is not so. And therefore I
say that an Englishman and an American differ in their tastes.

But of all differences between an Englishman and an American, that
in politics is the strongest and the most essential. I cannot
here, in one paragraph, define that difference with sufficient
clearness to make my definition satisfactory; but I trust that some
idea of that difference may be conveyed by the general tenor of my
book. The American and the Englishman are both republicans. The
governments of the States and of England are probably the two
purest republican governments in the world. I do not, of course,
here mean to say that the governments are more pure than others,
but that the systems are more absolutely republican. And yet no
men can be much farther asunder in politics than the Englishman and