When keen observers, and men of
the world, from Europe, are amazed and appalled at the giddy whirl and
frenzied rush of our society--a society singular in history for the
exaggerated prominence it assigns to wealth, irrespective of the talents
that amassed it, they and their possessor being usually hustled out of
sight--is it not quite time to ponder a little upon the Court of Louis
XIV, and the "merrie days" of King Charles II? Is it not clear that, if
what our good wag, with caustic irony, called "best society," were
really such, every thoughtful man would read upon Mrs. Potiphar's
softly-tinted walls the terrible "mene, mene" of an imminent
destruction?
Venice in her purple prime of luxury, when the famous law was passed
making all gondolas black, that the nobles should not squander fortunes
upon them, was not more luxurious than New York to-day. Our hotels have
a superficial splendor, derived from a profusion of gilt and paint, wood
and damask. Yet, in not one of them can the traveler be so quietly
comfortable as in an English inn, and nowhere in New York can the
stranger procure a dinner, at once so neat and elegant, and economical,
as at scores of cafes in Paris.
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