MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND 



must beget a general coarseness and rudeness of behaviour. 

 Never was there a greater mistake. No man likes to be treated 

 with disrespect ; and, when he finds that he can obtain respect 

 only by treating others with respect, he will use that only means. 

 When he finds that neither haughtiness nor wealth will bring him 

 a civil word, he becomes civil himself ; and, I repeat it again and 

 again, this is a country of universal civility. 



346. The causes of hypocrisy are the fear of loss and the hope 

 of gain. Men crawl to those, whom, in their hearts, they despise, 

 because they fear the effects of their ill-will and hope to gain by 

 their good-will. The circumstances of all ranks are so easy here, 

 that there is no cause for hypocrisy ; and the thing is not of so 

 fascinating a nature, that men should love it for its own sake. 



34?9- The boasting of wealth, and the endeavouring to disguise 

 poverty, these two acts, so painful to contemplate, are almost 

 total strangers in this country ; for, no man can gain adulation 

 or respect by his wealth, and no man dreads the effects of poverty, 

 because no man sees any dreadful effects arising from poverty. 



348. That anxious eagerness to get on, which is seldom un 

 accompanied with some degree of envy of more successful neigh 

 bours, and which has its foundation first in a dread of future want, 

 and next in a desire to obtain distinction by means of wealth : this 

 anxious eagerness, so unamiable in itself, and so unpleasant an 

 inmate of the breast, so great a sourer of the temper, is a stranger 

 to America, where accidents and losses, which would drive an 

 Englishman half mad, produce but very little agitation. 



349. From the absence of so many causes of uneasiness, of 

 envy, of jealousy, of rivalship, and of mutual dislike, society, 

 that is to say, the intercourse between man and man, and family 

 and family, becomes easy and pleasant ; while the universal 

 plenty is the cause of universal hospitality. I know, and have 

 ever known, but little of the people in the cities and towns in 

 America ; but, the difference between them and the people in 

 the country can only be such as is found in all other countries. 

 As to the manner of living in the country, I was, the other day. 

 at a gentleman s house, and I asked the lady for her bill of fare 

 for the year. I saw fourteen fat hogs weighing about twenty 

 score a piece, which were to come into the house the next Monday ; 

 for here they slaughter them all in one day. This led me to ask, 

 &quot; Why, in God s name, what do you eat in a year ? &quot; The Bill 

 of fare was this, for this present year : about this same quantity 

 of hog-meat : four beeves : and forty-six fat sheep ! Besides the 

 sucking pigs (of which we had then one on the table), besides 

 lambs, and besides the produce of seventy hen fowls, not to mention 

 good parcels of geese, ducks and turkeys, but, not to forget a garden 

 of three quarters of an acre and the butter of ten cows, not one 

 ounce of which is ever sold ! What do you think of that ? Why, 

 you will say, this must be some great overgrown farmer, that has 

 swallowed up half the country ; or some nabob sort of merchant. 



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