A TALK ABOUT PUBLIC PARKS AND GARDENS. 139 



my countrymen, or to bridge over the gap which five years have 

 made in the condition of things. From a country looked upon with 

 contempt by monarchists, and hardly esteemed more than a third- 

 rate power by repubhcans abroad, we have risen to the admitted 

 first rank every where. To say, on the continent, now, that you are 

 from the " United States," is to dilate the pupil of every eye with a 

 sort of glad welcome. The gates of besieged cities open to you, 

 and the few real repubhcans who have just conceptions of the ends 

 of government, take you by the hand as if you had a sort of lib- 

 erty-magnetism in your touch. A country that exports, in a single 

 year, more than fifty-three millions worth of bread stuffs, that con- 

 quers a neighboring, nation without any apparent expenditure of 

 strength, and swallows up a deluge of foreign emigrants every 

 season, — turning all that " raw material," by a sort of wonderful 

 vital force, into good citizens, — such a country, I say, is felt to have 

 an avoirdupois about it, that weighs heavily in the scale of nations. 



Ud. I am glad to see you so sound and patriotic. Very few 

 men who go abroad, like yourself, to enjoy the art and antiquities 

 of the old world, come home without " turned heads." The great- 

 ness of the past, and the luxury and completeness of the present 

 foi-ms of civilization abroad, seize hold of them, to the exclusion of 

 every thing else ; and they return home lamenting always and for 

 ever the " purple and fine linen " left behind. 



Trav. " Purple and fine linen," when they clothe forms of life- 

 less jnajesty, are far inferior, in the eyes of any sensible peraon, to 

 linsey-woolsey, enwrapping the body of a free, healthy man. But 

 there are some points of civilization — good points, too — that we do 

 not yet understand, which are well understood abroad, and which 

 are well worth attention here at home, at the present moment. In 

 fact, I came here to talk a little, about one or two of these, to-day. 



£!d. Talk on, with all my heart. 



Trav. I dare say you will be surprised to hear me say that the 

 French and Germans — diflBcult as they find it to be repubhcan, in a 

 political sense — are practically far more so, in many of the customs 

 of social life, than Americans. 



jEJd. Such as what, pray ? 



Trav. PubUo enjoyments, open to all classes of people, pro- 



