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Having moved, since my arrival, in a tolerably wide circle, I now feel qualified to offer some observations on the state of society in New York. The houses of the better order of citizens, are generally of brick, sometimes faced with stone or marble, and in the allotment of the interior very similar to tenements of the same class in England. The dining and drawing-rooms are uniformly on the ground floor, and communicate by folding doors, which, when dinner is announced, are thrown open for the transit of the company. The former of these apartments, so far as my observation has carried me, differs nothing in appearance from an English one. But the drawing-rooms in New York certainly strike me as being a good deal more primitive in their appliances than those of the more opulent classes in the old country. Furniture in the United States is apparently not one of those articles in which wealth takes pride in displaying its superiority. Every thing is comfortable, but every thing is plain. Here are no buhl tables, nor or-molu clocks, nor gigantic mirrors, nor cabinets of Japan, nor draperies of silk or velvet; and one certainly does miss those thousand elegancies, with which the taste of British ladies delights in adorning their apartments. In short, the appearance of an American mansion is decidedly republican. No want remains unsupplied, while nothing is done for the gratification of a taste for expensive luxury.
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- Men and Manners in America , pp. 102 - 133Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009