At a time (1831) when he would not buy a
pocket-knife made in New England, nor send a book to be bound north of
the Potomac, we find him writing of his native State in these terms:--
"I passed a night in Farrarville, in an apartment which, in
England, would not have been thought fit for my servant; nor
on the Continent did he ever occupy so mean a one. Wherever
I stop it is the same: walls black and filthy; bed and
furniture sordid; furniture scanty and mean, generally
broken; no mirror; no fire-irons; in short, dirt and
discomfort universally prevail; and in most private houses
the matter is not mended. The cows milked a half a mile off,
or not got up, and no milk to be had at any distance,--no
jordan;--in fact, all the old gentry are gone, and the
_nouveaux riches_, when they have the inclination, do not
know how to live. _Biscuit_, not half _cuit_; everything
animal and vegetable smeared with butter and lard. Poverty
stalking through the land, while we are engaged in political
metaphysics, and, amidst our filth and vermin, like the
Spaniard and Portuguese, look down with contempt on other
nations,--England and France especially.
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