The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 43 pages of information about The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction.

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 43 pages of information about The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction.
will be far from inconsiderable.  As the aborigines attain comparative wealth, they will acquire a taste for the minor comforts of life.  The consumption of European manufactures will be increased to an incalculable degree, and the effect upon the general commerce of the world will be sensibly perceived.  It is for the first and most active manufacturing country in Christendom to take a proper advantage of the opening thus afforded.  Already, in those countries, British manufactures employ double the tonnage, and perhaps exceed twenty times the value, of the importations from all other foreign nations put together.  The wines and tasteful bagatelles of France, and the flour and household furniture of the United States, will bear no comparison in value to the cottons of Manchester, the linens of Glasgow, the broadcloths of Leeds, or the hardware of Birmingham.  All this is proved by the great proportion of precious metals sent to England, as compared with the remittances to other nations.  The very watches sent by Messrs. Roskell and Co. of Liverpool, would out-balance the exports of some of the nations which trade to South America.

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SOUTH AMERICAN MANNERS.

Whether it be the romantic novelty of many places in South America, the salubrity of the climate, the free unrestrained intercourse of the more polished classes, or whether there be some undefinable charm in that state of society which has not passed beyond a certain point of civilization, certain it is that few foreigners have resided for any length of time in Chile, Peru, or in the principal towns of the Pampas, without feeling an ardent desire to revisit them.  In this number might be named several European naval officers who have served in the Pacific, and who nave expressed these sentiments, although they move in the very highest circles of England and France.  Countries which have not reached the utmost pitch of refinement have their peculiar attractions, as well as the most highly polished nations; but, to the casual resident, the former offers many advantages unattainable in Europe.  The virtue of hospitality, exiled by luxury and refinement, exhibits itself in the New World under such noble and endearing forms as would almost tempt the philosopher, as well as the weary traveller, to dread the approach of the factitious civilization that would banish it.

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THE LABYRINTH, AT VERSAILLES.

[Illustration:  The Labyrinth, at Versailles.]

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The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.