I am keeping my eyes open to see how America bears comparison with other nations in all particulars.  In point of appearance the English army stands first, the German second, the American third, and the French fourth.  I put the American third only because our uniforms are less impressive.  In everything else, except in numbers, they might easily stand first.  But uniforms and gold lace, and bright scarlet and waving plumes, make a vast difference in appearance, and every country in the world recognizes this, except America.  I wish that everybody in the United States who boasts of democracy and Jeffersonian simplicity could share my dissatisfaction in seeing our ambassadors at Court balls and diplomatic receptions in deacons’ suits of modest black, without even a medal or decoration of any kind, except perhaps that gorgeous and overpowering insignia known as the Loyal Legion button, while every little twopenny kingdom of a mile square sends a representative in a uniform as brilliant as a peony and stiff with gold embroidery.

No matter how magnificent a man, personally, our ambassador may be, no matter how valuable his public services, no matter how unimpeachable his private character, I wish you could see how small and miserable and mean is the appearance he presents at Court functions, where every man there, except the representative of seventy millions of people, is in some sort of uniform.  If it really were Thomas Jefferson whose administration inaugurated the disgusting simplicity which goes by his name, I wish the words had stuck in his throat and strangled him.  “Jeffersonian simplicity!” How I despise it!  Thomas Jefferson, I believe, was the first Populist.  We had had gentlemen for Presidents before him, but he was the first one who rooted for votes with the common herd by catering to the gutter instead of to the skyline, and the tail end of his policy is to be seen in the mortifying appearance of our highest officials and representatives. Hinc illae lachrymae!

I looked at the servant who announced our names in Paris at General Porter’s first official reception, and even he was much more gorgeous in dress than the master of the house, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary representing seventy millions of people!  Not even in his uniform of a general!  The only man in the room in plain black.  The United States ought to treat her representatives better.  When Mr. White at Berlin was received by the Emperor, he, too, was the only man in plain black.

No wonder we are taken no account of socially when we don’t even give our ambassador a house, as all the other countries do, and when his salary is so inadequate.  Every other ambassador except the American has a furnished house given him, and a salary sufficient to entertain as becomes the representative of a great country.  All except ours!  Yet none of them is obliged to entertain as continuously as our ambassador, because only Americans travel unremittingly, and only Americans expect their ambassador to be their host.