the broiled chicken—­the legs scorned in favor of the more toothsome breast; the half-emptied plates of omelettes and fried potatoes,—­one realizes how low prices for board in Paris are still compatible with the increased price of provisions, and why we must pay five dollars at home for accommodations for which we expend two here.  The same wastefulness creeps into all the details of our hotel-life.  If we want a glass of ice-water, for instance, we are straight-way supplied with a pitcher brimming over with huge crystal lumps of transparent ice.  One-half the quantity would suffice for all actual purposes:  the rest is left to melt and run to waste.

The fact is, that we citizens of the United States live more luxuriously than any other people on the face of the earth.  On an average we dress better, fare better, sleep softer, and combat the cold in winter and the heat in summer with more scientific persistency, than do any of the so-called luxurious nations of Europe.  Take, for instance, the matter of heating and lighting.  A few of the leading hotels in Paris, and a small minority among the most expensive suites of private apartments, have gas introduced into all the rooms, but as a general thing it is confined to the public rooms, and the unfortunate wight who longs to see beyond the end of his nose is forced to wrestle with dripping candles and unclean lamps, known only by tradition in our native land.  The gaslight, which is a common necessary in the simplest private dwelling in an American city, is here a luxury scarcely attainable save by the very wealthiest.  And we do not know how precious our gaslight is till we have lost it.  To sit in a dim parlor where four lighted candles struggle vainly to disperse the gloom, to dress for opera or ball by the uncertain glimmer of those greasy delusions, is enough to make one forswear all the luxuries of Paris, and flee homeward forthwith.

Then in winter comes the question of warmth.  What is more delicious than to plunge from the iced-champagne atmosphere of a sparkling winter’s day in America into the nest-like, all-pervading warmth of an American home?  Here such comfort is wholly unknown.  The cold, though less severe than with us, is damp, raw and insidious, and creeps under wraps with a treacherous persistency that nothing can shut out.  The ill-fitting windows, opening in the old door-like fashion, let in every breath of the chill outer air.  A fire is a handful of sticks or half a dozen lumps of coal.  The calorifere, a poor substitute for our powerful furnaces, is a luxury for the very rich—­an innovation grudgingly granted to the whims of the occupants of the most costly and fashionable of private apartments.  Warmth, our cosy, all-pervading warmth, is a winter luxury that we leave behind us with the cheerful light of our universal gas-burners.