element. The wealth of a foolish man is a pedestal which the more he accumulates, elevates him higher and reveals his deformity to a broader circle. These most obvious facts are rarely remembered. Gilded vulgarity believes itself to be gold. But in vain we "cut" and discriminate and eschew, now warmly here and coldly there, as if many a Marquis of unsullied blood, did not dine for ten cents in Florence, and lie abed while his shirt was washed, and then enter the saloons of fashion as a King his councilchamber. We separate and exclude, as if some fine morning the little blackamoor of a sweep would not climb down the chimney, and fall naturally asleep on the best bed, soot and all, though he may never have touched linen since the sheets of his cradle. We Americans are gifted with the talent of getting rich. But the money-getting is not the moneyspending genius, and the former nourishes a love of wealth as an end, which is a love fatal to society. We are not peculiar in our regard for money, but we are in the exclusiveness of our regard for it. Wealth will socially befriend a man at Newport or Saratoga, better than at any similar spot in the world, and that is the severest censure that could be passed upon those places. But life at Newport is not all moralizing, even with the cynical Timons of which I spoke; and if you will regard this chapter as our chat after dinner, upon the piazza, in the next we will stroll in the pleasant places of Newport. XI. NEWPORT, AGAIN. SEPTEMBER. THIS island was originally called Rhode Island from some fancied resemblance in its climate to that of the Isle of Rhodes. I do not wonder at the suggestion. for Newport is washed by a southern sea, and the air that breathes over it is soft and warm. Its climate is an Italian air. These are Mediterranean days. They have the luxurious languor of the south. Only the monotonous and melancholy coast reminds you that you are not gazing upon Homer's sea, and that the wind is not warmed by African sands. All day-if you have been in Italy and know its southern shore,you look for the orange-groves and vineyards; all night you listen for the barcaroles. I heard a simple and natural explanation of the softness of the Newport climate, which attributed it to |