In America no one is under this necessity.

If people begin to "entertain" they do it because they have money, or because they have something to gain by it, and they do it with an absolute regardlessness of cost which is enough to startle the sober foreigner.
It may be in bad taste, but if we are to define what is good taste in these days, and abide by it, we shall be terribly restricted.

As an exhibition of power, this enormous expenditure is imposing in the extreme; though the imposing element, being strictly confined to the display of wealth, can never produce the impressions of durability, grandeur, and military pomp so dear to every European.

Hence the Englishman turns up his nose at the gilded shows of American society, and the American sniffs when he finds that the door-scraper of some great London house is only silverplated instead of being solid, and that the carpets are at least two years old.

They regard things from opposite points of view, and need never expect to agree.
Margaret, however, was not so new to American life, seeing she was American born, as to bestow a thought or a glance on the appointments of Mr.and Mrs.Van Sueindell's establishment; and as for Mr.Bellingham, he had never cared much for what he called the pomp and circumstance of pleasure, for he carried pleasure with him in his brilliant conversation and his ready tact.