The close of the last letter reminds me of the propriety of saying something of the mode of living in Rome. Nothing has surprised me more than the accounts given in English books of the filth, nastiness, and other pretended abominations of the princely abodes here, as well as of the mode of life within them. The English, as a people, have been singularly unjust commentators on all foreign usages and foreign people; though they are fast losing their prejudices, and beginning to discriminate between customs. Neither the Italians, nor any other Continental nation, deem the English snuggeries indispensable to happiness. They admire a rich _parquet_, or a floor of imitation mosaic, more than a pine or an oaken floor carpeted. Their staircases are broad architectural flights, on which a stair-carpet and brass rods would be singularly misplaced; and the great size of their houses renders the minutiæ of our pigmy residences not only unnecessary, but would render them excessively troublesome and expensive. Certainly the English and the Americans are neater in their houses than the French or the Italians; but a large portion of what has been said against the higher classes of the two latter countries may, I think, be fairly explained in this way. As between the labouring classes of England and America on the one side, and those of the Continent of Europe in general on the other, there is no comparison, on the score of civilization and its comforts; the advantage being altogether with the former. The mass of no nation can have domestic comforts, or domestic cleanliness, when the women are subjected to field labour. Exactly in the proportion as the females can turn their attention within doors, does the home become comfortable and neat, other things being equal. But, beyond this, false notions exist. The Englishman of rank, through the perfection of the manufactures and the commerce of his country, has a detail of comforts of a certain class, and perhaps of a wider class than the Continental nobility; but, on the other hand, there are other essential points in which he falls far behind them. What, for instance, are the chamber comforts and elegancies of an English townhouse, compared to those of an Italian townhouse? Compare the baths, dressing-rooms, and ante-chambers of a French hotel, or an Italian palazzo, with the same things in a London residence! The baths, dressing-rooms, cabinets, and ante-chambers of our lodgings in Florence were as spacious, and much more elegant than our entire lodgings in London; and I think all our rooms in the latter town had not more space than one of the principal rooms in the former. I paid thirty-five dollars a week for the London house, and forty-two dollars a month for the Florence lodgings!