In the England of our days, the houses are comparatively small, but convenient and attractive, and the salutary luxury of spending the pleasant season in the country very general.[228-7] The country-roads are narrow but kept in excellent order and provided with good inns.[228-8] More value is here attached to fine linen cloth than to lace;[228-9] to a few but nourishing meat-dishes than to any number of sauces and confections of continental kitchens.[228-10] Especially is the luxury of cleanliness, with its morally and intellectually beneficial results found only in well-to-do and highly cultured nations. As formerly in Holland, so now in England, it is carried to the highest point of development. In the latter country, the tax on soap is considered a tax on an indispensable article.[228-11] The reverse is the case in North America, if we can believe the most unprejudiced and friendly observers.[228-12] The person who lives in a log-house must, to feel at ease within his four walls, first satisfy a number of necessary wants.[228-13] [Footnote 228-1: The reformation of the sixteenth century had a remarkable tendency towards natural and manful fashions, as contradistinguished from the immediately preceding and the immediately following periods. Compare _J. Falke_, Deutsche Trachten und Modenwelt, II, 1858.] [Footnote 228-2: _J. J. Rousseau_, N. Héloise, II, L. 11. Compare _Keysler_, Reise, I, 695.] [Footnote 228-3: That a similar transition marked an epoch in the history of Grecian morals was recognized even by _Thucydides_, I, 6; compare _Asios_, in _Athen._, XII, 528.] [Footnote 228-4: It will always remain a want to own clothes for every day wear and festal occasions. The frock coat satisfies this want in the cheapest way. As soon as people cease to distinguish clothing for festal occasions by the cut, gold-embroidery, fur-facing, etc. will appear again, which would necessarily prove a great hardship to the propertyless classes of the educated, and even to the higher classes.] [Footnote 228-5: On the striking contrast presented in this respect by the English and French, and even Russian customs, see _Storch_, Handbuch, II, 179 ff. _J. B. Say_, Cours pratique, translated into German by _Morstadt_, I, 435 ff.; Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift, 1853, I, 182.] [Footnote 228-6: Paper-hangings, instead of costly gobelins and leather hangings, were not known in France until after 1760, nor in the rest of Europe until much later. Busts of plaster were (_Martial_, IX, 17, and _Juvenal_, II, 4) usual among those who were less well off.] [Footnote 228-7: Similarly even in _Giov. Villani_, XI, 93, the villas of the highly cultured Florentines appear finer than their city houses, while in Germany, at that time, even the richest citizens lived only in the city.]