While the ladies were enjoying the negative luxury of being liberated from a ship, at the Fountain Inn, I strolled about the place. You know that I had twice visited England professionally before I was eighteen; and, on one occasion, the ship I was in anchored off this very island, though not at this precise spot. I now thought the people altered. There had certainly been so many important changes in myself during the same period, that it becomes me to speak with hesitation on this point: but even the common class seemed less peculiar, less English, _less provincial_, if one might use such an expression, as applied to so great a nation; in short, more like the rest of the world than formerly. Twenty years before, England was engaged in a war, by which she was, in a degree, isolated from most of Christendom. This insulated condition, sustained by a consciousness of wealth, knowledge, and power, had served to produce a decided peculiarity of manners, and even of appearance. In the article of dress I could not be mistaken. In 1806 I had seen all the lower classes of the English clad in something like _costumes_. The Channel waterman wore the short dowlas petticoat; the Thames waterman, a jacket and breeches of velveteen, and a badge; the gentleman and gentlewoman, attire such as was certainly to be seen in no other part of the Christian world, the English colonies excepted. Something of this still remained, but it existed rather as the exception than as the rule. I then felt, at every turn, that I was in a foreign country; whereas, now, the idea did not obtrude itself, unless I was brought in immediate contact with the people. America, in my time, at least, has always had an active and swift communication with the rest of the world. As a people, we are, beyond a question, decidedly provincial; but our provincialism is not exactly one of external appearance. The men are negligent of dress, for they are much occupied, have few servants, and clothes are expensive; but the women dress remarkably near the Parisian _modes_. We have not sufficient confidence in ourselves to set fashions. All our departures from the usages of the rest of mankind are results of circumstances, and not of calculation,--unless, indeed, it be one that is pecuniary. Those whose interest it is to produce changes cause fashions to travel fast, and there is not so much difficulty, or more cost, in transporting anything from Havre to New York, than there is in transporting the same thing from Calais to London; and far less difficulty in causing a new _mode_ to be introduced, since, as a young people, we are essentially imitative. An example or two will better illustrate what I mean.