1784] Essays ) 
hospitable, and have, indeed, too much pride in dis- 
playing upon their tables before strangers the plenty 
and variety that our country affords. They have 
the vanity, too, of sometimes borrowing one another’s 
plate to entertain more splendidly. Strangers being 
invited from house to house, and meeting every day 
with a feast, imagine what they see is the ordinary 
way of living of all the families where they dine; 
when perhaps each family lives a week after upon 
the remains of the dinner given. It is, I own, a folly 
in our people to give such offence to English travellers. 
The first part of the proverb is thereby verified, that 
fools make feasts. 1 wish in this case the other were 
as true, and wise men eat them. These travellers 
might, one would think, find some fault they could 
more decently reproach us with, than that of our ex- 
cessive civility to them as strangers. 
I have not yet indeed thought of a remedy for 
luxury. I am not sure that in a great state it is 
capable of a remedy, nor that the evil is in itself 
always so great as it is represented. Suppose we 
include in the definition of luxury all unnecessary ex- 
pense, and then let us consider whether laws to pre- 
vent such expense are possible to be executed in a 
great country, and whether, if they could be exe- 
cuted, our people generally would be happier, or even 
richer. Is not the hope of being one day able to pur- 
chase and enjoy luxuries a great spur to labor and 
industry? May not luxury, therefore, produce more 
than it consumes, if without such a spur people 
would be, as they are naturally enough inclined to 
be, lazy and indolent? To this purpose I remember 
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