1784] Essays )
hospitable, and have, indeed, too much pride in displaying
 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 excessive
 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 expense,
 and then let us consider whether laws to prevent
 such expense are possible to be executed in a
great country, and whether, if they could be executed,
 our people generally would be happier, or even
richer. Is not the hope of being one day able to purchase
 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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