As far as I can hear a German or even a Frenchman thinks much more as an Englishman thinks than does an American.

Nor does this come mainly from the greater prevalence with us of democratic institutions.

I do not think that any one can perceive in half an hour's conversation the difference between a Swiss and a German; but I fancy, and I may say I flatter myself, that an American is as easily distinguished from an Englishman, as a sheep from a goat or a tall man from one who is short.
And yet there is a pleasure in associating with those here of the highest rank which I find it hard to describe, and which perhaps I ought to regard as a pernicious temptation to useless luxury.

There is an ease of manner with them which recalls with unfavourable reminiscences the hard self-consciousness of the better class of our citizens.
There is a story of an old hero who with his companions fell among beautiful women and luscious wine, and, but that the hero had been warned in time, they would all have been turned into filthy animals by yielding to the allurements around them.

The temptation here is perhaps the same.