Japanese bronzes and porcelain. With this she declared Europe to
be exhausted, and she frankly avowed that she was American to
the tips of her fingers; she neither knew nor greatly cared whether
America or Europe were best to live in; she had no violent love for
either, and she had no objection to abusing both; but she meant to
get all that American life had to offer, good or bad, and to drink it
down to the dregs, fully determined that whatever there was in it
she would have, and that whatever could be made out of it she
would manufacture. "I know," said she, "that America produces
petroleum and pigs; I have seen both on the steamers; and I am
told it produces silver and gold. There is choice enough for any
woman."

Yet, as has been already said, Mrs. Lee's first experience was not a
success. She soon declared that New York might represent the
petroleum or the pigs, but the gold of life was not to be discovered
there by her eyes.

Not but that there was variety enough; a variety of people,
occupations, aims, and thoughts; but that all these, after growing to
a certain height, stopped short. They found nothing to hold them
up. She knew, more or less intimately, a dozen men whose
fortunes ranged between one million and forty millions. What did
they do with their money? What could they do with it that was
different from what other men did? After all, it is absurd to spend
more money than is enough to satisfy all one's wants; it is vulgar to
live in two houses in the same street, and to drive six horses
abreast. Yet, after setting aside a certain income sufficient for all
one's wants, what was to be done with the rest? To let it
accumulate was to own one's failure; Mrs. Lee's great grievance