Elizabeth Visits America

by Elinor Glyn

"It's not that I mean to disparage Mrs. Latour's guests," he said, looking round the table; "they are what they are, good enough in their way, humming birds and mocking birds to flit among the flowers, and pretty poor at that when you compare them with Europeans; but they don't amount to anything for the nation. They couldn't evolve a scheme that would benefit a foot beyond their noses!" And when I asked him why he had allowed his daughter to marry one of them, he said with such a whimsical air, that women in America did what they "darned well pleased," and that he guessed that everyone had to "work out their own problem along that line."

"The Almighty played a trick on us," he said. "Putting the desire for one particular person into our heads, now and again in our lives leads to heaps of trouble, and don't benefit the race. If we'd no feelings we could select according to reason and evolve perfection in time."

Isn't that a splendid idea, Mamma? He went on to say he studied psychology a good deal, and he found to look at life from that standpoint was the most satisfactory way. He said it was no use mixing up sentiment and what you thought things ought to be with what things really were. "We've got to see the truth Ma'am, that's all," he said. Then he said, "these cotton wool ba-lambs" never saw the truth of anything from one year's end to another, and, "it ain't because it's too difficult, but because they have not got a red cent of brains to think for themselves!"

While he was saying all this he never took his eyes off me, and he spoke with quiet force. He went on and was too interesting expounding his theories along every line (I am getting American), and I looked up and caught Valerie's eye, and she collapsed with laughter; she thought it quite funny that I should find him thrilling. Presently I asked him what his views were about us in England, we of the leisure class, and he said he thought most of us were pretty sound because we did our duties and generally kept our heads.

"Now, I guess, Ma'am, your husband has quite a lot of business to do in a year?" and I said yes, that of course there was endless work in the management of a large estate, and politics, besides hunting and shooting, which was stern business with us! Then he told me with them the leisured class had no responsibilities, except to keep an eye on their brokers, and so they got into mischief.

"'Tisn't in the American blood to be idle," he said; "they can't keep straight if they are." After that I asked him what he thought about the English and American marriages among our nobility, and he got so vehement that he brought his hand down on the table and made such a clatter everyone looked.

It would take too long, Mamma, to repeat all his words, which were too quaint; but the sense of them, was that he would forbid them by law, because American girls to begin with had been brought up with the idea they were to be petted and bowed down to by all men, and no Englishman in his heart considered a woman his equal! And then to go on with, they did not know a thing of the duties of the position, or the tenue which is required to keep up the dignity of an old title, so when it came to the scratch they were found wanting. "Which of 'em's got prestige, I ask you, Ma'am, in your country? They may rub along all right, and when it is a question of society I guess they're queens, but which of 'em acts like the real thing in the country, or is respected by the people?"

I really did not know what to say, Mamma, so he went on. "They're all right sometimes till the rub, and they may do better if they've been educated in Europe—they are so mightily adaptable; but just an American girl like my Lola there,—I'd rather see her dead than married to your greatest Dook."

I said I knew numbers of perfect dears married in England, and he said, "Maybe, maybe, but if there comes a ruction, they won't grin and bear it in silence on account of the family as you would, they will take it into the courts, and come out on top, too; but it causes a talk and that is not good for prestige. You asked me about the thing in principle and I'm bound to tell you the truth. We aren't brought up on tradition in our country, and our girls don't know what noblesse oblige means; they consider natural feelings first; guess it's old fashioned anyway, but it is necessary in your old country, or the game won't work." I said I thought he held quite different views to the rest of his countrymen, who placed their women on a pedestal above the whole world. Then he blazed at me! "Don't you make any mistake about that. I'm with them there; I think our women are ahead, taking them all round, but that don't make them suited to old countries, any more than new wine in old bottles or new patches in old garments;—breaks the bottle and wears out the stuff."

I said I would not misunderstand him, but I was sure most of his own country-women at the table would be offended to hear his views, and again he said, "Maybe, maybe! Pretty empty heads; they can't reason; they only see what they want to, but I see the straight truth."