"Nothing seemed to me more interesting than the way in which the American female reminded me of the Spartans and the Amazons. Could anything be more striking than the coincidence between two conversations, one of which I had, far over two thousand years ago, with the Queen of an Amazonian tribe in Thracia, and the other with the wife of an American flour dealer settled in London? When I called on Thamyris in her tent, one of her first questions was as to the latest dramatic piece by Sophocles. I at once saw that the Queen wanted to impress her entourage with her great literary abilities. I gave her some news about Sophocles, whereupon she turned round to her one-breasted she-warriors and said with a superior smile:
"'You must know that Sophocles is the latest star in Athenian comedy.'
"She mixed you up, O Sophocles, with Aristophanes. With the American flour dealer's wife my experience was as follows: He had made my acquaintance in a bar-room, and invited me to his house. On the way there he said to me:
"'My missus is quite a linguist. She talks French like two natives. Do talk to her French.'
"When we arrived at the house and entered the drawing-room, a rather handsome woman rose from an arm-chair, and stepping up to me said something that sounded like 'Monsieur, je suis ravie de faire votre connaissance'; I thanked her, also in French, when suddenly she bowed over me and whispered in American fifes:
"'Don't continue, that's all I know.'
"When I left, the husband accompanied me to the door. Before I took leave, he twinkled with his right eye, and asked me with a knowing look, 'Well, sir, what do you think of the linguistic range of my madame?'
"I did not quite know what to reply. At last I said: 'Like a true soldier she fights on the borderland.'
"One of the strangest things to note in London society is the fascination exercised by American women on Englishmen. Many of the really intelligent men among the English are practically lost as soon as the American woman begins playing with the little lasso of thin ropes which she carries about her in the shape of an acquired brightness and a studied vivacity. The most glaring defects of those women do not seem to exist for the average Englishman. He takes her loud brightness for French esprit dished up to him in intelligible English. Her total lack of self-restraint and modesty he takes for a charming abandon. The real fact is that he is afraid of her. She may have many a bump: she certainly has not that of reverence. Her irreverent mind makes light of the grandezza of Englishmen, and thus cows him by his fear of making himself ridiculous.
"The first American woman (—sit venia verbo, as you would say, O Cicero—) I met in London was one married to an English lord. She was tall, well-built, with rich arms and hips, an expressive head, very fond of the arts, more especially of music. Even her head, which was a trifle square, indicated that. When she learnt that I really was the famous Alcibiades, her excitement knew no bounds. She was good enough to explain it to me: