However, though Mr. Headley would never consent with the plurality of travelers, who praised the black-eyed beauties of Italy, after having resided in the city of Genoa nearly five months, passed one day in Civita Vecchia, only calculating how long it would take him to get out of it, seen from a steamboat “villainous towns” on the shores from Genoa to Naples, the last month which he spent in this last city, where his turn through Italy closes, caused him to change a little the language he used before: “It is not the partiality one naturally feels for his country women, that governs me,” says Mr. Headley in his twenty first letter; “when I say, that the beautiful women with us stand to them in the proportion of five to one.” And at the close of his pamphlet he added: “A beautiful eye, and eyebrow are more frequently met here than at home. The brow is peculiarly beautiful—not merely from its regularity, but singular flexibility. It will laugh of itself, and the slight arch always heralds, and utters beforehand the piquant thing the tongue is about to utter; and then she laughs so sweetly!”
That Mr. Headly did tread on the toe of the italian as well as of the american ladies, without intending to hurt them, or thinking that his heavy boots had prevented them from dancing; with the following lines, taken from his twenty-second, and last letter, I want to prove that, if he did hurt them, he had not done it maliciously. Yes; in spite of his great faults, which I found in his letters on Italy, and the italians, I am inclined to think him a kind, sincere, and ingenuous gentleman. “I said in my last letter,” says Mr. Headly, “I would speak of the manners of the italian women, which was the cause of their being so universally admired by foreigners. This alone makes an immense difference between an italian, and an american city. Broadway, with all its array of beauty, never inclines one to be lively and merry. The ladies (the men are worse of course) seem to have come out for any other purpose, than to enjoy themselves. Their whole demeanor is like one sitting for his portrait. Every thing is just as it should be, to be looked at. Every lady wears a serious face, and the whole throng, is like a stiff country party. The ladies here, on the contrary, go out to be merry, and it is one perpetual chatter, and laugh on the public promenade. The movements are all different, and the very air seems gay. I never went down Broadway, at the promenade hour alone with the blues, without coming back, feeling bluer; while I never returned from a public promenade in Italy, without rubbing my hands, saying to myself, ‘Well, this must be a very comfortable world, after all, for people do enjoy themselves in it amazingly.’ This difference is still more perceptible on personal acquaintance. An italian lady never sits, and utters common-places with freezing formality. She is more flexible, and indeed, if the truth be said, better natured, and happier than too many of my countrywomen. She is not the keen look-out, lest she should fail to frown every time propriety demands.
“There is no country in the world where woman is so worshipped, and allowed to have her own way as in America, and yet there is no country, where she is so ungrateful for the place, and power she occupies. Have you never in Broadway, when the omnibus was full, stepped out into the rain to let a lady take your place, which she most unhesitatingly did, and with an indifference in her manner as if she considered it the merest trifle in the world you had done? How cold, and heartless her ‘thank ye,’ if she gave one! Dickens makes the same remark with regard to stage coaches—so does Hamilton. Now, do such a favor for an italian lady, and you would be rewarded with one of the sweetest smiles, that ever brightened on a human countenance. I do not go on the principle that a man must always expect a reward for his good deeds; yet, when I have had my kindest offices, as a stranger, received as if I were almost suspected of making improper advances, I have felt there was little pleasure in being civil. The ‘grazie, Signore,’ and smile with which an italian rewards the commonest civility, would make the plainest woman appear handsome in the eyes of a foreigner.”
The above lines of Mr. Headley, though rather too severe ones, will, with time, benefit the american ladies more, than any thing said by foreigners: not because Mr. Headley was the first to observe it; Mr. Headley, being an american, cannot be thought of having any bad feeling towards his country-women. However, though I am a stranger in America, I will give more justice to the american ladies, and heal their toe, since I see them created to cheer us with their charming Polka: waiting, in the mean time, until steam, and tourists will have rendered them better, and better.
My purpose here is to demonstrate that the ladies’ faults in America, are the faults of those who keep suspenders to their pantaloons. The american ladies are disposed to gentility as well as any lady in the world; and were, here, italian ladies, who had changed their italian custom, I could not, nor I should wonder for it. I will say here, en passant: the contrast between the american ladies, and american gentlemen is so great, for which I had often thought the two sexes in America, must be of different nations.
How can we blame the american ladies for being so reserved, when the american gentlemen check them at the moment of their most kind, and woman like impulse, and feelings? I have known american gentlemen, who would not marry the woman they love, were she not unkind with every other gentlemen around her: and many did judge woman’s love towards them, as far as she was unmerciful towards other gentlemen. And erroneously thinking that love is blind, they would not believe that a woman would love them, because she finds faults with them. A gentleman was to be married to a belle in the south of this Union. Another gentleman seeing the portrait of the future present wife, was asked by a friend, there present, if he knew the original, to which he answered, that such a star could not be mistaken. The promised, and happy young lady, passing her little index through the breast of her portrait, said: ‘and this is the milky-way.’ Such witty, and innocent remark was thought indelicate by her lover, and it had nearly broken the match!
I have seen more jealousy in the cold looks of american gentlemen, than in the showing, and often exaggerated feeling of italian gentlemen. American ladies, often shrink with fright, lest they be thought unfaithful to him, whom they love; and in proportion of the population, I think there are more fights, and murders, originated from jealousy in America, than in Italy. The death of Mr. Andrienne, by the hand of an american husband, is one of the most cold murders which had ever disgraced our race.
Is a foreigner engaged to be married with an american lady? Nothing is forgotten to force the lady to break the match. And here I will say nothing of the false articles, which I read myself in the newspapers, against foreign gentlemen, respectable, and respected by every one who had the honor of being acquainted with the slandered foreigners. I have seen american ladies, in receiving any kindness from gentlemen, looking first at their husbands, before rendering thanks to the gentleman, who was polite to her. Yes: the coldness of the american lady is not natural to her; and were she acting otherwise, she would be blamed; and Mr. Headley himself would think her as a lady without dignity. Still, the ladies of New York are pearls when compared with the ladies in the interior of this Union, where foreigners are very rarely seen.
Step into a car, into a steamboat; and the very gentleman who complains of the indifference, and coldness with which american ladies receive the kindness of gentlemen, is the first to spoil them. Once, being in a car, and not thinking that the back department of it, and always more comfortable, was exclusively for the ladies, seeing almost all the places vacant, I went there, and seated myself; when the agent of that train, with a loud voice, and manners to make the ladies understand he had no difficulty of being rude with his own sex to please the ladies, said to me with a voice of command, that the place was only for the ladies. ‘It is not my intention,’ I answered him, ‘to intrude myself among your ladies: but, you should be more polite to an inoffensive stranger, when you find him innocently breaking your rules, by telling him in a whisper, that he is mistaken.’
I wonder to find the american ladies good as they are with like gentlemen, spoiling them continually. The american lady must have an uncommon mind, not to think herself a being far superior to all gentlemen in bones, flesh, and blood. And how can she think otherwise, while the ladies have a reciprocal regard between themselves, the gentleman thinks it derogatory to himself to be polite with another gentleman? However, as my wish is to be just with the american gentlemen also, and the acquaintances who honor me in America, I must say that: although there are some of my sex, who think that a gentleman is not obliged to be polite to the politeness of those whom he thinks his inferiors, the generality of american gentlemen are now as civil as any civilized nation in the world; and during the time excepted, when they are before ladies, in which time they think it unmanly to have any regard between themselves, the aristocrat of money, who does not answer politeness for politeness, may be suffered by them; but he is not imitated by republicans: and the republicans in America form the greater number.