I do not think I am committing any indiscretion in saying that the letter was signed by the amiable and talented editor of The Critic, the first literary journal in the United States.
I had heard that the cabman who drove you to your hotel from the docks asked you, as he opened the door of his vehicle, "Well, sir, and what are your impressions of America?" But to ask me in Liverpool my preconceived notions of America and the Americans, that outdid anything of the kind I had heard on the subject.
An Englishman or a Frenchman will never ask you what you think of England or France. The fact is, they both care little or nothing for the foreigner's opinion. The Frenchman does not doubt that his country is beyond competition. If he enter into the subject at all, it is to congratulate the stranger upon coming to visit it.
The Englishman makes less noise over it. In his provokingly calm manner, he is perfectly persuaded that England is the first country in the world, and that everybody admits it, and the idea of asking an outsider for his opinion of it would never enter his head. He would think it so ridiculous, so amusing, so grotesque, that anyone should tell him England was not at the head of all nations, that he would not take the trouble to resent it. He would pity the person, and there the matter would end.
CHAPTER IV.
Types.—Manly Beauty.—The Indian Type.—Second Beauty in the Women of the New World.—Something Wanting in the Beauty of Most American Women.
he American men are generally thin. Their faces glow with intelligence and energy, and in this mainly consists their handsomeness. I do not think it can be possible to see anywhere a finer assemblage of men than that which meets at the Century Club of New York every first Saturday of the month. It is not male beauty such as the Greeks portrayed it, but a manly beauty in all its intellectual force. The hair, often abundant, is négligé, sometimes even almost disordered-looking; the dress displays taste and care without aiming at elegance; the face is pale and serious, but lights up with an amiable smile: you divine that resolution and gentleness live in harmony in the American character.