It has become a habit to speak of American women as superior to all others, and in Europe the legend is beginning to hold. But in what does this superiority consist? Push, aplomb, finery, what? We cannot concede that it lies in exceptional accomplishments, or in any rare degree of scholarship. American women are not often accomplished, are not frequently even linguists; being usually satisfied with one foreign tongue, and that a very wretched French. We have few amateur musicians; and women artists of the force of Janet Scudder or Mrs. Leslie Cotton can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Our literary women are not ornamental, and are skillfully excluded from drawing rooms. Our feminine poets are usually dishevelled. If we throw out a dozen women in each of our large Eastern cities who have had the advantage of birth, breeding, position and wealth, the rank and file are like the rank and file of any other nation—a little brighter, perhaps; keener, more alert, better groomed, but harder—and often less fascinating. Our women lack the high vitality and repose of the English—weak nerves make for fidgetiness—the subtle seduction of the Austrian, the soft sweetness of the Italian. French women are deteriorating, their present social upheavals being responsible for this change.
Nevertheless, American girls have married well in Europe; principally for their ducats, sometimes for their beauty, only very occasionally for love.
The Latins love readily, particularly when they scent income. The English, more sincere, play their game openly. They demand “dots” at the altar, and—get them. However, as I have said, social ambition is a trait of our new life. It is a wholesome trait and has its use. Only by contact with a high civilization can a new people become civilized. Intermarriage is the easiest method.
We are told that American women who have married foreigners adore their exotic existence and could not be persuaded to return. Is it their husbands whom they adore? Are all their ménages exceptionally happy? What they do like is the graceful ease of an existence which appeals to fancy and a career which women over here do not attain. For, in fact, American women are overshadowed by their men. La femme politique is almost, if not quite, unknown in America, as is la femme artiste or la femme littéraire. There are no literary women in the United States who wield any social power whatsoever. In America talent is rather a social handicap to a girl or woman, and an escape into a wider field is tolerated only by our extremely conservative society when balanced by some peculiar prestige of early environment or personal allurement. We have no drawing rooms here like that of Madeleine Lemaire, in Paris, or like that of a certain cosmopolitan, Corinne of Venice, now, alas! closed forever. In the salons of the artist French woman one encounters English women of rank, the “little duchesses,” the big ambassadresses, men of note in every calling, diplomats, statesmen, scientists and writers.
Our great men have usually married, in their youth, their first love, and, be it said to their credit, have remained, if not always true to this village ideal, at least outwardly loyal. They are not ashamed of past virtue. Their wives, thrown suddenly into a world of which they know nothing, should surely be excused some solecisms. Occupied in the cares of rearing children, of providing for large families on small rations, they have hardly had the leisure to cultivate their minds and manners. We will not allude to grammar and intonation. It would be too much to ask!
These women do not demand that a man appeal to the imagination. They have none. The lover is at once sunk into the father. In fact, they address their husbands as “father” or “papa”—sometimes, indeed, as “pa” pronounced paw in moments of caressing emphasis. What would these women do with a handsome, dashing troubadour, who warbled ditties in feathered cap and doublet? They do not want a tenor about the house, they want their bills paid. “Pa” sees to that. She is eminently practical. Her husband talks little to her of his ambitions, schemes or success, but he signs the check. That check is the epitome of his brain’s travail. If in his arid life he sometimes longs for a higher companionship, and is drawn into the net of some cleverer siren, his wife remains ignorant of the fact. She is entirely trusting—a convenient quality and one which men superlatively admire.
No, Mr. James, Americans on the whole are well matched. Look beyond the few dainty women of fashion who have personally petted you—women accustomed to the homage of men of the world, and who have danced at the courts of kings. To these we are willing to add a handful of brilliant young students who obtain degrees from Vassar, Wellesley, Smith and Bryn Mawr, are an ornament to the Normal and Barnard College, and distance male competitors at Cornell University.
May one of these be President some day! We quote the wish of a gallant member of the Cabinet. We hope that they have low voices, speak admirable English, and feel sure they never smoke cigarettes and never say “Damn!”
The camp, however, is very wide. The tents are spread, innumerable, over the hills and valleys of our fair country. Lift their flapping curtains, Mr. James. Peep in and you will find content—enough.