However, all Americans in Europe are not of this class, although it includes the majority. There is a comparatively small number who are as much impressed with the perfection of everything American as the most ardent patriotism could desire. These people go to Europe cased in a triple armor of self-assertion, prepared to poohpooh everything and everybody that may come under their notice, and above all to vindicate under all circumstances their independence as free-born American citizens by giving the world around them the benefit of their opinions upon all topics both in and out of season. They stand before a chef-d'œuvre of some old master and declare in a loud, aggressive voice that they see nothing whatever to admire in it, that the bystanders may know that the judgment of centuries will not weigh with them. They inquire with grim facetiousness, and terrific emphasis on the pronominal adjectives, "Is this what the people in this part of the world call a steamboat?" "Do they call that duckpond a lake?" "Is that stream what they call a river?" And so on, in a perpetual attitude of protest against everything not so large as their steamboats, their lakes, their rivers. When this genus of Americans abroad comes together with the other genus—with the people who think the most wretched daub that hangs in the most obscure corner of a European gallery, labelled with prudent indefiniteness "of the school of ——," better far than the most conscientious work by the most gifted of American artists—and a discussion arises, as it is sure to do, on the relative merits of Europe and America, then indeed does Greek meet Greek, and, both starting from equally false premises and with equally false views, the cross-purposes, the rabid comparing of things between which no comparison is possible, the amount of absurd nonsense spoken on either side, and the profound disdain of one for the other, furnish a great deal of amusement to Europeans, but make an American who has any self-respect suffer no small amount of mortification.
There is but one ground upon which these two classes of Americans meet in common, and that is in their respect for titles, coronets and coats-of-arms. It is useless to deny the immense impressiveness which this sort of thing has for the average American. Of course, if he be of the aggressive sort he will scout the very idea of any such imputation, one of the favorite jokes of his tasteful stock in trade being precisely to express sovereign contempt for anything and everything smacking of nobility, and to weigh its advantages against the chink of his own dollars and find it wanting. But this does not in the least alter the matter. The people who inveigh the most fiercely against the pretensions of blue blood are generally, the world over, the ones who are devoured by the most ardent retrospective ambitions for grandfathers and grandmothers; and the Americans who cry out loudest against the hollow vanity of the European aristocracy are generally those who have genealogical trees and coats-of-arms of authenticity more or less questionable hanging in their back parlor, and think themselves a step removed from those among their neighbors who boast of no such property.
It may not be pleasant for us to acknowledge to ourselves that our countrymen abroad are cankered with toadyism and are frightful snobs; but so it is, nevertheless. The fact is very visible, veil it as we may. The American who has not had it forced upon his attention in innumerable ways—by the undisguised empressement of those among his compatriots who frankly spend their whole time running after persons with titles, entertaining them and fawning upon them in every possible manner, no more than by the intensely American Americans who profess supreme disregard for all precedence and distinctions established by society, and yet never fail to let you know, quite accidentally, that Count This, Baron That and Marquis the Other are their very particular friends—has had an exceptional experience indeed.
This manner of disposing of all Americans abroad by putting them into one of these two categories may seem somewhat sweeping, and it will be objected that there are hundreds of our countrymen in Europe who could never come under the head of either. Granted. These hundreds undoubtedly exist: they are made up of people of superior mind and intelligence, of people of superior culture, of people who occupy that exceptional social position which, either through associations of hereditary ease, refinement, wealth and elegance, or by contact with "the best" of everything from childhood up, confers on those who belong to it very much the same outward gloss the world over. But it is never among such exceptions that the distinctive characteristics of a nation are to be sought. These are to be looked for in the great mass of the people. Now, the great mass of Americans who go abroad are people of average minds, average education, average positions; and that, thus taken as a mass, they are lamentably lacking both in good taste and dignity, every one must admit who is in any degree familiar with the American colonies in the cities of Europe where our countrymen congregate.
I should perhaps say, to express myself more accurately, "where our countrywomen congregate;" for, after all, the true representatives of America in Europe are the American women. Nine-tenths of all the American colonies consist of mothers who, having left their liege lords to their stocks and merchandise, have come abroad "for the education of their children"—an exceedingly elastic as well as convenient formula, which somehow always makes one think of charity that "covereth a multitude of sins." Occasionally—once in three or four years perhaps—the husband leaves his stocks or merchandise for a brief space of time, crosses the Atlantic and remains with his family a month or two. Occasionally also he fails to appear altogether. I am not very sure but that this last course is the one that foreigners expect him to pursue, and that when he deviates from it it is not rather a surprise to them. Europeans, I fancy, are somewhat apt to look upon the American husband as a myth. At all events, it seems to take the experience of Thomas in many instances to convince them of his material existence. The American who is content to have his wife and children leave him for an indefinite period ranging anywhere from one year to ten years, and during that time enjoy the advantages of life and travel in Europe, while he himself remains at home absorbed in his business, is a species of the genus Homo that Europeans are at a loss to comprehend. Being so rarely seen in the flesh, he necessarily occupies but a secondary position in their estimation: indeed, I think all American men, those of the class named no more than those that are more frequently seen abroad, such as doctors, clergymen, consuls, etc., may be said—some exception being made for the "leisure class" possessed of four-in-hands and so on, and an unlimited supply of the world's goods—to be considered by Europeans of no great significance, socially speaking. It is madame and mesdemoiselles who are all-important. Monsieur is thought a worthy person, with some excellent qualities, such as freedom from uncomfortable jealousies and suspicions, and both capacity and willingness for furnishing remittances, but a person rather destitute of polish—invaluable from a domestic point of view, from any other somewhat uninteresting. But madame and mesdemoiselles have every possible tribute paid to their charms: their beauty, their wit, their dash and sparkle, their independence, receive as large a share of admiration as the most insatiable among them could desire.
It must be owned that the American spirit, tempered by European education or influences, makes a very delightful compound. And it is astonishing to mark how soon the toning process does its work—how soon the most objectionable American girl of the sort known as "fast," or even "loud," softens into a very charming creature who makes the admiration bestowed upon her by European men quite comprehensible.
That this admiration is returned is perhaps not less comprehensible. American women, as a mass, are better educated than American men, and are particularly their superiors so far as outward grace and polish and the general amenities of life are concerned. These qualities, in which their countrymen are deficient, and the blander manners which accompany them, they are apt to find well developed in European men, whatever other virtues or faults may be theirs; and when to this fact is added the spice of novelty, the strong liking that American girls manifest for foreigners, and which has been the cause of putting so many American youths in anything but a benedictory frame of mind, is easily accounted for, and the marriages which so frequently take place between our girls and European men may be explained, even on other grounds than the common exchange of money on one side and title on the other.
Be the motive of these marriages either mutual interest or mutual inclination, in neither case does the generally-accepted theory that they are never happy bear the test of application. So far as my knowledge goes, the common experience is quite the reverse. The number of matches between American girls and Europeans that turn out badly is small compared to the number of those that are perfectly satisfactory. It is astonishing to see how many of our girls, who have been brought up in the belief of the American woman's prerogative of absolute supremacy in the domestic circle, when they are thus married change and seem quite content to relinquish not a few of their ideas of perfectly untrammelled independence, and to take that more subordinate position in matrimony which European life and customs allot to women. It is still more astonishing to see how contentedly and cheerfully they do so when marrying men, as they often do, whose equals in every point, were they their own countrymen, they would consider decidedly bad partis—men with no advantages of any description, without either position, career or any visible means of livelihood, often passably destitute of education and character as well. How they contrive to be satisfied with their bargain in this case is a puzzle, but satisfied they are.
Marriages of this sort, where the man has absolutely nothing to offer beyond the charms of his more or less blandly persuasive person, excite no surprise abroad. That a penniless male fortune-hunter should marry a girl with wealth is considered in Europe at the present day not only just, proper and quite as it should be, but rather comme il faut than otherwise. Let the case be reversed, and a man of fortune permit himself the caprice of marrying a portionless girl, and society cries out in horror against the mésalliance.
American women in Europe have two chief aims and occupations. The first is to obtain an entrée into the society of the country in which they are residing, and to identify themselves with that society: the second is to revile one another.