One day a lady whom I had had the pleasure of taking in to dinner in a country house near London, and whom I had soon found to be one of those simple-minded, good-natured, truth-telling women who are notably common in England, spoke to me about some ladies who on a previous day had attracted her attention, adding, "I knew they were Americans." "How?" I asked. "Oh, we always know American women!" "But how, pray?" She thought a moment, and answered: "By their beauty—they are almost always pretty, if not more—by their fine complexions, and by their exquisite dress." I did not tell her that I thought that she was right; but that she was so I had by that time become convinced. And yet I should say that the most beautiful women I had ever seen were Englishwomen, were it not for the memory of a Frenchwoman, a German, and a Czech. But the latter three were rare exceptions. Beauty is very much commoner among women of the English race than among those of any other with which I am acquainted; and among that race it is commoner in "America" than in England. I saw more beauty of face and figure at the first two receptions which I attended after my return than I had found among the hundreds of thousands of women whom I had seen in England.
The types are the same in both countries; but they seem to come near to perfection much oftener here than there. Beauty of feature is, however, sometimes more clearly defined in England than here. The mouth in particular when it is beautiful is more statuesque. The curves are more decided, and at the junction of the red of the lips with the white there is a delicately raised outline which marks the form of the feature in a very noble way. This may also be said of the nostril. It gives a chiselled effect to those features which is not so often found in "America"; but the nose itself, the brow, and the set and carriage of the head are generally finer among "Americans." In both countries, however, the head is apt to be too large for perfect proportion. This is a characteristic defect of the English type of beauty. Its effect is seen in Stothard's figures, in Etty's, and in those of other English painters. Another defect is in the heaviness of the articulations. Really fine arms are rare; but fine wrists are still rarer. Such wrists as the Viennoise women have—of which I saw a wonderful example in the Viennoise wife of a Sussex gentleman—are almost unknown among women of English race in either country. It is often said, even in England, that "American" women have more beautiful feet than Englishwomen have. This I am inclined to doubt. The feet may be smaller here; and they generally look smaller because Englishwomen wear larger and heavier shoes. They are obliged to do so because they walk more, and because of their moister climate. But mere smallness is not a beauty in a foot more than in any other part of the body. Beauty is the result of shape, proportion, and color; and feet are often cramped out of shape and out of proportion in other countries than China. A foot to be beautiful should seem fit for the body which it supports to stand upon and walk with. It is said by some persons, who by saying it profess to know, that nature, prodigal of charms to Englishwomen in bust, shoulders, and arms, is chary of them elsewhere, and that their beauty of figure is apt to stop at the waist. Upon this point I do not venture to give an opinion; but I am inclined to doubt the judgment in question upon general physiological principles. The human figure is the development of a germ; and it is not natural that, whatever may be the case with individuals, the type of a whole race in one country should present this inconsistency. Possibly those who started this notion were unfortunate in their occasions of observation and comparison.
There is more beauty in the south of England than in the north. When I left Birmingham on my way southward, although in addition to my observation northward I had there the opportunity of seeing the great throngs chiefly of women called together by the triennial musical festival, my eyes had begun to long for the sight of beauty. The women were hard-featured, coarse in complexion, without any remarkable bloom, but rather the contrary, and ungainly in figure. I found a great improvement in this respect in the lower counties; and in London of course more than elsewhere. For it is remarkable that according to some law, which has never yet been formulated, or from some cause quite undiscovered, perhaps undiscoverable, beautiful women are always found in the greatest numbers where there are the most men and the most money.
Much has been said about the complexion of the women of England, which has been greatly praised. I have not found it exceptionally beautiful. It is often fresh, oftener ruddy, but still oftener coarse. A delicate, finely-graduated bloom is not common. The rosy cheeks when looked at closely are often streaked with fine lines and mottled with minute spots of red; and the white is still oftener not like that of a lily, or, better, of a white rose, but of some much coarser object in nature. It is true that in making these odious comparisons I cannot forget certain women, too common in "America," who seem to be composed in equal parts of mind and leather, the elements of body and soul being left out so far as is consistent with existence in human form. But such women are also to be found in England, although perhaps in fewer numbers than here.
As to dress, that, as a man, I must regard as a purely adventitious and an essentially unimportant matter. If a woman be beautiful, or charming without actual beauty, a man cares very little in what she is dressed, so long as she seems at ease in her clothes, and their color is becoming to her and harmonious. There is no greater mistake than the assumption that being dressed in good taste is indicative of good breeding, of education, or of social advantage of any kind. Nor is it even a sign of good taste in any other particular. You shall see a woman who has come out of the slums, and whose life is worthy of her origin and her breeding, although it may have become gilded and garish, and she shall dress herself daily, morning, noon, and night, with such an exquisite sense of fitness in all things, with such an instinctive appreciation of harmony of outline and color, that your eye will be soothed with the sight of her apparel; and she shall nevertheless be vulgar in mind and manners, sordid in soul, in her life equally gross and frivolous. And the converse is no less true. Women most happy in the circumstances of their birth and breeding, intelligent, cultivated, charming, of whose sympathy in regard to anything good or beautiful you may be sure, will dress themselves in such an incongruous, heterogeneous fashion that the beauty which they often possess triumphs with difficulty over their effort to adorn it.
I feel, therefore, that I am saying very little against Englishwomen when I say that in general they are the worst dressed human creatures that I ever saw, except perhaps the female half of a certain class of Germans. The reputation that they have in this respect among Frenchwomen and "Americans" is richly deserved. Good taste is simply absent. The notion of fitness, congruity, and "concatenation accordingly" does not exist. In form the Englishwoman's dress is dowdy, in color frightful. If not color-blind, she seems generally to be blind to the effect of color, either singly or in combination. At the Birmingham festival I saw a lady in a rich red-purple (plum color) silk—high around the neck of course, as it was morning—and over this swept a necklace of enormous coral beads. It made one's eyes ache to look at her. This was not an uncommon, but a characteristic instance. Such combinations may be justly regarded as the rule in Englishwomen's dress. For purple they have strong liking. They not only wear it in gowns, but they use it for trimming, in bands and flounces, in ribbons, in feathers. They combine it with all other colors. An Englishwoman seems to think herself "made" if she can deck herself in some way with purple silk or velvet, or ribbons or feathers. Of course I am excepting from these remarks a few who have intuitive good taste, and other few who employ French modistes, and who submit implicitly to their authority. The latter condition is essential; for even when the main body of an Englishwoman's dress is in good taste she is very apt to destroy its effect by some incongruous addition from her stores of heterogeneous jewels, or by some other ornament—a collar, a cape, a fichu, or a ribbon. They have a sad way of putting forlorn things about their necks and on their heads which is very depressing, unless it is astonishing, which happens sometimes. An Englishwoman will be tolerably well dressed, and then will make a bundle of herself by tying up her neck and shoulders in a huge piece of lace; or she will wear specimens of two or three sets of jewels; or she will put a colored feather in her hair, or a bonnet on her head, that would tempt a tyrant to bring it to the block. I remember seeing a marchioness whose family was noble in the middle ages riding with an "American" lady who had not as much to spend in a year as the other had in a week; but the marchioness was so obtrusively ill dressed and the American with such good taste and simplicity that both being unusually intelligent, both perfectly well bred and self-possessed, and both fine healthy women, a person ignorant of their rank would have been likely to mistake the latter for the noblewoman.
It has been said that Englishwomen dress better in full evening dress than in what is known as demi-toilette. I cannot think so. It is not the English dress that then looks better, but the Englishwoman; that is, if she has fine shoulders, breasts, and arms. It is the beauty that is revealed, the woman pure and simple, that pleases the eye, just as is the case elsewhere. For the things that an Englishwoman will put on, or put half-off herself, in the evening, are amazing to behold. An Englishwoman in full dress who has not a fine figure is even more dowdy than she is in the morning. For then she is likely to be at least neat and tidy, and she may wear a gown that is comparatively unobtrusive in form and color. Indeed, the best dress that the average Englishwoman wears is her simple street dress, which is apt to be of some sober color—black, gray, light or dark, or a dark soft blue, and to be entirely without ornament—not a flounce or a bow, or even a button except for use, with a bonnet, or oftener a hat, equally sober in tint and in form. And this is best for her; in this she is safe. If she would not risk offence, let her enfold herself thus. Let her by no means wander forth into the wilderness of mingled colors: "that way madness lies." This outward show is in no way the consequence of carelessness. No one in England seems to be careless about anything, least of all a woman about her dress. It is helpless, hopeless, elaborated dowdyism. And yet as I write there rise up against me, with sweet, reproachful faces, figures draped worthily of their beauty; and more could not be said even for the work of Worth himself. One of many I particularly remember with whom I took five o'clock tea at the house of one of the Queen's chaplains, and who bore a name that may be found in the "Peveril of the Peak." Her bright intelligence and her rich beauty (her oval cheek was olive) would have made me indifferent to her dress had it been a homespun bedgown. But shall I ever forget the beautiful curves and tint of that soft-gray broad-leafed felt hat and feather, the elegance of the dark carriage dress that harmonized so well with it, or the perfect glove upon the hand that was held out so frankly to bid me good-by? No, fair British friends, it is not you that I mean; it is those other women whom I saw, but did not know.
It is because of the average Englishwoman's sad failure in dressing herself that the notion has got abroad that Englishmen are finer looking than Englishwomen. For the dress of the men is notably in good taste. It is simple, manly, neat; and although sober in tint and snug in cut, it is likely to have its general sobriety lightened up with a little touch of bright, warm color. On the other hand, the dress of "American" men is generally far, very, very far, inferior to that of the women in the corresponding conditions of life. This helps to produce the corresponding mistaken notion that the women in "America" are handsomer than the men; upon the incorrectness and essential absurdity of which I have already commented.
As to another attributed superiority of the Yankee woman I must express my surprised dissent. I have not only read, but heard their intelligence and social qualities rated much higher than that of their sisters in England. Fair countrywomen, heed not this flattery. It is not true. The typical Englishwoman of the upper and upper middle class has in strength of mind and in information no type counterpart in "America." She may not know Latin, and she may, and get little good by it; she may not be brilliant, or quick, or self-adaptive, and she generally is not; but she is well informed both as to the past and the present; she shows the effect rather of true education than of school cramming, of culture inherited and slowly acquired, and of intercourse with able, highly educated, and cultivated men. She generally has some accomplishment which she has acquired in no mere showy boarding-school fashion, but with a respectable thoroughness. England is full of ladies who paint well in water colors, or who are musicians, not mere piano players, or who are botanists, or who write well, and who add one or more of such acquirements to a solid general education, a considerable knowledge of affairs, and the ability to manage a large household.
The conversation of the society in which such women are found is far more interesting, far worthier of respect than that which is heard in fashionable society (and these women are fashionable) in "America." And this without any reproach to the latter. For how could it be otherwise than that women who are the daughters, sisters, and wives of men who are themselves highly educated, and who have the affairs of a great empire, if not in their hands, at least upon their minds, should in all that can be acquired by intercourse with such men be superior to others most of whom bear the same relations to men who are necessarily inferior in all these respects, who are absorbed in business, and know little beyond their business except what can be learned from the hurried reading of newspapers? In England there is not only accumulated wealth, but accumulated culture; and of this the result appears not only in the men, but in the women. It could not be otherwise. Englishwomen are companions, and friends, and helps to their fathers, their husbands, to all the men of their household. They are not absorbed in the mere external affairs of society; and society is not entirely in their hands. Men, men of mature years, form the substance of English society; they give it its tone; women its grace and its ornamentation. Even in the Englishwoman's drawing-room the Englishman is looked up to and treated with deference. The talk and the tone must be such as pleases him. She finds her pleasure as well as her duty in making it such as pleases him. She is even there his companion, his friend, his help. No matter how clever or brilliant she may be, she does not seek tenir salon like the French female bel esprit. No matter how beautiful or how fashionable she may be, she does not leave him out of her society arrangements; unless, indeed, in either case, she chooses to set propriety at naught and brave an accusation of "bad form." And indeed, should she attempt this she would probably soon be checked by a very decided interposition of marital authority. The result of all this is a soberer tone in mixed society than we are accustomed to, and the discussion of graver topics in general conversation.