The Minnesota pioneer. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn. Territory) 1849-1855, 1849-08-16
MISCELLANY.
From the Genius of Italy, by Rev. r. Trumbull.
Italian and American Women.


as pure crystal, which the fairest breath
of the world may contaminate. 1t is
sweet, tender flower, equally dreading the
scorching meridian ray, and the blast Of the
northern gale. The Italians believe in
Ivrginity of the soul, without which per-
sonal chastity has hardly any value in their
jeyes. To secure this moral innocence-and
this may be grlevious error in civilized
age-they know no better means than an
almost entire abstraction from, and ignor-
ance of, the world.
The Independence of the Yankee girl be-
gins at the earliest stage of boarding school
life, with the choice of her hooks, Of her
dancing master, of her congregation, Of her
minister. She makes no mystery of her
prediction for her teacher because he is ga
spruce, good looking fellows" for the preach
err, because he has "such very white hands"
She subScribes to cotillion parties, shines
off at fancy fairs, tasks the purse CALAMITY
Of her admirers at flower auctions. She
walks home late at night from her routs,
arm-in-arm with her favorite partner, by
moonlight on the shady side Of the road
She steams off up the Hudson, down the
Ohio, and comes back none the worse for
the exercise aud excitement. Not the slight
est shade of uneasiness at home on account
of her protracted absence. She introduces
a "traveling friend'' to the old lady, who
sits down to make tea for him; finally, she
coolly informs her parents that she has been
''popped at,'' and that ''her mind is made
up" unless, indeed, she prefers the fuss and
ectat of a runaway match.
/ 1t Is but Justice TO say, however, that this
unbounded latitude is seldom if ever, at
tended with mischievous results. Thanks,
perhaps, to natural GOODNESS of temperament
IN tire IN la
ty of marriage in those wide-spreading set
Elements, the American young lady is sell
dom at loss for a well-intentionctl sutton.
She very early acquires the calculating hab-
its of the country. She is her own Duena
and Chaperon. She learns to value her adj
mrers according to their worth. Her fancy
and heart are always under the control of
reason. Romance is all very we'll in books,
but marriage is matter of prose. .faur
pas is seldom heard of, or if ever, all orld-
~ advantages have been duly weighed, and
even that apparent imprudence is the result
of the most consumnate policy. Nowhere
are more absurdly disproportionate matches
more universally the order of the day
Nowhere is Mauinon more universally the
torch bearer of Hymen, than among these
very damsels whose choice is SO utterly free
! from parental control.
-
God bless her !-has thorough knowledge
of the world. Else what were the good of
the million of novels she feasts upon? Her
look is proud and daring; her step firm and
secure. ModeSty she scorns a want of
sincerity and franknesS; delicacy she spurns
as a lack of proper spirit of independence.
With the exception of a few luckleSs words
excluded from the English dictionary by an
over-nice notion of prudery-for Il list of
them ride Sam Slck-there is hardly sub
ject of conversation she would dream of re-
bukng or discountenancing.
| By this early training is she fitted for eve
! ry department of public life; ready to enter
the list an orator, an agitator. journal
list. The wide world is the stage she acts
on. The drudgeY of house keeping de-
wolves on the mercenary landady of Broad
way boarding-house. Man flags himself
into dyspepsia at his counter; woman
reads. airts, and gives herself airs in all the
luxuries of hired drawing-roon. So much
for Ewes share of the common lot of NOR
tails.
/ In presence Of her betrothed or husband,
she launches forth in the most sranscendent
expressions of admiration of the eagle eyes
or b,,shy whiskers Of her outlandi>h visitor;
no matter if she be heard by the very object
J Of her enthusiastic rhapsodies. Her hus-
band bargained for her hand and person;
but her fancy is free as the air she breathes.
Secure in her tangible virtue, she courts
temptation for the sake of its braring effects.
She is a coquette upon principle, and in
dulges in wanton, but unmeauing fiirtations,
merely to test the endurance of the man of
her choice. With this view she draws the
period of her betrothment to a prodigious
Iength-that being the zenith of a social as
cendancy with which maternal duties may,
IN spite of herself, interfere in after life. p
/ A woman in Italy has an oyster-like fond
ness for home; she may not, perhaps, point
to her Brussels carpets DIS the bess of her
jewels, nor boast of fre-side virtues; but
she looks with amazeinent at the crowds of
home-loving daughters of Albion, at the
swarms of Tompkins, Pumpkins and Pop
I kins, with caravans of nurses and children
hurrying from town to town, like tribes of
gipsies with the parish beadle at their heels.
She shrugs her shoulders at the restless GU
riosity which drives SO many tender, tImid
beings, to brave all the hardships of endless,
ohiectless Journeys, and never dreams, with
out shuddering of visiting lands which APP
pear even to their natives, such cherries,
ineligible sojourn!
| An Italian wife certainly prefers her ter
race or balcony to the chlmney-corner; a
moonlight walk, or even an opera box, to
a rubber at whist; hut she is rooted to her
house and country; too indolent, too strong
~ attached to her climate, her habits, and.
connections, too long for the excitement OF
change.
sou peut-on etre mieux, qu'au sem de sa
| faInilie!''
Her meekness and amiability enable her
to live at peace with her mother and sister,
in-law. She does not break up her hus-
bands establishment because his house hap
pens to he sstoo near Holborn," or son the
wrong side of Oxford street." She finds il
unnecessary to dismiss her domestics at the
end of every fortnight. As long as she
loves and is beloved, che extends her affec-
tions to her husbands family, to his home