New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-07-05
T1NhEE GIRLS.


as others see her, should look in the mirror
which Mr.. Justin Mccarthy holds up in his
recent clever article on English and American
women. Mr.. Mccarthy puts the difficult case
with as delicate tact as the phrenOlogist
Fowler, who used to read off man to
himself, as mapped in his bumps, as a posi-
tive BLACKBOARD or possible thief, yet an0int-
ing the wOunding words so cunningly az to
send the victim away smiling and cOmplacent.
Mr.. Mccarthy hints that American men are
little too apt in the science of lying and that
their wives and daughters are Overdressed,
loquacious bOTes, yet does it i'll such genial,
hearty fashion that we are quite ready to
shake hands with him and be thankful that
he says no worse.
The mistake he makes (and, although the
only one, it materially blunts the force of
the article) is that it is the New-YOrk belle
and Boston bel-esprit that he describes who
are by no means the representatives or expo
nents of the mass of women in the country, of
the woman in inland towns or country homes
with whom he never probably came in contact,
whose character and manners are in truth the
outgrowth of our established national life, and
show its effects undisturbed by Fictitious or
transient influences. Now with the city girl in
this country, everything is Fictitious and tran
silent from her public baptism to her public
funeral she has the perpetual consciousness of
being before the footlights she has every day
q scrappy kaleidoscope view of most things in
heaven or earth, from the Ucumenical Council
to the last .tchu; she lives in an atmosphere
of newspapers, fashion and politics, unceasing
contest going on in all; hence her current of
ideas is fluent and aggressive; she tells you
the time of day with an Oratorical twang;
she walks as on parade, poses necessarily
with both body and mind will not ask you
for glass of water unless she does it epigram-
matically. The same publicity and shifting
and swirl in her life account for her imper-
turbable good-natured philosophy, which Mr.
Mccarthy admits. There is nothing she is
certain of in her religion or bonnets but that
they will change. Why should DiOgenes
grsrmble if somebody stood to-day between his
tub and the sunsinii..ei They will certainly be
gone tomorrow. Only the pWest womanly
nature can be ennobled by the city lie of
America but it is so ennObled. 1t is in our
cities therefore that both the highest and most
degraded of our women are to be found. On
these Mr. Mccarthy has founded his verdict.
If he had penetrated deeper into our domestic
life outside of the large social centers. he
would have found the really typical American
woman in some village or parsonage, bilious,
Of middle-class in rank and culture, and quite
as modest, bgoted, and unable with tongue or
pen as any EnglishwOman of them all, and as
tightly bound by precedent and prejudice AS
to brain work, she is apt to make specially
of history or theology and sits, grave half
scornful, half-compassionate observer, while
the half-taught Advanced Female perks and
plumes herself unwearied upon the stage and
plays her tricks before high heaven.
Mr. Mccarthy touches with keen and Just
observation upon the singular freedom of
manner in which our girls are bred "the
" absence of any duenna or Mesrour guards
over virtue, and, on the other hand, the terror
with which they cling to conventional usages
in dress and etiquette. "The fear of an En-
" glish girl" he says, "always seems to be lest |
g she may be supposed to be doing anything |
" that is not quite proper; that of an American
" gid lest she should BIZ doing anything that is |