Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1870-07-26
THE HERALD.
AMERICAN WOMEN AS VIEWED
BY AN ENGLISHMAN.

In the GALAXY for July, Justin
McCarty, that indefatigable flatterer
of America and Americans, pictures
our women in the following colors !:
Opposite my window is fashion
able church, and it is a wond erful
sight on q sunny Sunday to see the
congregation streaming out. OF
course the majority of the worship
pers are women, and they come flut-
tering forth in the brightest Of silks
all glittering and glowing in radiant
colors. The pavement shimmers
with crimson and violet and blue ana
emerald there are white feathers,
scarlet feathers, shooting forth as
many tints as the 'peacock's spotted
tail-bright Arguss golden eye },
there are chains and necklaces ana
bracelets and brooches and earrings;
the street is positively ablaze with
color and lustre. There are ladies' In
that procession who display from
their flashing feather to their dainty,
shining boots of bronze, every color
which would show itself in kaleido-
scope. Looking down on that radi-
ant -glancing stream of colors,
one almost fancies he is gazing upon
a field covered with dazzling tropical
insects. or the flight Of colony Of
GORGEOUS birds. Nothing to be
Seen in Europe is like this sight.
Such sheeny silks are kept there for
the drawing room or the afternoon
drive in Hyde Park, or the Bo is de
Boulogne such wealth of dazzling
colors is never displayed on the form
Of European womanhOod at all. And
al church-cven the utmost devotees
Of fashion in Europe do keep up
something like Il somblance Of de-
mureness and gravity, if not Of SOM
breness and penitcncc in their church
going garb.
70 stranger, American women
are naturally the most agreeable ac-
quaintances he can find in the other
sex. The ready friendlinoss Of man
ner which they display, the frank
and warm cordially which dispcnses
acquaintainceship, with nearly all
the formal interchange OF converse
tional sign and countersign-all
these peeuliarities make the society
Of American women especially at
tractive and delightful TO o visitor
and o foreigner, who, having no
time for the slow and gradual forma-
ton Of friendship, finds himself in
this respect more fortunate than in
any country in the world. cannot
adequately describe how strange and
delightful ] found this unrestrained
good nature. ! do not know why it
is that where there are so many men
who are habitually silent, all the
women should be so exuberant in
conversational power; but my expe-
rience certainly is, that in most
American circles, whether Of town
or country, the JrajSe of the CONVEX
sation will be left to the wife, the
sisters or the daughters. Woman is
much more Of recognized power,
she "amounts to" far more in this
country than across the Atlantic.
She is recognized as having logiti-
mate right to hold her own opinion
in everything She is not supposed
when married, to merge her exist
enco into her husbands as an Eng
Iish woman is at least supposed to
do. She shines with her own light,
not with that reflected from her hus-
band; she is a sun and not satellite.
Even in od-fashioned and almost
puritanical households, where as
suredly modern doctrines Of wOman's
rights and freedom Of marriage rela-
tions have not penetrated, the woman
seems to me to have equality much
more clearly recognized than in
England.