The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1883-04-27
More About the American Girl.

The era OF the COCOA American
ended about the period when the day of
la belle AmerGaine began. "Yurrup"
was the moving agent in both. The
vast fortunes made in the mines and
lands of the further West set at leisure
a class almost unknown except among
the Southern planters; and after the
war petroleum and shoddy increased
this class immensely. ''Yurrup'-and
great deal of it-became the fashion,
and every home arrival sent another to
follow the prevailing example. Colonies
of Americans settled in every European
capital, and the semi-Europeanized Re-
publicans, whom Henry James has
satirized in many novels, and George
Curtis has castigated in the .Potiphar
Papers, became familiar to all who had
ewes to see and ears to hear. The
t.Tuileries Americans were proverb;
and ''the Emperor" to them Ma
poleon Ill. was the only Emperor
pensioned off half his ready-made nobil-
ity upon the rank-loving ladies, whose
papas had made many dollars in pork,
..ile," soldiers coats, or Nevada sill
yer mines. But these were no more
the typical American girls than the
hooked-nosed people who used to sit
round the Homburg tables and still
haunt those of Monte Carlo were good
specimens of the nations which were
honored with their presence. Yet they
helped to leaven the American mass.
They made European tour a necessity
for every American who aimed at cul-
ture, and those visiting "Yurrup'
brought back taste for art. for house
decoration after the British fashion, and
kindness for the Old World and its
institutions which were unknown in the
days of our youth when Mrs. Barney
Williams was playing the conventional
Yankee gal. The Americans complain
that they also brought back con-
tempt for their plain-mannered coun-
trymen, and an exaggerated MINI
icry of everything European, without
the influences which in Europe keep
some of our follies in their proper place.
1t is certain that we find Americans
everywhere, and that in England, and
to less degree in the more exclusive
society of the Continent-always except
ing Paris, which is tolerant to anybody
with money-they find access to society
which would be closed to Britons of the
same social grade. And as rule they
are very charming people. Elijah Po-
gram is as extinct as Dr. Ginery Dunkle;
and if the mother of the Gracchi is
sometimes Objectionable, it is certain
that the Gracchi are extremely pleasant
additions to the old life of Britain. La
belle AmericaiRe is no more pronounced
than girls in new countries, where So
cial ambition is narrowed, always are.
She is petted and run after as pretty
women often are, especially in districts
where men are more numerous than
their possible mates. She sees no social
distinction which is not open to money,
and no use for money except To seek
happiness in ostentatious grandeur. The
result is that she grows up rather shall
low and snowy, a little impudent occa-
sionally; sometimes valuing herself and
her fathers dollars at more than they
are worth, and in very exceptional in
stances the delightful creature whom
DIR. Dix mathematics; but she is sell
dom absolutely bad. Actual immortality
is left to the immigrants, who bring to
the New World. with its easy ways, the
vices of the Old which they have left.
But the impossible American"-as the
transatlantic writers term every Amer
lean who is not quite to their mind
will, in time, become rarer. Atpresent
the same class is growing up in our
newer and growing colonies, and from
exactly the same causes. The Austria
liam squatter's daughter is as irreveren-
tial, full of herself. and impatient of
anything save abject homage as the
veriest Fifth Avenue or Beacon Street
belle. But when DIR. Dix accuses dy-
Mantle, red ruin and the breaking down
Of laws being born of such as these, he
must have been thinking more of the
viragoes of the Bowery than of the
beauties who once week solace their
shattered nerves with the platitudes of
Trinity Chapel.-London World.