The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-10-02
Nj1lIllsl Esale
THE REAL ENGLISH GIRL.
PEN PICTURE OF A TYPICAL BRITISH
MAIDEN At HOME.

An American Correspondent Who Writes
OF Her Out of the Usual styIe-How
She Compares with the American Miss
and Partisan Girl.
will put on my Yankee spectacles and
draw pen picture of the English girl as
she is generally described by foreigners.
Behold tall, ungainly figure, strlding
along with the gait of professional pedes-
trian Her hair is red and crowned with a
hat of simple and uncompromising ugD-
ness. Exposure to the weather has rem
dered her complexion coarse and ford,
and her teeth are large and prominent,
owing to her excessive indulgence in diet
of tough meat. A nondescript garment
half way between a macintosh and an
ulster, envelopes her figure, which is angu-
lar, bony and fiat. Her feet, generally in
cased in galoshes, are of remarkable con-
tour and outrageous proportions. Not an
engaging picture, is it? And the worst Of
it is that the grain of truth in the satire
makes it bitter. For English girls, with
the best material in the world to work
upon, do not make the best of themselves.
RUINS HER COMPLEXION.
Where in the world will you find nat
ural complexion 10 equal the pure pink
and white Of the English maidi And yet
che ruins it with hard water and harder
towels. Then her teeth-well, she cannot
help that; but we must confess that teeth
a size or two smaller would serve all the
purposes of use and ornament. As to her
figure, nature has endowed her with a
splendid physique, a body well developed
by walking, riding, rowing and tennis; but
it is still in the rough. 1t is marvellous
that with her strong, active and healthy
form she still lacks that browning beauty,
the divine grace" which the Greek god
dess sheds around her favorites. But she
does lack it, The French girl, sallow and
even agly, is always graceful The En-
glisb, beautiful andl statuesque in repose,
is awkward when she begins to move.
Does it all lie in the feet, those feet which
the English climate ripens to such astound
ing size and which their owners persist in
reducing by the process of peine forte ct
durel 1t is more probably the result of
her whole training. She has never been
taught, like the French girl, that the chief
end of woman is to be beautiful The
high schools do not teach their pupils
grace of manners, and the expatriated
mothers dancing and department" have
long since taken down their brass plates
and gone forth into the unknown country.
The English girl has tagged" at cricket
for her brothers in the holidays, played
hockey at Girton, climbed mountains in
Switzerland and toured through Nor
mandy on a tricycle.. But all this gives
her strength, not grace.
SHE Is JOLLY.
On the whole English girls live a Jolly,
careless sort of life, not so restless as that
of the American and not so secluded as
that of the French girl. Not all, of course;
for we, every one OF us, know here and
there a motherless girl who brings up
whole family of younger brothers and sis
tiers, and sacrifices her own life to theirs.
But these are the exceptions. Generally
when they leave school they consider their
education complete. They have learnt"
French and German at school, but they
never look into French or German book
afterward. English literature, outside the
"set books" in an Oxford local examina-
ton, is terra incognita TO them, and this
is the more inexcusable because English
newspapers and magazines, and in fact all
contemporary literature, is written with
an eye on Jne young person, ana there
are few libraries where sweet seventeen
may not range at will. They have sweet
tooth in books, and devour novels, which
is on the whole good thing; for a certain
amount of contemporary thought filters
through the circulating libraries in a di-
luted form in the shape of Robert Elsmeres
and Donovans.
Sometimes the English girl goes through
a mysterious process called finishing"
which means that she has lessons in music
and singing. Why do all girls learn to
play the piano9 And why do they so sell
dom learn enough to know that they can't
play2 Nine out of every ten are either
physically or mentally incapable of even
moderate proficiency, and yet how rare
pleasure it is TO meet girl who frankly
confesses that she cannot play And the
songs she singsl Well, there is nothing
that appears more remarkable to the intel
ligent foreigner than the way in which an
English maid will stand up and sing with
out turning a hair, an impassioned love
song at which Sappho might have blushedi
Cor. New Orleans Picayune
Here's n Tough Woman