St. Paul daily globe., 1890-12-28

itself. She is beautiful with perfect
beauty. or endowed with triumphal
grace. 1t seems that all this rude civil
lzation becomes gentle for her alone.
The young girl is the ariStocracy, the
luxury, the art, the crown OF American
society, as the epicurean was of ancient
society. She alone enjoys and profits
by her leisure. 1t is for her that man
bends with such fury beneath the
weight of labor for his betrUthed or his
daughter.
AT home the young American girl Is
at the same time the tyrant and the re-
ward. She pushes aside her brothers,
she domineerS over her mother, but she
is the smile and joy of her father it is
she who animateS the household. who
lights 1t up. makes 1t rejoice; the only
gay echoes are those of her voice or the
voices OF her companions.
1t is only when she Is bored. or when
she wishes an arislocratie marriage,
that the American head of the family
makes up his mind to leave his absorb
ing and Intoxicating business for few
months and take her to Europe.
You know the conseryatorieS Of Or
chids-that flower of richness among
all flowers? 1t needs more heat and
light than any other. 1t is curious
flower which blooms in way that sur
priSeS you inceSSantly. Beautiful, daZ-
zling, it first charms you by its strange.
ness, and then int0XieateS you with its
subtle perfume. 1t lives on air, and
needs none of the material conditions
of existence for other plants; it often
comes from a gnarled stem, which
seems to defy beauty; yet from this
stem it blossoms frequently, with singu-
lar but always Incompatible attractive
ness.
child among all feminine flowers: and
it is far from her to the humble violet
to which the young French maiden has
until recently been compared.
l have said until recently. for our
humble, timid and blushing young girl
is now hardly to be found outside Of
small provincial towns. The young
American girl has an enormous influence
on the young French girl. Wherever
the meet the tlmld one becomes modi-
fed. The young English girls, with
their boyish ways, their lack of elegance,
their manner of Walking-the few
conquests they had made in France had
i'll no way modified the ways Of our
daughters. They were laughed at, and
no one thought of copying them. But
with the American it was another thing;
she is enviable and too often irreslst-
ible: she must, therefore, be initiated
from afar in all that is seductiye-her
sincerity, her SpontaneouSnesS, her life
while the delicate charm of French
education is retnined.
Certainly our daughters cannot pre-
tend to reign in France and in Europe
as the young girls reign in America.
There they are queens, and sometimes
more, though it is very hard to apply to
such bewitching persons the words
''merciless Jyrants." They rule in the
family, and the family does not rule
them; they rule in the society which
gravitates around their pleasures, whose
laws, customs and liberties have for
them exclusive projections, induigences
and favorS. And all this they noisily
enjoy with the same ardor displayed by
their fathers in the pursuit OF wealth.
The great charm of the American girl
in Europe is that she combines at once
the purity of the young girl and the
cOquetry of the young married woman.
Thus in the Old world she is certain Of
attracting all the young men who have
abused life, who are little blase, and
who to he captivated have need Of what
they call du montant.
The young American girl in France,
even though she should reside there a
long time, still remains peculiar being.
disturbing the men, and source of un-
easiness to the women. Once married,
she immedirtely lays aside her eccen-
tricities. There are no young American
w0men-that is to say, nothing in the
manner Of an American who has be-
come madame, distinguishing her from
another madame.
The young French girl finds liberty in
marriage: the young American girl
loses it. Our daughters dttach them
selves from family in marrying: the
Americans enter one; they are suddenly
surrounded by circle, by proprieties,
by worldly customs, by social duties,
by the eXigenoies of conjugal fidel-
lty, by the duty of defending a
reputation which has become common
property-all serious things which
transform their character. their manner
of being, and gradually model them
after the likeness of their surroundings.
Two or three years after her marriage
the American in France is woman of
the world, and if she could lose her ac-
cent, nothing would distinguish her
from her I!eW circle