Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1894-11-01
American Women Is Seen Through an English
mans Eyes.

The most remarkable thing to my mlno
about the American woman Is that 1t Is
impossible to be Indifferent either to her
or about her, whether you consider her en-
masse or individually. She has poten-
cy, a personality, that is in itself chal-
lenge not to be ignored. This, in fact, Is
the real fundamental difference between
our transatlantic sisters and the women
of our own land. Let us leave the 1ndl-
,vidual, who really counts for nothing on
our own Judgment of national characters
tics alone for a moment and see how the
averages affect us. Take the English wo-
man in the lump, not the new woman or
even the metropolitan woman exclusively,
but just the ordinary British type, who is
neither in the advance guard of modern
civilization nor absolutely petrified in the
old inertia Look her we'll in the face and
see if you have any thought about her,
any feeling sympathetic or antagonistic
toward her, or any sense of her at all.
You will find, 1 think, that she does not
stir you in any way; that so long as she
remains outside the sphere of your person
al interests she counts for absolutely moth
ing in your consciousness.
But go to America and try the same
process on the feminine material there.
At the outset you are confronted with an
actual stimulating force that either at
tracts or repels you. The point is that she
interests you intensely. You must study
her and reckon with her whether you like
her or not. AS to your ultimate admira-
ton or aversion for the American woman,
that will depend primarily ON your own
temperament. If you take IA score of pref
udices and prepossessions across the At
!antic with you, her swift intuitions will
not only discover but deride them, and
you may return with hatred in your heart:
vowing that she is neither fish, flesh, fowl
nor good red herring, and, least OF all,
woman as you would have her be.
But if you are wise enough to adjust
your ideals to the spirit of our time and
if you have learned to look on woman as a
human being rather than function, the
American girl will surely illuminate your
whole conception of her sex and lift it up
to the plane that is permeated by her scin-
tillant and incisive individuality. And
when you meet her again in Europe she
will come to you as blast of the free up
per air sweeping over the stagnant ways
of old world life. Then you will wonder
as man who takes deep draft of cham
payne after long abstinence how you ever
came to relinquish the wine of life when
it had once touched your lips. And if you
continue in this mood the chances arc that
you will marry that American girl, which
is equivalent to champagne every day for
dinner and perhaps thought more trying
to the constitution in the long run.
When all is told, however, America is a
paradise for women, great green throne
for her, set in western sea. And that
nature is fitting her hand for the scepter
and her brow for the crown no one who
stands in a large assembly of Americans
can doubt. Her physical superiority to
the American man is obvious to the most
casual observer. A generation or two of
stopping over the office desk has whetted
his intelligence at the expense of his ply
sique, while the woman has grown fair and
tall in the atmosphere of ease till she re-
sembles nothing SO much as a race horse,
compact of fiery spirit, nervous strength
and delicate contours. Her marvellous
adaptability, too, enables her to grace as
we'll as grasp her queendom, and till the
end her husband is never quite sure wheth-
er he admires or adores her most, which
| uncertainty brings him as near happiness
as man can hope to be.--R. d. in Lon
don Star.