The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1894-08-02
Yhe a1eha 4aiIy Eagle hursday 1urame august 1884.


| hotel steps. they part in the street.
/ One goes TO the PinciO while the other
| ssurters away to St Peters: one
scampers off to the Ponte Vecchio to
| stare at the shops and attract every
mans attention, while the other
| disports herself in the Cascine,
where she is looked on
| with suspicion by some and half
amused, half contemptuous wonder by
| all. What adventures befall them the
! world never knows They keep their
| own counsel on these matters. and
even when they fasten themselves,
for chat as they say, on some
! elderly woman or celebrated man. they
confine themselves to the safe generali-
cation of having "a lovely time" and
| Italy being just too sweet and fasci-
mating for anything" The details of
this enjoyment they judiciously keep
| hidden-wherein they are wise.
1 Another kind of American girl is
/ that selfish and dominant young per-
! son whose ''poppa' is allowed to be OF
/ use as a check bearer and a trunk
| packer. and whose "momula" fills the
RAoNC ~ oPfNA ~ FoAN- OPP1
/ and ''momma" have not word TO say
| to the arrangements of times, places,
/ length of stay. or the rest of the cir
| cumstances of travel. 1t is all when
/ Amy has got through" when Char
lotte feels like going" The mother
| has no viii of her own and neither her
! convenience nor desire comes into the
| account. She may be fascinated by
| Capri and longing for few weeks So
! journ in peace and beauty there; or she
! may loatne Naples and want only to
| turn her back on it's noise and its riot,
| its natural loneliness and its art treas
ures alike. But Amy thinks Capri
one-horse old dog hole, and refuses to
! stay another day after their first there;
and Charlotte has fallen in love with
! the Chiaja and the thronged streets,
| St. Elmo and the Bay of Baiae. and no
/ power which the mother drudge can
| WELD viii detach her. In fact. the
| mother does not attempt to WELD any
/ power at all, but drags on IN patient
| misery until such time as her FREEDOM
inant daughter announces that she has
! got through now, and feels like going
| tomorrow.
/ To us English women, who, in spite
! of our 'revolted daughters" and their
/ iil-judging advocates. look on youth as
I the time of submission and maternity
as the state of command, the FREEDOM
| finance of the American girl, her for
wardness, her selfshness, and her total
/ lack of all that we mean by girlish shy
ness or maidenlv modesty, are SO many
personal phenomena TO which we never
accustom ourselves to the point of in
| difference. They come as perpetual
| surprise-a strange revelation of man
ners-a kind of topsyturvydom of re-
| 1ations which always breaks upon us
with the same sense of ughness. We
wonder how the mother can accept
that hnmiliating position of superior
kind of upper servant, how she can
| consctentious1y minister to her daugh-
ter's selfishness by her own painful
subservience; how she does not see
! that in tins forfeiture of her natural
place and the authority she is bound to
exercise over her children lies no merit.
no grace of goodness, no shining ex-
ample of 'altruism," but that it is, ON
the contrary, the feeding of a fault
which it is her duy to prune and check
| the very creation of an immortality
! by her own weakness of consent. The
| American girl is not the ideal of her
sex. Her flirting may be in some sense
innocent, but it is too pronounced and
too evident for grace or beauty. Her
want of shyness may be less embar-
RAISING than the ''giggle, blush, half
| pertness and half-pout," Of the typical
| bread-and- butter miss, but il is none
| the less the aggressive side of sef-con-
| seriousness. She has lost the more dis
tinctive charms of callow youth with
out having come to the ripeness of ma
turity; and though later on she devel-
| opes into a charming woman, as a girl
| she is as undesirable as her young
| brother-thau whom the world holds
nothing more Objectionable
| We suffer many things from the
| travelling American, but all we suffer
elsewhere is as nothing compared TO
the affection of the travelling boy. His
/ loudness, his greediness, his uncOuth-
ness and insu bordinstion, his want of
the very elements of good-manners and
the-to us-criminal Indulgence and su-
! pineness of his parents-a0 make him
one of the most unbearable beings on
/ Gods earth. Yet here again we are
! bound TO say, that very fine and
charming man grows out Of this for
merly detestsble boy; and time seems
! to have some hand Of magic power by
which beauty is produced out of ugli-
! ness.
All our travelling America rs are not
I of the deteStable nor vet of the ridicu-
lous type Certainly, every now and
/ then we come across some rough home
spun successful operator or farmer,
who talks as the humorous books make
! an American talk, and by the quaint
. ness Of his diction and the nasal twaDg
and drawI we all know so well, excites
! a laugh the moment he opens his
/ mouth. But then he has such a fund
| of sound common sense and - so free
/ from the prejudices and red-tapeisn Of
the old world as TO be a noteworthy
companion. To be sure he shocks our
insular ideas OF fitness and t+sBlples
under foot our tender little flowers o.
caste and class respect. One OF them
and right good fello. he wes-ussd
10 lament the criSs-croSs action Of fate
( in that Your Beatrice was not mar
/ RED TO our Jimmy" That was what
should have been, and then we'd have
whipped creation" The two were
Princess Beatrice and James Gordon
Bennett The queen he always spoke