The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1901-09-18
Some Remarks on the American
Girl.
By an Englishman.

by an ENSGSQIQdQ.
One hesitates to express sometimes
ones opinion on many of the great
questions and facts of life, and in this
case. when the fact is SO patent and
clear: when ones pen is poised with
a fine measure Of praise in it, yet we
halt, feeling we cannot deal out such
fair justice and rightful honor as tits
the present case.
In this vast country, where hun
dred miles is toy in. the sight of rail
roads, where the conditions and the
opportunities and the ceaseless press
ing toward the mark of higher civil
ization is dismayed at nothing, we
pause in reverence. For side by side
with the material development which
looks before and after with such care
ful eyes there is one thing which has
outstripped it, leaving it lost in the
receding distance.
In womanhood the American girl has
caused the eclipse Of nations. In
universe of great planets she has
arisen as another planet and the rest
are as little stars shedding bravely
their ftful little lights, their tiny
beams before greater radiance.
When we have counted out the sum
of human frailties and detected the
smallness Of our greatness and the
greatness of our smallness, too, as we
march through life with the steady
grace of an ever abiding dignity, we
can confess with an open and contrlte
heart that it is not manhood which
scars, but womanhood.
No country in the world possesses
such noble women as America. None
can show their equals in dauntless
character and in that fine freedom
and clear vision of what life is and
what it is not. The problem of sex
and the strong law of attraction lose
some Of its worse powers when the
artifciality, that laysits hand so heav-
lily in other countries, has been re-
moved. In many ways this artiiciality
is one of the worst evils posi- BILE. By
a snug hypocrisy it assures Us with
honied voice that "all is WE'LL but
beneath its breath is heworldly smile
which knows so many thlngs-the
bitter things that break down faith
and rend the wells of holy imaginlngs.
But here, where life moves on such
lusty wings, social conditions as is ma
tural feel the influence, the pomp and
the circumstance of it. And the law,
the righteous law. is that women are
not looked down upon as a pleasant
toy to pass away the shining hours.
but by the best men they are looked
up to. Such men realize they are
standing before the create presences
the great presences which can make
of life no snail and shallow thing, but
can mold it nearer to the hearts
desire.
Only in America is it possible to
achieve a great friendship between
man and woman, because every
woman has not that most foolish belief
that every man is possible husband.
The close companionship which is
practical invites the sympathy and
understanding that yield the rich har
vest of true comradeship with chat
precise touch Of reverence which a
man can render to woman, but
which is so rare between man and
man.
The inevitable difference which
exists in the temperaments of a man
and woman meet, not on the super
fetal ground built by the artificial for
mulas of other countries. but on that
serener ground where the winds blow
free and strong as summer breeze
on the levels of the Atlantic.
It is here where the clear, whole
some sanity Of the American girl
stands as goodly contrast to Others.
Not for her the maudlin neuroticism.
when, so to express it, the love nerves
are stricken with a morbidness that
marks one of the generation of degen-
crates, but the clean, healthy view of
life with commandments of her own,
for the crash of their breaking one
may listen without avail.
of things and the greatness with
which size uses her power, make her
not merely fit to be companions of
men, but leaders of them also. Exact
ly where the English girl fails she
rises triumphant by virtue of a finer
intuition of a deeper insight into the
meaning of things.
''Into the meaning of things.'
This is the revelation she sees: this
is what makes her the most attractive
and the most spiritual woman in
wide world, because it is that atten-
tive adjusting of the spiritual and the
physical which produces the most
beautiful of characters. 1t is the rec
ognition that after all the heart and
soul blending with fine accord can
make vaster music than one devoid of
the other: that we are all wondrous
kin in our humanity, but if we have
sorrows let them be noble and let our
joys be noble, to. To cross out false
emotion, to have no dealings with
common trivialities, this the Ameri-
can girl seems TO hold more strongly
than others.
TO those who love to run riot with
spurious opinions who love 10 rend
great country with studied invective.