grim, stolid, capable tenacity that means the inevitable defeat of any
nation so incredibly stupid as to defy her?

If word had come over that the British women were quite indifferent to
the war, were idle and frivolous and insensible to the clarion voice
of their indomitable country's needs, that, if you like, would have
made a sensation. But knowing the race as they did--and it is the only
race of which the genuine American does know anything--he, or she,
accepted the leaping bill of Britain's indebtedness to her brave and
easily expert women without comment, although, no doubt, with a glow
of vicarious pride.

But quite otherwise with the women of France. In the first place there
was little interest. They were, after all, foreigners. Your honest
dyed-in-the-wool American has about the same contemptuous tolerance
for foreigners that foreigners have for him. They are not Americans
(even after they immigrate and become naturalized), they do not speak
the same language in the same way, and all accents, save perhaps a
brogue, are offensive to an ear tuned to nasal rhythms and to the rich
divergencies from the normal standards of their own tongue that
distinguish different sections of this vast United States of America.

But the American mind is, after all, an open mind. Such generalities
as, "The Frenchwomen are quite wonderful," "are doing marvelous things
for their country during this war," that floated across the expensive
cable now and again, made little or no impression on any but those who
already knew their France and could be surprised at no resource or
energy she might display; but Owen Johnson and several other men with
whom he talked, including that ardent friend of France, Whitney
Warren, felt positive that if some American woman writer with a