deterioration; if he is of an open and susceptible mind, he may even
come to the conclusion that he prefers the transatlantic type!

Unless his lines in England have lain in _very_ pleasant places, the
intelligent Englishman in enjoying his first experience of
transatlantic society will assuredly be struck by the sprightliness,
the variety, the fearless individuality of the American girl, by her
power of repartee, by the quaint appositeness of her expressions, by
the variety of her interests, by the absence of undue deference to his
masculine dignity. If in his newly landed innocence he ventures to
compliment the girl he talks with on the purity of her English, and
assumes that she differs in that respect from her companions, she will
patriotically repel the suggested accusation of her countrywomen by
assuring him, without the ghost of a smile, "that she has had special
advantages, inasmuch as an English missionary had been stationed near
her tribe." If she prefers Martin Tupper to Shakespeare, or Strauss to
Beethoven, she will say so without a tremor. Why should she
hypocritically subordinate her personal instincts to a general theory
of taste? Her independence is visible in her very dress; she wears
what she thinks suits her (and her taste is seldom at fault), not
merely what happens to be the fashionable freak of the moment. What
Englishman does not shudder when he remembers how each of his
womankind--the comely and the homely, the short and the long, the
stout and the lean--at once assumed the latest form of hat, apparently
utterly oblivious to the question of whether it suited her special
style of beauty or not? Now, an American girl is not built that way.
She wishes to be in the fashion just as much as she can; but if a
special item of fashion does not set her off to advantage, she
gracefully and courageously resigns it to those who can wear it with
profit. But honour where honour is due! The English girl generally