somewhat hard and calculating young woman be a true picture of the
transatlantic maiden, we may sigh indeed for her lack of the _Ewig
Weibliche_. I do not pretend to say where M. Bourget's appreciation is
at fault, but that it is false--unaccountably false--in the general
impression it leaves, I have no manner of doubt. Perhaps his attention
has been fixed too exclusively on the Newport girl, who, it must again
be insisted on, is too much impregnated with cosmopolitan _fin de
siècle-ism_ to be taken as the American type. Botanise a flower, use
the strongest glasses you will, tear apart and name and analyse,--the
result is a catalogue, the flower with its beauty and perfume is not
there. So M. Bourget has catalogued the separate qualities of the
American woman; as a whole she has eluded his analysis. Perhaps this
chapter of his may be taken as an eminent illustration of the
limitations of the critical method, which is at times so illuminating,
while at times it so utterly fails to touch the heart of things, or,
better, the wholeness of things.

Among the most searching tests of the state of civilisation reached by
any country are the character of its roads, its minimising of noise,
and the position of its women. If the United States does not stand
very high on the application of the first two tests, its name
assuredly leads all the rest in the third. In no other country is the
legal status of women so high or so well secured, or their right to
follow an independent career so fully recognised by society at large.
In no other country is so much done to provide for their convenience
and comfort. All the professions are open to them, and the opportunity
has widely been made use of. Teaching, lecturing, journalism,
preaching, and the practice of medicine have long been recognised as
within woman's sphere, and she is by no means unknown at the bar.
There are eighty qualified lady doctors in Boston alone, and