instantly returns the compliment with interest. In point of fact, he
usually falls in love with her. Of course I admit the large number of
concomitant circumstances which disturb the problem; I admit on the one
hand the tempting shekels of the Californian heiress, and on the other
hand the glamour and halo that still surround the British coronet.
Nevertheless, after making all deductions for these disturbing factors,
I submit there remains a residual phenomenon thus best interpreted. If
anybody denies it, I would ask him one question--how does it come that
so many Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Italians marry American women, while
so few Englishwomen, French women, or Italian women marry American men?
Surely the American men have also the shekels; surely it is something
even in Oregon or Montana to have inspired an honourable passion in a
Lady Elizabeth or a dowager countess. I think the true explanation is
that our men are attracted by American women, but our women are not
equally attracted by American men, and that the quality of the articles
has something to do with it.

The American duchess, I take it, comes over to Europe, and desires
incontinently to drag the European duke at the wheels of her chariot.
And the European duke is fascinated in turn, partly by this very fact,
partly by the undeniable freshness, brightness, and delicate culture of
the American woman. For there is no burking the truth that in many
respects the American woman carries about her a peculiar charm ungranted
as yet to her European sisters. It is the charm of freedom, of ease, of
a certain external and skin-deep emancipation--an emancipation which
goes but a little way down, yet adds a quaint and piquant grace of
manner. What she conspicuously lacks, on the other hand, is essential
femininity; by which I don't mean womanliness--of that she has enough
and to spare--but the wholesome physical and instinctive qualities which
go to make up a sound and well-equipped wife and mother. The lack of