these underlying muliebral qualities more than counterbalances to not a
few Europeans the undoubted vivacity, originality, and freshness of the
American woman. She is a dainty bit of porcelain, unsuited for use; a
delicate exotic blossom, for drawing-room decoration, where many would
prefer robust fruit-bearing faculties.

I dropped into the Opera House here at Nice the other night, and found
they were playing "Carmen"--which is always interesting. Well, you may
perhaps remember that when that creature of passion, the gipsy heroine,
wishes to gain or retain a man's affections, she throws a rose at him,
and then he cannot resist her. That is Mérimée's symbolism. Art is full
of these sacrifices of realism to reticence. Outside the opera, it is
not with roses that women enslave us. But the American duchess relies
entirely upon the use of the rose; and that is just where she fails to
interest so many of us in Europe.

And now I think it's almost time for me to go and hunt up the material
arguments for that rusty six-shooter.




VI.

_IS ENGLAND PLAYED OUT?_


Britain is now the centre of civilisation. Will it always be so? Is our
commercial supremacy decaying or not? Have we begun to reach the period
of inevitable decline? Or is decline indeed inevitable at all? Might a