appear a remark uncomplimentary to the American wife. It is nothing
of the sort. It is the other way about. We, in Europe, have plenty
of opportunity of judging the American wife. In America you hear of
the American wife, you are told stories about the American wife, you
see her portrait in the illustrated journals. By searching under the
heading "Foreign Intelligence," you can find out what she is doing.
But here in Europe we know her, meet her face to face, talk to her,
flirt with her. She is charming, delightful. That is why I say I am
glad I am not an American husband. If the American husband only knew
how nice was the American wife, he would sell his business and come
over here, where now and then he could see her.

Years ago, when I first began to travel about Europe, I argued to
myself that America must be a deadly place to live in. How sad it
is, I thought to myself, to meet thus, wherever one goes, American
widows by the thousand. In one narrow by-street of Dresden I
calculated fourteen American mothers, possessing nine-and-twenty
American children, and not a father among them--not a single husband
among the whole fourteen. I pictured fourteen lonely graves,
scattered over the United States. I saw as in a vision those
fourteen head-stones of best material, hand-carved, recording the
virtues of those fourteen dead and buried husbands.

Odd, thought I to myself, decidedly odd. These American husbands,
they must be a delicate type of humanity. The wonder is their
mothers ever reared them. They marry fine girls, the majority of
them; two or three sweet children are born to them, and after that
there appears to be no further use for them, as far as this world is
concerned. Can nothing be done to strengthen their constitutions?
Would a tonic be of any help to them? Not the customary tonic, I