his position made it necessary for him to have a stall and appear
there nightly among the men of his rank, the astonished and
disillusioned Bostonian remaining at home EN TETE-A-TETE with the
women of his family, who seemed to think this the most natural
arrangement in the world.

It certainly is astonishing that we, the most patriotic of nations,
with such high opinion of ourselves and our institutions, should be
so ready to hand over our daughters and our ducats to the first
foreigner who asks for them, often requiring less information about
him than we should consider necessary before buying a horse or a
dog.

Women of no other nation have this mania for espousing aliens.
Nowhere else would a girl with a large fortune dream of marrying
out of her country. Her highest ideal of a husband would be a man
of her own kin. It is the rarest thing in the world to find a
well-born French, Spanish, or Italian woman married to a foreigner
and living away from her country. How can a woman expect to be
happy separated from all the ties and traditions of her youth? If
she is taken abroad young, she may still hope to replace her
friends as is often done. But the real reason of unhappiness
(greater and deeper than this) lies in the fundamental difference
of the whole social structure between our country and that of her
adoption, and the radically different way of looking at every side
of life.

Surely a girl must feel that a man who allows a marriage to be
arranged for him (and only signs the contact because its pecuniary
clauses are to his satisfaction, and who would withdraw in a moment