LIX. A Foreign Table D'H"te, and Casino Life Abroad ... 480




MANNERS AND SOCIAL USAGES.

CHAPTER I.
WOMEN AS LEADERS.

Nothing strikes the foreigner so much (since the days of De
Tocqueville, the first to mention it) as the prominent position of
woman in the best society of America. She has almost no position
in the political world. She is not a leader, an _intrigante_ in
politics, as she is in France. We have no Madame de Stael, no
Princess Belgioso, here to make and unmake our Presidents; but
women do all the social work, which in Europe is done not only by
women, but by young bachelors and old ones, statesmen, princes,
ambassadors, and _attaches_. Officials are connected with every
court whose business it is to visit, write and answer invitations,
leave cards, call, and perform all the multifarious duties of the
social world.

In America, the lady of the house does all this. Her men are all
in business or in pleasure, her sons are at work or off yachting.
They cannot spend time to make their dinner calls--"Mamma, please
leave my cards" is the legend written on their banners.

Thus to women, as the conductors of social politics, is committed
the card--that pasteboard protocol, whose laws are well defined