You said they were like the courses of the seasons; one couldn't prevent them; also that to change the tone of your table you would have to change so many other things.Of course, in your house one never saw a young girl; I was the only spinster, and no one was afraid of me! Of course, too, if talk is more innocent in this country, manners are so, to begin with.The liberty of the young people is the strongest proof of it.The young girls are let loose in the world, and the world gets more good of it than ces demoiselles get harm.In your world--excuse me, but you know what Imean--this wouldn't do at all.Your world is a sad affair, and the young ladies would encounter all sorts of horrors.Over here, considering the way they knock about, they remain wonderfully simple, and the reason is that society protects them instead of setting them traps.There is almost no gallantry, as you understand it; the flirtations are child's play.People have no time for making love; the men, in particular, are extremely busy.I am told that sort of thing consumes hours; I have never had any time for it myself.If the leisure class should increase here considerably, there may possibly be a change; but I doubt it, for the women seem to me in all essentials exceedingly reserved.Great superficial frankness, but an extreme dread of complications.The men strike me as very good fellows.I think that at bottom they are better than the women, who are very subtle, but rather hard.They are not so nice to the men as the men are to them; I mean, of course, in proportion, you know.But women are not so nice as men, "anyhow,"as they say here.The men, of course, are professional, commercial;there are very few gentlemen pure and simple.This personage needs to be very well done, however, to be of great utility; and I suppose you won't pretend that he is always well done in your countries.
When he's not, the less of him the better.It's very much the same, however, with the system on which the young girls in this country are brought up.(You see, I have to come back to the young girls.)When it succeeds, they are the most charming possible; when it doesn't, the failure is disastrous.If a girl is a very nice girl, the American method brings her to great completeness--makes all her graces flower; but if she isn't nice, it makes her exceedingly disagreeable--elaborately and fatally perverts her.In a word, the American girl is rarely negative, and when she isn't a great success she is a great warning.In nineteen cases out of twenty, among the people who know how to live--I won't say what THEIR proportion is--the results are highly satisfactory.The girls are not shy, but Idon't know why they should be, for there is really nothing here to be afraid of.Manners are very gentle, very humane; the democratic system deprives people of weapons that every one doesn't equally possess.No one is formidable; no one is on stilts; no one has great pretensions or any recognised right to be arrogant.I think there is not much wickedness, and there is certainly less cruelty than with you.Every one can sit; no one is kept standing.One is much less liable to be snubbed, which you will say is a pity.Ithink it is to a certain extent; but, on the other hand, folly is less fatuous, in form, than in your countries; and as people generally have fewer revenges to take, there is less need of their being stamped on in advance.The general good nature, the social equality, deprive them of triumphs on the one hand, and of grievances on the other.There is extremely little impertinence;there is almost none.You will say I am describing a terrible society,--a society without great figures or great social prizes.
You have hit it, my dear; there are no great figures.(The great prize, of course, in Europe, is the opportunity to be a great figure.) You would miss these things a good deal,--you who delight to contemplate greatness; and my advice to you, of course, is never to come back.You would miss the small people even more than the great; every one is middle-sized, and you can never have that momentary sense of tallness which is so agreeable in Europe.There are no brilliant types; the most important people seem to lack dignity.They are very bourgeois; they make little jokes; on occasion they make puns; they have no form; they are too good-natured.The men have no style; the women, who are fidgety and talk too much, have it only in their coiffure, where they have it superabundantly.But I console myself with the greater bonhomie.
Have you ever arrived at an English country-house in the dusk of a winter's day? Have you ever made a call in London, when you knew nobody but the hostess? People here are more expressive, more demonstrative and it is a pleasure, when one comes back (if one happens, like me, to be no one in particular), to feel one's social value rise.They attend to you more; they have you on their mind;they talk to you; they listen to you.That is, the men do; the women listen very little--not enough.They interrupt; they talk too much; one feels their presence too much as a sound.I imagine it is partly because their wits are quick, and they think of a good many things to say; not that they always say such wonders.Perfect repose, after all, is not ALL self-control; it is also partly stupidity.American women, however, make too many vague exclamations--say too many indefinite things.In short, they have a great deal of nature.On the whole, I find very little affectation, though we shall probably have more as we improve.As yet, people haven't the assurance that carries those things off; they know too much about each other.The trouble is that over here we have all been brought up together.You will think this a picture of a dreadfully insipid society; but I hasten to add that it's not all so tame as that.I have been speaking of the people that one meets socially; and these are the smallest part of American life.The others--those one meets on a basis of mere convenience--are much more exciting; they keep one's temper in healthy exercise.I mean the people in the shops, and on the railroads; the servants, the hackmen, the labourers, every one of whom you buy anything or have occasion to make an inquiry.With them you need all your best manners, for you must always have enough for two.If you think we are TOO democratic, taste a little of American life in these walks, and you will be reassured.This is the region of inequality, and you will find plenty of people to make your courtesy to.You see it from below--the weight of inequality is on your own back.You asked me to tell you about prices; they are simply dreadful.