ry, artistic, dramatic, social, or other. Indeed, it would be most
unbecoming for a man to start a very serious subject of conversation
with a French lady to whom he had just been introduced. He would be
taken for a pedant or a man of bad breeding.

In America, men and women receive practically the same education, and
this of course enlarges the circle of conversation between the sexes. I
shall always remember a beautiful American girl, not more than twenty
years of age, to whom I was once introduced in New York, as she was
giving to a lady sitting next to her a most detailed description of the
latest bonnet invented in Paris, and who, turning toward me, asked me
point-blank if I had read M. Ernest Renan's "History of the People of
Israel." I had to confess that I had not yet had time to read it. But
she had, and she gave me, without the remotest touch of affectation or
pedantry, a most interesting and learned analysis of that remarkable
work. I related this incident in "Jonathan and his Continent." On
reading it, some of my countrymen, critics and others, exclaimed: "We
imagine the fair American girl had a pair of gold spectacles on."

"No, my dear compatriots, nothing of the sort. No gold spectacles, no
guy. It was a beautiful girl, dressed with most exquisite taste and
care, and most charming and womanly."

An American woman, however learned she may be, is a sound politician,
and she knows that the best thing she can make of herself is a woman,
and she remains a woman. She will always make herself as attractive as
she possibly can. Not to please men--I believe she has a great contempt
for them--but to please herself. If, in a French drawing-room, I were to
remark to a lady how clever some woman in the room looked, she would
probably closely examine that woman's dress to find out what I thought
was wrong about it. It would probably be the same in England, but not
in America.

A Frenchwoman will seldom be jealous of another woman's cleverness. She
will far more readily forgive her this qualification than beauty. And in
this particular point, it is probable that the Frenchwoman resembles all
the women in the Old World.

* * * * *

Of all the ladies I have met, I have no hesitation in declaring that the
American ones are the least affected. With them, I repeat it, I feel at
ease as I do with no other women in the world.

With whom but an _Americaine_ would the following little scene