ver, may possibly form an exception.

The women of Switzerland are better-looking than those of France or
Germany, but beauty, or even extreme prettiness, is rare. Light,
flexible, graceful forms are quite uncommon. Large hands and feet are
met with everywhere, those of our women being miraculous in comparison.
But the same thing is true nearly all over the north of Europe. Even our
men--meaning the gentlemen--I think, might be remarked for the same
peculiarities in this part of the world. The English have absurd notions
on this subject, and I have often enjoyed a malicious pleasure in
bringing my own democratic paws and hoofs (no prodigies at home) in
contrast with their aristocratic members. Of course, the climate has
great influence on all these things.

I scarcely think the Swiss women of the mountains entitled to their
reputation for beauty. If strength, proportions on a scale that is
scarcely feminine, symmetry that is more anatomically than poetically
perfect, enter into the estimate, one certainly sees in some of the
cantons, female peasants who may be called fine women. I remember, in
1828, to have met one of these in the Grisons, near the upper end of the
valley of the Rhine. This woman had a form, carriage, and proportions
that would have made a magnificent duchess in a coronation procession;
but the face, though fresh and fair, did not correspond with the figure.
The women of our own mountains excel them altogether, being a more true
medium between strength and coarseness. Even Mrs. Trollope admits that
the American women (perhaps she ought to have said the girls) are the
most beautiful in the world, while they are the least interesting. Mrs.
Trollope has written a vast deal of nonsense, putting cockneyisms into
the mouths of Americans, and calling them Americanisms, but she has also
written a good many truths. I will not go as far as to say she was right
in the latter part of this charge; but if our girls would cultivate
neater and more elegant forms of expression; equally avoiding vulgar
oh's and ah's! and set phrases; be more careful not to drawl; and not to
open the mouth, so as to call "hot," "haut;" giggle less; speak lower;
have more calmness and more dignity of manner, and _think_ instead of
_pulsating_,--I would put them, for all in all, against any women in the
world. They lose half of these defects when they marry, as it is; but
the wisdom of Solomon would come to our ears with a diminished effect