Rambles in Womanland Part 11

On no account, however, could I approve, or even forgive, a man who leaves a wife with whom life may have become as intolerable as you like without duly providing for her comfort, even if by so doing he should have nothing left for himself, and be obliged to start life afresh.

I do not admit that anyone, man or woman, has a right to shirk responsibilities imposed by solemn promises. Let them set this right first of all. After that, let them solve the problem of happiness as best they can.

No doubt there are drawbacks in holding royal honours, but I believe in the old motto, _n.o.blesse oblige_; and if _n.o.blesse_ does, surely royalty should. Royalty nowadays is not of much use, except when it gives to the people over which it rules the example of all virtues, of all domestic virtues especially.

When people are born in the purple, they are born with responsibilities.

If they fling them to the four winds of the earth, there is no use for royalty: the reason for its existence has ceased to exist.

CHAPTER XVIII

AMERICAN WOMEN IN PARIS

Every year in Paris, in springtime, we see the American women reappear with the regularity of the swallow. We expect them, we watch for their arrival, and we are delighted when we hear them say, with their singing voices, that they have come for our season, which begins in April and goes on till 'The Grand Prix' is run during the second week of June.

The American woman is not only received, but eagerly sought in our most aristocratic society. Her amiability and brilliancy have forced open the doors of our most exclusive mansions. She affords so much pleasure that she is indispensable. We are dull without her, because she is not only beautiful and a feast for the eyes, but she is bright, brilliant, witty, unconventional, and a feast for the mind. It is thanks to all these qualities, far more than to her dollars, that the American woman is to-day part and parcel of what is called 'Tout Paris.' And, indeed, there is no woman in the world so attractive as the fair daughter of Uncle Sam. Her physical, moral, and intellectual charms make her the most interesting woman one may wish to meet.

The English woman is very often beautiful. Her freshness is exquisite, her figure excellent when she knows how to enhance its beauty by well-made garments. She is, perhaps, beyond compet.i.tion when she is really beautiful, but her beauty is too often statuesque, and lacks l.u.s.tre and piquancy. The French woman is supple and graceful, but she is more fascinating by her manner, by her chic, than by the beauty of her complexion, the regularity of her features, and the proportions of her figure. The German is often fine, but generally heavy, compact, and lacking elegance.

The American woman is an altogether. She has the piquancy, the fascinating manner, the elegance, the grace, and the gait of the Parisienne; but, besides, she often possesses the eyes of a Spaniard, the proud figure of a Roman, and the delicate features of an English woman. If, during the Paris season, you walk in the Champs-Elysees district, where all the best Americans are settled, you will admire those women looking radiant with intelligence, cheerful, independent, who, you can see, have the consciousness of their value.

The education which she has received has developed all her faculties.

The liberty she always enjoyed, the constant attentions she has received from father, brother, husband, and all her male friends, have made her feel safe everywhere, and she goes about freely, with a firm step that stamps her American. Thanks to her finesse, her power of observation, her native adaptability, she can fit herself for every station of life.

If one day she finds herself mistress of the White House or Vice-Queen of India, she immediately feels at home. She may be ever so learned, she is never a pedant. She is, and remains, a woman in whose company a man feels at once at his ease; a sort of fascinating good fellow, with all the best attributes of womanhood; a little of a coquette, with a suspicion of a touch of blue-stocking--but so little. She loves dresses, and none puts them on better than she does. English women, even the most elegant ones at home, seldom favour us, when they visit us, but with all the worst frumps and frippery they can find in their wardrobe. The American women are considerate enough to try and do their best for us, and we appreciate the compliment. And thus they brighten our theatres, our promenades, our b.a.l.l.s and dinner-parties, our fashionable restaurants, and Paris, which loves them, could not now do without them.

CHAPTER XIX

WOMEN WHO WALK BEST

A few weeks ago I was watching the church parade in Hyde Park, London, between the statue of Achilles and Stanhope Gate, when I met an American lady of my acquaintance. We walked together for awhile, and then sat down in order to watch the fashionable crowd more closely.

It is said that, although Americans and Englishmen think a great deal of one another nowadays, you seldom hear American women praise the women of England, and more seldom still hear English women say a good word of American women.

So I was tickled to know what my American lady friend thought of the crowd that was performing before us, and I asked her to give me her impressions.

'Well,' she said, 'it is as good as, if not better than, anything that New York could produce. Possibly on some special occasion Fifth Avenue might turn out a few lovelier dresses, but the London average is above the New York average. You see fewer absolute failures here among the women, while the men are quite unapproachable--surely Londoners are the best-dressed men in the world.'

'And the New Yorkers the most brand-newly dressed men,' I interrupted.

'But you are right. I like to think that a coat has been worn just more than once. But please go on.'

'The days when the London girl was really badly dressed are dead and gone. We have educated her, we Americans, until she has all but reached our standard. Just think what the London shops were fifteen and even ten years ago! Something awful! But now I can buy in them everything I want just as easily as though I were in Paris or New York.

'I don't know whether the supply of pretty dresses and dainty _et ceteras_ made the demand, or whether it was the other way about, but, at any rate, there has been a change within the last decade that is almost a revolution. The London woman of to-day dresses quite as well as her sister across the Channel or the Atlantic.'

I was getting sadly disappointed, for my lady friend is a critic and a wit, and I was expecting a few amusing remarks on English women. So I ventured:

'So you think that now English women can obtain in London dresses just as pretty as women can in Paris and New York?

'Certainly,' she replied. 'Yet they never look so well, because, you see, when they get these pretty dresses, these poor English women don't know how to put them on. The English girl's education is not yet completed. She has not learned how to carry herself as we have in America, both at home and at school. You know the splendid air and prima donna effects that American women can bring off when they choose. These young English women have hardly a suspicion of them.

'In taste for the delicate things of dress the Londoner is now just about where she should be; but she has not yet learned how to wear a dress. A French woman or an American would make fifty per cent, more of it than the English woman knows how to do; and if this is to be remedied, English girls will first have to be taught how to walk and how to hold themselves.'

And no doubt my American friend had hit on the national defect of English women--their bad way of walking and holding themselves.

One's thoughts naturally fly to Spain, where every member of the feminine s.e.x, from the little girl of four to the old woman, who in England would be bent and tottering, knows how to carry herself as if she were a queen.

If it is true that this result is achieved by the Spanish custom of carrying everything on the head instead of on the back or in the hand, it is a pity the English do not make their girls begin at once to carry their school-satchels in a way that will make them hold their heads up instead of down, and accentuate gracefully their lines both behind and in front.

When I was in South Africa I invariably admired the manner in which the Kaffir and Zulu women walked and held themselves. On watching them I often exclaimed: 'If English women could only walk and carry themselves as these women do, with their pretty faces and figures, with their beautiful skin and complexion, they would have few rivals in the world.'

It is by walking barefooted and carrying everything on their heads that the women of Kaffirland and Zululand learn to walk so well, to hold their heads up, to bring their chests forward, to throw back their shoulders, and give to their gait that gentle swing which is so dainty and graceful.

American women obtain the same result by being drilled at school, for it is incontestable, and, I believe, incontested, that they are the best walking women, and also those who, with the Parisiennes, know best how to put on their dresses.

CHAPTER XX

WOMEN LIVE LONGER THAN MEN

h.e.l.ler, who has collected the greatest number of instances of extreme long life, found 1,000 persons who lived from 100 to 110, 60 from 110 to 120, 30 from 120 to 130, 15 from 130 to 140, 6 from 140 to 150, and one who lived to be 169 years of age.

French writes that from 1881 to 1890, in Ma.s.sachusetts, there were 203 deaths of persons past the age of 100. Of these 153 were women and 50 were men. Let us add that the parts of the world which have supplied, in proportion to their population, the greatest number of centenarians, are New England, Scotland, and Brittany.

All these centenarians, without exception, have been found among the humbler cla.s.ses, and most of them among peasants--that is to say, among the workers of the community who lead quiet, regular, and busy lives.

It is worthy of note that just those very principles which were laid down by the Founder of the Christian religion as best for the eternal welfare of the soul have been proved by the pa.s.sing years to be best for the body also.

It is not those who are clad in purple and fine linen and fare sumptuously every day who are strong enough to climb to the clear heights of a great age. Neither t.i.tles nor wealth keep the feet from wearying of the uphill path of life.

They who would have their days long in the land must honour their great mother, Nature. They must walk in her ways. Nature does not rejoice in sluggards, therefore they must work, and the more steadily they work the longer they live.

Men of thought have always been distinguished for their age. Solon, Sophocles, Pindar, Anacreon, and Xenophon were octogenarians. Kant, Buffon, Goethe, Fontenelle, and Newton were over eighty. Michael Angelo and t.i.tian were eighty-nine and ninety-nine respectively. Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, lived to be eighty.

Victor Hugo was over eighty. Gladstone, who worked every minute of his life, always in search of new subjects to master, and who took his recreation in bodily work--gardening, cutting down his trees--died at eighty-eight.

Sidney Cooper, the English animal painter, whose work of last year will be exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, this year, died at ninety-nine, practically with his brushes in his hands.

The preponderance of females over males in the matter of long life is a striking fact. It is also constant. All authorities agree in this, that more women than men live to be very old. The more fragile pitcher is not so soon broken at the fountain. Why?