British sister, nor a more profound thinker; but her mind is
indisputably more agile and elastic. In fact, a slow-going Britisher
has to go through a regular course of training before he can follow
the rapid transitions of her train of associations. She has the
happiest faculty in getting at another's point of view and in putting
herself in his place. Her imagination is more likely to be over-active
than too sluggish. One of the most popular classes of the "Society for
the Encouragement of Study at Home" is that devoted to imaginary
travels in Europe. She is wonderfully adaptable, and makes herself at
ease in an entirely strange _milieu_ almost before the transition is
complete. Both M. Blouët and M. Bourget notice this, and claim that it
is a quality she shares with the Frenchwoman. The wife of a recent
President is a stock illustration of it--a girl who was transferred in
a moment from what we should call a quiet "middle-class" existence to
the apex of publicity, and comported herself in the most trying
situations with the ease, dignity, unconsciousness, taste, and
graciousness of a born princess.
The innocence of the American girl is neither an affectation, nor a
prejudiced fable, nor a piece of stupidity. The German woman, quoted
by Mr. Bryce, found her American compeer _furchtbar frei_, but she had
at once to add _und furchtbar fromm_. "The innocence of the American
girl passes abysses of obscenity without stain or knowledge." She may
be perfectly able to hold her own under any circumstances, but she has
little of that detestable quality which we call "knowing." The
immortal Daisy Miller is a charming illustration of this. I used
sometimes to get into trouble with American ladies, who "hoped I did
not take Daisy Miller as a type of the average American girl," by
assuring them that "I did not--that I thought her much too good for
that." And in truth there seemed to me a lack of subtlety in the
current appreciation of the charming young lady from Schenectady, who
is much _finer_ than many readers give her credit for. And on this
point I think I may cite Mr. Henry James himself as a witness on my
side, since, in a dramatic version of the tale published in the
_Atlantic Monthly_ (Vol. 51, 1883), he makes his immaculate Bostonian,
Mr. Winterbourne, marry Daisy with a full consciousness of all she was
and had been. As I understand her, Miss Daisy Miller, in spite of her
somewhat unpropitious early surroundings, was a young woman entirely
able to appreciate the very best when she met it. She at once
recognised the superiority of Winterbourne to the men she had hitherto
known, and she also recognised that her "style" was not the "style" of
him or of his associates. But she was very young, and had all the
unreasonable pride of extreme youth; and so she determined not to
alter her behaviour one jot or tittle in order to attract him--nay,
with a sort of bravado, she exaggerated those very traits which she
knew he disliked. Yet all the time she had the highest appreciation of
his most delicate refinements, while she felt also that he ought to
see that at bottom she was just as refined as he, though her outward
mask was not so elegant. I have no doubt whatever that, as Mrs.
Winterbourne, she adapted herself to her new _milieu_ with absolute
success, and yet without loss of her own most fascinating
individuality.[8]
The whole atmosphere of the country tends to preserve the spirit of
unsuspecting innocence in the American maiden. The function of a
chaperon is very differently interpreted in the United States and in
England. On one occasion I met in a Pullman car a young lady
travelling in charge of her governess. A chance conversation elicited
the fact that she was the daughter of a well-known New York banker;
and the fact that we had some mutual acquaintances was accepted as
all-sufficing credentials for my respectability. We had happened to
fix on the same hotel at our destination; and in the evening, after
dinner, I met in the corridor the staid and severe-looking
_gouvernante_, who saluted me with "Oh, Mr. Muirhead, I have such a
headache! Would you mind going out with my little girl while she makes
some purchases?" I was a little taken aback at first; but a moment's
reflection convinced me that I had just experienced a most striking
tribute to the honour of the American man and the social atmosphere of
the United States.
The psychological method of suggestive criticism has, perhaps, never
been applied with more delicacy of intelligence than in M. Bourget's
chapter on the American woman. Each stroke of the pen, or rather each
turn of the scalpel, amazes us by its keen penetration. As we at last
close the book and meditate on what we have read, it is little by
little borne in upon us that though due tribute is paid to the
charming traits of the American woman, yet the general outcome of M.
Bourget's analysis is truly damnatory. If this sprightly, fascinating,
somewhat hard and calculating young woman be a true picture of the
transatlantic maiden, we may sigh indeed for her lack of the _Ewig
Weibliche_. I do not pretend to say where M. Bourget's appreciation is
at fault, but that it is false--unaccountably false--in the general
impression it leaves, I have no manner of doubt. Perhaps his attention
has been fixed too exclusively on the Newport girl, who, it must again
be insisted on, is too much impregnated with cosmopolitan _fin de
siècle-ism_ to be taken as the American type. Botanise a flower, use
the strongest glasses you will, tear apart and name and analyse,--the
result is a catalogue, the flower with its beauty and perfume is not
there. So M. Bourget has catalogued the separate qualities of the
American woman; as a whole she has eluded his analysis. Perhaps this
chapter of his may be taken as an eminent illustration of the
limitations of the critical method, which is at times so illuminating,
while at times it so utterly fails to touch the heart of things, or,
better, the wholeness of things.
Among the most searching tests of the state of civilisation reached by
any country are the character of its roads, its minimising of noise,
and the position of its women. If the United States does not stand
very high on the application of the first two tests, its name
assuredly leads all the rest in the third. In no other country is the
legal status of women so high or so well secured, or their right to
follow an independent career so fully recognised by society at large.
In no other country is so much done to provide for their convenience
and comfort. All the professions are open to them, and the opportunity
has widely been made use of. Teaching, lecturing, journalism,
preaching, and the practice of medicine have long been recognised as
within woman's sphere, and she is by no means unknown at the bar.
There are eighty qualified lady doctors in Boston alone, and
twenty-five lady lawyers in Chicago. A business card before me as I
write reads, "Mesdames Foster & Steuart, Members of the Cotton
Exchange and Board of Trade, Real Estate and Stock Brokers, 143 Main
Street, Houston, Texas." The American woman, however, is often found
in still more unexpected occupations. There are numbers of women
dentists, barbers, and livery-stable keepers. Miss Emily Faithful saw
a railway pointswoman in Georgia; and one of the regular steamers on
Lake Champlain, when I was there, was successfully steered by a pilot
in petticoats. There is one profession that is closed to women in the
United States--that of barmaid. That professional association of woman
with man when he is apt to be in his most animal moods is firmly
tabooed in America--all honour to it!
The career of a lady whose acquaintance I made in New York, and whom I
shall call Miss Undereast, illustrates the possibilities open to the
American girl. Born in Iowa, Miss Undereast lost her mother when she
was three years old, and spent her early childhood in company with her
father, who was a travelling geologist and mining prospector. She
could ride almost before she could walk, and soon became an expert
shot. Once, when only ten years of age, she shot down an Indian who
was in the act of killing a white woman with his tomahawk; and on
another occasion, when her father's camp was surrounded by hostile
Indians, she galloped out upon her pony and brought relief. "She was
so much at home with the shy, wild creatures of the woods that she
learned their calls, and they would come to her like so many domestic
birds and animals. She would come into camp with wild birds and
squirrels on her shoulder. She could lasso a steer with the best of
them. When, at last, she went to graduate at the State University of
Colorado, she paid for her last year's tuition with the proceeds of
her own herd of cattle." After graduating at Colorado State
University, she took a full course in a commercial college, and then
taught school for some time at Denver. Later she studied and taught
music, for which she had a marked gift. The next important step
brought her to New York, where she gained in a competitive examination
the position of secretary in the office of the Street Cleaning
Department. Her linguistic accomplishments (for she had studied
several foreign languages) stood her in good stead, and during the
illness of her chief she practically managed the department and
"bossed" fifteen hundred Italian labourers in their own tongue. Miss
Undereast carried on her musical studies far enough to be offered a
position in an operatic company, while her linguistic studies
qualified her for the post of United States Custom House Inspectress.
Latterly she has devoted her time mainly to journalism and literature,
producing, _inter alia_, a guidebook to New York, a novel, and a
volume of essays on social topics. It is a little difficult to realise
when talking with the accomplished and womanly _littérateur_ that she
has been in her day a slayer of Indians and "a mighty huntress before
the Lord;" but both the facts and the opportunities underlying them
testify in the most striking manner to the largeness of the sphere of
action open to the _puella Americana_.
If American women have been well treated by their men-folk, they have
nobly discharged their debt. It is trite to refer to the numerous
schemes of philanthropy in which American women have played so
prominent a part, to allude to the fact that they have as a body used
their leisure to cultivate those arts and graces of life which the
preoccupation of man has led him too often to neglect. This chapter
may well close with the words of Professor Bryce: "No country seems to
owe more to its women than America does, nor to owe to them so much of
what is best in its social institutions and in the beliefs that govern
conduct."
FOOTNOTES:
[8] Since writing the above I have learned that Mr. W.D. Howells has
written of "Daisy Miller" in a similar vein, speaking of her
"indestructible innocence and her invulnerable new-worldliness." "It
was so plain that Mr. James disliked her vulgar conditions that the
very people to whom he revealed her essential sweetness and light were
furious that he should have seemed not to see what existed through
him."
V
The American Child
The United States has sometimes been called the "Paradise of Women;"
from the child's point of view it might equally well he termed the
"Paradise of Children," though the thoughtful observer might be
inclined to qualify the title by the prefix "Fool's." Nowhere is the
child so constantly in evidence; nowhere are his wishes so carefully
consulted; nowhere is he allowed to make his mark so strongly on
society in general. The difference begins at the very moment of his
birth, or indeed even sooner. As much fuss is made over each young
republican as if he were the heir to a long line of kings; his
swaddling clothes might make a ducal infant jealous; the family
physician thinks $100 or $150 a moderate fee for ushering him into the
light of day. Ordinary milk is not good enough for him; _sterilised_
milk will hardly do; "_modified_" milk alone is considered fit for
this democratic suckling. Even the father is expected to spend hours
in patient consultation over his food, his dress, his teething-rings,
and his outgoing. He is weighed daily, and his nourishment is changed
at once if he is a fraction either behind or ahead of what is deemed a
normal and healthy rate of growth. American writers on the care of
children give directions for the use of the most complex and
time-devouring devices for the proper preparation of their food, and
seem really to expect that mamma and nurse will go through with the
prescribed juggling with pots and pans, cylinders and lamps.
A little later the importance of the American child is just as
evident, though it takes on different forms. The small American seems
to consider himself the father of the man in a way never contemplated
by the poet. He interrupts the conversation of his elders, he has a
voice in every matter, he eats and drinks what seems good to him, he
(or at any rate _she_) wears finger-rings of price, he has no shyness
or even modesty. The theory of the equality of man is rampant in the
nursery (though I use this word only in its conventional and
figurative sense, for American children do not confine themselves to
their nurseries). You will actually hear an American mother say of a
child of two or three years of age: "I can't _induce_ him to do this;"
"She _won't_ go to bed when I tell her;" "She _will_ eat that lemon
pie, though I _know_ it is bad for her." Even the public authorities
seem to recognise the inherent right of the American child to have his
own way, as the following paragraph from the New York _Herald_ of
April 8, 1896, will testify:
WASHINGTON, April 7.--The lawn in front of the White
House this morning was littered with paper bags, the dyed shells
of eggs, and the remains of Easter luncheon baskets. It is said
that a large part of the lawn must be resodded. The children,
shut out from their usual romp in the grounds at the back of the
mansion, made their way into the front when the sun came out in
the afternoon, and gambolled about at will, to the great injury
of the rain-soaked turf.
The police stationed in the grounds _vainly endeavored to
persuade the youngsters to go away_, and were finally successful
only through pretending to be about to close all the gates for
the night.
It is, perhaps, superfluous to say that this kind of bringing up
hardly tends to make the American child an attractive object to the
stranger from without. On the contrary, it is very apt to make the
said stranger long strenuously to spank these budding citizens of a
free republic, and to send them to bed _instanter_. So much of what I
want to say on this topic has been well said by my brother Findlay
Muirhead in an article on "The American Small Boy," contributed to the
_St. James's Gazette_, that I venture to quote the bulk of that
article below.
The American Small Boy
The American small boy is represented in history by the youthful
George Washington, who suffered through his inability to invent a
plausible fiction, and by Benjamin Franklin, whose abnormal
simplicity in the purchase of musical instruments has become
proverbial. But history is not taken down in shorthand as it
occurs, and it sometimes lags a little. The modern American small
boy is a vastly different being from either of these
transatlantic worthies; at all events his most prominent
characteristics, as they strike a stranger, are not illustrated
in the earlier period of their career.
The peculiarities of young America would, indeed, matter but
little to the stranger if young America stayed at home. But young
America does not stay at home. It is not necessary to track the
American small boy to his native haunts in order to see what he
is like. He is very much in evidence even on this side the
Atlantic. At certain seasons he circulates in Europe with the
facility of the British sovereign; for the American nation
cherishes the true nomadic habit of travelling in families, and
the small boy is not left behind. He abounds in Paris; he is
common in Italy; and he is a drug in Switzerland. He is an
element to be allowed for by all who make the Grand Tour, for his
voice is heard in every land. On the Continent, during the
season, no first-class hotel can be said to be complete without
its American family, including the small boy. He does not,
indeed, appear to "come off" to his full extent in this country,
but in all Continental resorts he is a small boy that may be
felt, as probably our fellow-countrymen all over Europe are now
discovering.
There is little use in attempting to disguise the fact that the
subject of the present paper is distinctly disagreeable. There is
little beauty in him that we should desire him. He is not only
restless himself, but he is the cause of restlessness in others.
He has no respect even for the quiescent evening hour, devoted to
cigarettes on the terrace after _table d'hôte_, and he is not to
be overawed by a look. It is a constant source of wonder to the
thoughtfully inclined how the American man is evolved from the
American boy; it is a problem much more knotty than the
difficulty concerning apple-dumplings which so perplexed "Farmer
George." No one need desire a pleasanter travelling companion
than the American man; it is impossible to imagine a more
disagreeable one than the American boy.
The American small boy is precocious; but it is not with the
erudite precocity of the German Heinecken, who at three years of
age was intimately acquainted with history and geography ancient
and modern, sacred and profane, besides being able to converse
fluently in Latin, French, and German. We know, of course, that
each of the twenty-two Presidents of the United States gave such
lively promise in his youth that twenty-two aged friends of the
twenty-two families, without any collusion, placed their hands
upon the youthful heads, prophesying their future eminence. But
even this remarkable coincidence does not affect the fact that
the precocity of the average transatlantic boy is not generally
in the most useful branches of knowledge, but rather in the
direction of habits, tastes, and opinion. He is not, however,
evenly precocious. He unites a taste for jewelry with a passion
for candy. He combines a penetration into the motives of others
with an infantile indifference to exposing them at inconvenient
times. He has an adult decision in his wishes, but he has a
youthful shamelessness in seeking their fulfilment. One of his
most exasperating peculiarities is the manner in which he
querulously harps upon the single string of his wants. He sits
down before the refusal of his mother and shrilly besieges it. He
does not desist for company. He does not wish to behave well
before strangers. He desires to have his wish granted; and he
knows he will probably be allowed to succeed if he insists before
strangers. He is distinguished by a brutal frankness, combined
with a cynical disregard for all feminine ruses. He not seldom
calls up the blush of shame to the cheek of scheming innocence;
and he frequently crucifies his female relatives. He is generally
an adept in discovering what will most annoy his family circle;
and he is perfectly unscrupulous in avenging himself for all
injuries, of which he receives, in his own opinion, a large
number. He has an accurate memory for all promises made to his
advantage, and he is relentless in exacting payment to the
uttermost farthing. He not seldom displays a singular ingenuity
in interpreting ambiguous terms for his own behoof. A youth of
this kind is reported to have demanded (and received) eight
apples from his mother, who had bribed him to temporary
stillness by the promise of a few of that fruit, his ground being
that the Scriptures contained the sentence, "Wherein few, that
is, eight, souls were saved by water."
The American small boy is possessed, moreover, of a well-nigh
invincible _aplomb_. He is not impertinent, for it never enters
into his head to take up the position of protesting inferiority
which impertinence implies. He merely takes things as they come,
and does not hesitate to express his opinion of them. An American
young gentleman of the mature age of ten was one day overtaken by
a fault. His father, more in sorrow than in anger, expressed his
displeasure. "What am I to do with you, Tommy? What am I to do
with you?" "I have no suggestions to offer, sir," was the
response of Tommy, thus appealed to. Even in trying
circumstances, even when serious misfortune overtakes the
youthful American, his _aplomb_, his confidence in his own
opinion, does not wholly forsake him. Such a one was found
weeping in the street. On being asked the cause of his tears, he
sobbed out in mingled alarm and indignation: "I'm lost; mammy's
lost me; I _told_ the darned thing she'd lose me." The
recognition of his own liability to be lost, and at the same time
the recognition of his own superior wisdom, are exquisitely
characteristic. They would be quite incongruous in the son of any
other soil. In his intercourse with strangers this feeling
exhibits itself in the complete self-possession and _sang-froid_
of the youthful citizen of the Western Republic. He scorns to own
a curiosity which he dare not openly seek to satisfy by direct
questions, and he puts his questions accordingly on all subjects,
even the most private and even in the case of the most reverend
strangers. He is perfectly free in his remarks upon all that
strikes him as strange or reprehensible in any one's personal
appearance or behaviour; and he never dreams that his victims
might prefer not to be criticised in public. But he is quick to
resent criticism on himself, and he shows the most perverted
ingenuity in embroiling with his family any outsider who may
rashly attempt to restrain his ebullitions. He is, in fact, like
the Scottish thistle: no one may meddle with him with impunity.
It is better to "never mind him," as one of the evils under the
sun for which there is no remedy.
Probably this development of the American small boys is due in
great measure to the absorption of their fathers in business,
which necessarily surrenders the former to a too undiluted
"regiment of women." For though Thackeray is unquestionably right
in estimating highly the influence of refined feminine society
upon youths and young men, there is no doubt that a small boy is
all the better for contact with some one whose physical prowess
commands his respect. Some allowance must also be made for the
peevishness of boys condemned to prolonged railway journeys, and
to the confinement of hotel life in cities and scenes in which
they are not old enough to take an interest. They would,
doubtless, be more genial if they were left behind at school.
The American boy has no monopoly of the characteristics under
consideration. His little sister is often his equal in all
departments. Miss Marryat tells of a little girl of five who appeared
alone in the _table d'hôte_ room of a large and fashionable hotel,
ordered a copious and variegated breakfast, and silenced the timorous
misgivings of the waiter with "I guess I pay my way." At another hotel
I heard a similar little minx, in a fit of infantile rage, address her
mother as "You nasty, mean, old crosspatch;" and the latter, who in
other respects seemed a very sensible and intelligent woman, yielded
to the storm, and had no words of rebuke. I am afraid it was a little
boy who in the same way called his father a "black-eyed old skunk;"
but it might just as well have been a girl.
While not asserting that all American children are of this brand, I do
maintain that the sketch is fairly typical of a very large
class--perhaps of all except those of exceptionally firm and sensible
parents. The strangest thing about the matter is, however, that the
fruit does not by any means correspond to the seed; the wind is sown,
but the whirlwind is not reaped. The unendurable child does not
necessarily become an intolerable man. By some mysterious chemistry of
the American atmosphere, social or otherwise, the horrid little minx
blossoms out into a charming and womanly girl, with just enough of
independence to make her piquant; the cross and dyspeptic little boy
becomes a courteous and amiable man. Some sort of a moral miracle
seems to take place about the age of fourteen or fifteen; a violent
dislocation interrupts the natural continuity of progress; and,
presto! out springs a new creature from the modern cauldron of Medea.