Beautifully as the women dress, they talk very little about clothes. I
was much struck by their culture--by the evidences that they had read
far more and developed a more fastidious taste than most young
Englishwomen. Yet it is all mixed up with extraordinary naivete. The
vivacity, the appearance, at least, of _reality_, the animation, the
energy of American women delighted me. They are very sympathetic, too,
in spite of a certain callousness which comes of regarding everything in
life, even love, as "lots of fun." I did not think that they, or the men
either, had much natural sense of beauty. They admire beauty in a
curious way through their intellect. Nearly every American girl has a
cast of the winged Victory of the Louvre in her room. She makes it a
point of her _education_ to admire it.
There! I am beginning to generalize--the very thing I was resolute to
avoid. How silly to generalize about a country which embraces such
extremes of climate as the sharp winters of Boston and New York and the
warm winds of Florida which blow through palms and orange groves!
XII
SOME LIKES AND DISLIKES
It is only human to make comparisons between American and English
institutions, although they are likely to turn out as odious as the
proverb says! The first institution in America that distressed me was
the steam heat.
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