The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 2, Harry Furniss [affordable ebook reader txt] 📗
- Author: Harry Furniss
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When you are introduced to an Englishman he invariably invites you to eat something. "You must come and dine with us quietly at home, don't-cher-know," or "I must rig up a dinner for you at the club some night," &c. A Scotchman suggests your drinking something—urges upon you the claims of the Mountain Dew; a Frenchman wishes at once to show you something, the Bois de Boulogne or the Arc de Triomphe; a German desires you to smoke something; an Italian to buy something; and an Australian to kill something, but an American wants an opinion "right away."
"Waal, sur, what do you think of our gre—e—eat country? What do you think of this wonderful city? What do you think of the Amurrican gurl?"
This latter is a question which one is asked in the States morning, noon, and night.
To endeavour to effect a compromise by admitting that she is quite as charming as the English girl, as pretty—though of[Pg 102] course of a different type—still equally charming, is a waste of time. You will be met with the commonplace "Get out!" and an added enquiry, "Now don't you think she's just the most fascinating and lovely creature on this earth, and by comparison with your English girls ain't she just sweet?"
A WASHINGTON LADY.
[Pg 103]
My own tactics were simple—I hedged.
"Well, you see," I replied to a question similar to the above, "I have met but few as yet of your representative American girls. To be sure, I have seen your cosmopolitan New York beauty, your Washington diplomat, and your Chicago daughter of Boom, and so on; but there are yet many fields of beauty unexplored, and I prefer to withhold my opinion till I have had an opportunity of judging from further experience. I am quite prepared to admit, however, that the general impression made upon an observant Englishman is that American ladies dress better than does the average Englishwoman; or, at any rate, carry themselves with more grace, and thus show off their gowns to greater advantage."
"Correct! That is absolutely true," said a lady to me in Washington, after I had delivered myself of the above stereotyped remark. "Your English girls have awful figures, and they know absolutely nothing about putting on their gowns. Why, my dressmaker in London—the very best—made me laugh till I was nearly sick, by describing to me the stupidity of her English customers. She declares that she positively has to pin on a new dress when sending it home, a label stating: 'This is the front'; and one day, when she omitted this precaution, she had a riding-habit returned with the complaint that it did not 'set' correctly. The lady had put it on wrong side foremost." This was told me in all seriousness by one of the brightest and most intelligent ladies I met during my stay in America, who, I am quite sure, was firmly convinced of the truth of the statement made by the dressmaker.
It happened that one day I had been hard at work in my rooms at the hotel, and as the daylight failed, before turning on the unrestful electric light, I lit a cigarette and threw myself into the rocking-chair to enjoy a peaceful quarter of an hour, when a knock came to the door and a card was brought to me, "Miss Liza Prettyville Simmerman, the Examiner."
Another interviewer! Had the card been Patrick McKee O'Fleister, the Examiner might disappear with the setting sun for aught I cared, but the name struck me as being pretty (lady[Pg 104] interviewers generally have pretty names). It occurred to me that it would be interesting to see if the name fitted the owner, so I said I would see her.
It fitted. "Sorry to disturb you," with a delightful accent and musical voice. A pretty interviewer! A pretty American girl with a musical voice! A rara avis.
I ordered up tea for two.
"You know, sir, what I am going to ask you. What do you think of the American girl?"
"That," I said, "I'll tell you on one condition, Miss Simmerman, that you first tell me what you think of her yourself."
"Ah!" she replied, with a laugh, "that is not so easy a task—we do not see ourselves as others see us."
A LADY INTERVIEWER.
"No, Miss Simmerman, and even when one listens to strangers, or reads their impressions, one is apt to form a wrong estimate of oneself. Let me therefore change the question, and ask, what do you think of the English girl?"
"Oh! I think she is delightful."
"How would you describe the typical English girl?"
"Well, she is very tall and thin, and quiet, and has a nice voice, lots of hair, and walks well."
"And talks seldom?"
"Yes, she is not as vivacious as the American girl, but she is more sincere and thorough, and a deeper thinker, and not so much merely on the surface as our girls are."
"But," I put in, "you say, do you not, that she does not know how to dress her hair or wear her clothes properly?"
"Yes, that is so, and it is noticeable more particularly in her headgear, which she wears well over her eyes; in fact the higher she is in the social scale, the more tilted is her hat. One thing the American girls do envy is the healthy, fresh, clear complexion of the English girl. The green of the grass and the splendid complexion of your girls are the two things which first strike the American visiting England. Both of these, we are told, are[Pg 105] due to the climate, and this doubtless is a fact, for when an American girl has been in England a short time the colour comes to her cheeks, only to disappear on her return to her native land. Another thing we admire is the English girl's figure. American girls are either slim as compared with English girls, or else very stout. We have not the happy medium of the daughters of England."
"Pardon me, but is not the pale-faced daughter of America a little spoilt?"
"From an English point of view, yes. American men's one idea besides work is the worship of American women. You say anything you like about America or Americans to Jonathan, but you must give nothing but praise to the American woman."
"But we in England love our women folk also."
A SKETCH AT "DEL'S."
"Ah! yes, but there is not such a contrast between an Englishman and an English lady as there is between an American and his wife. Our 'Qui Vive' women are so much superior to the men."
"I will admit that."
"Very well, then, I will admit that American girls are somewhat awkward with their arms, and have no idea what to do with them. As they walk they stick their elbows out, and when they stand still they hold their arms exactly the way the dressmakers pose when having a dress tried on."
"I suppose they have little use for their arms?"
"Well, as a fact, American girls do not busy themselves or enjoy work as English girls do. Their fathers, husbands, and brothers work, and they look on."
"Yes, I have noticed that all over the States. Women talk, men listen, but when men talk it is dollars, dollars, dollars. The girl is bored, and sighs for London or Paris, until she is old enough to talk dollars herself."[Pg 106]
In face, I notice, the American girl is quite distinct from her English sister. I notice a difference in the way the upper lip sweeps down from the outer edge of the nostril; but more noticeable still is the fact that the cheek-bones of the American girls are not so prominent, and the smooth curve down the cheek to the chin is less broken by smaller curves. In social life the American girl charms an Englishman by her natural and unaffected manner. Our English girls are very carefully brought up, and are continually warned that this thing or that is "bad form." As a result, when they enter Society they are more or less in fear of saying or doing something that will not be considered suitable. As a matter of fact they are not lacking in energy or vivacity, but these qualities are suppressed in public, and only come to the surface in the society of intimates. American girls from childhood upwards are much more independent; they have much more freedom and encouragement in coming forward than ours. The vivacity and liberty expected of an American girl in social intercourse are considered—as I say—bad form for our girls.
YOUNG AMERICA.
The observant stranger will, if an artist, also be struck by the fact that the face of an American girl, as well as the voice, is often that of a child; in fact, if one were not afraid of being misunderstood, and therefore thought rude, one could describe the American girl better by saying that she has a baby's face on a woman's body than by any word-painting or brush-painting either. The large forehead, round eyes, round cheeks, and round lips of the baby remain; and, as the present fashion is to dress the hair ornamentally after the fashion of a doll, the picture is complete.
The eyes of an American girl are closer together than those of her English cousin, and are smaller; her hands are smaller, too, and so are her feet, but neither are so well-shaped as the English girls.
[Pg 107]
Let me follow the American girl from her babyhood upwards. The first is the baby, plump, bright-eyed, and with more expression than the average English child; a little older, see her still plump, short-legged, made to look stout by the double covering of the leg bulging over the boots; older, but still some years from her teens, she is still plump from the tip of her toe to her eyebrow, with an expression and a manner ten years in advance of her years, and you may take it from this age onwards the American girl is always ten years in advance of an English girl; next the school-girl; then that ungainly age "sweet seventeen." She seems twenty-seven, and thenceforwards her plumpness disappears generally, but remains in her face, and the cheeks and chin of the baby are still with her.
AN AMERICAN MENU.
Suddenly, ten years before the time, and in one season, happens what in the life of an English matron would take ten. The bubble bursts, the baby face collapses, just as if you pricked it with a pin, and she is left sans teeth, sans eyes, sans beauty, sans everything. This is the American girl in a hurry, and these remarks only apply to the exhausted New York, the sensational Chicago, the anxious Washington, and the over-strained child of that portion of America in a hurry.
I have not quite made up my mind as to whether I like the American girl or her mother the better. They are both vivacious and charming, but of course the younger is the prettier, and in point of attractiveness scores more than her mother.
It is true, as I have said, that American girls do "go off" very soon. I must confess that one evening at dinner,[Pg 108]
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