Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
You leave Boston somewhat snubbed and subdued, and betake yourself to
the more cosmopolitan regions of New York. Here, too, "men of power" are
to be found in great numbers--but "our first circles" divide the
attention and abuse the patience of the traveller. Boston writes the
books, but New York sets the fashions of the Republic, and is the
Elysium of mantua-makers and upholders. We doubt whether any city in the
world of its size can boast so many smart drawing rooms and so many
pretty young women. Indeed, from the age of fifteen to that of
five-and-twenty, female beauty is the rule rather than the exception in
the United States, and neither cost nor pains are spared to set it forth
to the best advantage. The American women dress well, dance well, and in
all that relates to what may be called the mechanical part of social
intercourse, they appear to great advantage. Nothing can exceed the
self-possession of these pretty creatures, whose confidence is never
checked by the discipline of society, or the restraints of an education
which is terminated almost as soon as it is begun. There is no childhood
in America--no youth--no freshness. We look in vain for the
"Ingenui vultus puer, ingenuique pudoris."
or
"The modest maid deck'd with a blush of honour,
Whose feet do tread green paths of youth and love."
DANIEL.
There is scarcely a step from the school to the forum--from the nursery
to the world. Young girls, who in England would be all blushes and bread
and butter, boldly precede their mammas into the ball-room; and the code
of a mistaken gallantry supplies no corrective to their caprice, for
youth and beauty are here invested with regal prerogatives, and can do
no wrong. In short, the Americans carry their complaisance to the sex
beyond due bounds--at least in little things--for we by no means think
that the real influence of their women is great, notwithstanding the
tame and submissive gallantry with which the latter are treated in
public. We doubt whether the most limited gynocracy would tolerate the
use of tobacco as an article of daily diet, or permit ferocious murders
to go unwhipped of justice under the name of duels. But the absorbing
character of the pursuits of the men forbids any strong sympathy betwixt
the sexes; and perhaps the despotism which the women exercise in the
drawing-room arises from the fact that all that relates to the graces
and embellishments of life is left entirely to them. We do not know
that this can be avoided under the circumstances of the country, but it
has a most injurious effect upon social intercourse. The Americans of
both sexes want tact and graciousness of manner, and that prompt and
spontaneous courtesy which is the child of discipline and
self-restraint. They are seldom absolutely awkward, because they are
never bashful; they have no _mauvaise honte_, because they are all on an
equality; hence they never fail to display a certain dry composure of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 — John Shaqi
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