Now that I know Gabrielle Tescheron, I am for giving woman the largest
liberty in all matters; let her have suffrage if she will take it. I am
for giving woman everything--just let her run loose, here, there and
everywhere, and then you'll see the world tidy up. It's time the
worldliness of the world was viewed with fresh eyes. Woman, so long held
in restraint, in many ways is a better observer than conventional man.
She is like a countryman newly arrived in the city. It takes a
countryman to see the real sights of New York; of course, he won't let
on or be surprised at anything, for he wants you to feel that the only
metropolis worth while is the place he calls "down street," up home; he
is taking it all in, however, like an old-fashioned sap-kettle, and if
you have dumped maple juice fresh from the trees into one all day, you'd
think it held the five oceans and the Great Lakes. For years afterward
his views on New York illuminate locally every city scandal reported in
the New York papers; he probably saw it coming when he was down, and can
tell a lot of incidents there was no space for in the crowded papers.
At one of the Oswegatchie County dinners held in a swell New York hotel
I once saw one of these confident, you-can't-surprise-me countrymen take
a drink of water from a goblet with a scalloped edge; it stood fourteen
inches high and six across. The waiter had placed it on the table near
him full of celery, but when the last piece had been taken and only a
few green leaves floated like lily pads on its calm surface, he knew the
proper thing to do. He just blew off the stray leaves, stretched his
mouth around the prongs on the edge, got his paw under it, turned it up
and enjoyed his simple highball. All our strong men come from the
country. They drink and see things straight. They are more particular as
to contents than containers, for they are nearly all prohibitionists or
very high license advocates. When they are "dry," they drink equally
well from a spring-hole, a spigot, a dipper or a pail.
"Rather generous with the water at these dinners, Reuben," I said,
addressing him across the table, as he covered his mouth with his napkin
preparatory to resuming his composure.
"These fashionable glasses always cut my mouth," he replied, wrinkling
his brow to emphasize his dislike for the fads of the aristocracy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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