You cannot produce this type without freedom, without giving them opportunity, and taking the risks that are inherent in giving free scope to personal prowess. But they are not the women whom our blatant newspapers exploit, nor the women who buy the British aristocracy to launch them socially, nor the women who pervade the continental hotels and restaurants, nor the women whom as a rule the foreigner has the opportunity to meet. They are the women who have helped us to absorb the 21,000,000 aliens who have entered America since the Civil War; the women who stood behind us when we fought out that war for four years, leaving a million men on the fields of battle; the women who in the realm of housekeeping, to come down to practical levels, have revolutionized these duties and turned a drudgery into an art as have no other women in the world. The best answer the American can make to the luxurious lawlessness of some of our women, is to point to the house-keeping and home-making of his compatriots, not only at home but right here in Germany. Fifty years ago it could not have been said, but to-day there is no doubt in my mind that American house-keeping is the best in the world. In comfort, in the smooth running of the household machinery, in good food and drink, perhaps in too lavish and too luxurious hospitality, we are nowadays almost in a class by ourselves in matters of housewifery. The English attitude of women toward men is somewhat that of comradeship, and once married the man's comfort is looked after with some care; the American attitude of women toward men, in the more luxurious circles, is often, I admit, that of a spoiled child toward a gift-bringing uncle, and she permits him to worship her along the lines of a restricted rubric; but in Germany the subordination, the unquestioning and unthinking adulation, the blind acceptance of inferiority have not only softened the men but robbed the women of even sufficient independence to make them the helpmates that they try to be. There have been women of social and even political influence: Bettina von Arnim, Caroline Schlegel, Charlotte Stieglitz, Rahel Varnhagen, and lately Frau Lebin, who seems to have been a soothing adjunct of the Foreign Office. It is rather as admirers than as executives that they shine. Their attitude toward the great Goethe, and his nonchalant polygamy toward them, is difficult for us to understand and approve. "The gentle Henrietta then, And a third Mary next did reign, And Joan and Jane and Andria; And then a pretty Thomasine, And then another Katherine, And then a long et cetera."