Harmless as such childish vanity may seem, it is yet one of the reasons why there are fewer good-looking women in Germany than in most European countries—France always excepted. For a girl, whose father wears on his coat the order of the black eagle, to marry a young man whose father only has the order of the green eagle, would be considered an unpardonable _mésalliance_, and would scandalise the whole neighbourhood. Of course it does not make much difference in a woman’s own looks whether she marries a man she loves or one whom she can barely tolerate, and who is forced on her by parental desire and public opinion, but it does make a difference with her children; and even in her own case, is it not self-evident that the smile of pleasure at being happily married is a better preservative of youthful beauty than the constant frown of disappointment, perhaps of disgust? The highest treason against Cupid, however, is committed by those American women, who, without the excuse of inherited custom, come to Europe with their money to marry a baron. Fortunately such marriages have almost always ended so wretchedly that the fashion has somewhat lost its popularity. What is a baron? Perhaps a man whose great-great-great-grandfather “lent” some duke or king a few thousand gold pieces, in return for which he was allowed to place “von” or “de” before his name. And on the strength of this little word the family Pride has gone on steadily increasing through various generations—or rather, degenerations. Physiology is not usually considered an ironic science, but it cannot help writing a satire when it teaches that “blue” blood is venous blood, charged with the waste products of the bodily tissues. How much better than this irony would iron be, _i.e._ some fresh, _red_, arterial blood infused in the bodies of the Continental aristocracy. The English aristocracy, on the other hand, presents one of the finest types of manhood and womanhood; and the reason is suggested by Darwin: “Many persons are convinced, as appears to me with justice, that our aristocracy, including under this term all wealthy families in which primogeniture has long prevailed, from having chosen during many generations _from all classes_ the more beautiful women as their wives, have become handsomer, according to the European standard, than the middle classes.”