There is, however, a difference between English and American Love which shows that we have learned Addison’s lesson even better than his own countrymen. As Mr. Robert Laird Collier remarks in _English Home Life_: “The American custom, among the mass of the people, of leaving young men and young women free to associate together and to keep company with each other for an indefinite length of time, without declaring their intentions, is almost unknown in any country of Europe. It is not long after a young man begins to show the daughter attentions before the father gives intimation that he wishes to know what it means, and either the youth declares his intentions or is notified to ‘cut sticks.’” “Courtships in England are short, and engagements are long.” The London _Standard_ doubtless exaggerates the difference between English and American girls and their attitude toward men in the course of an article, part of which may, nevertheless, be cited: “American girls offer a bright example to their English sisters of a happy, unclouded youth, and instances seem to be few of their abusing the liberty which is accorded to them. Perhaps their immunity from sentimental troubles arises from the fact that from earliest childhood they have been comrades of the other sex, and are therefore not disposed to turn a man into a demi-god because they only see one at rare intervals under the eagle eye of a mother or aunt. A great revolution in public opinion would be required ere English girls could be emancipated to the extent which prevails on the other side of the Atlantic, and even then it is doubtful whether the system would work well. The daughters of Albion, with but few exceptions, are single-hearted, earnest, and prone to look upon everything seriously. They often make the mistake of imagining that a man is in love because he is decently civil.” Yet in _German Home Life_, written from an English point of view, we read that “There is no such thing as country life, as we understand it, in Germany; no cosy sociability, smiling snugness, pleasant bounties and hospitalities; and, above all, for the young folk, no freedom, flirtation, boatings, sketchings, high teas, scamperings, and merriments generally.” And again: “The sort of frank ‘flirtation,’ beginning openly in fun and ending in amusement, which is common amongst healthy, high-spirited boys and girls in England, and has no latent element of intrigue or vanity in it, but is born of exuberant animal spirits, youthful frolics, and healthy pastimes shared together, is forbidden to her” (the German girl).