As a consequence of the introduction of luxury as a recognized condition of the American household of wealth and refinement, there came about a gradual change in the type of the sections which resulted in a levelling of the type of the whole land and its adaptation to European standards. That subtle influence of fashion permeated the land from north to south--there was then no east or west--and brought all the severed types under one strait rule. No longer could the dame of the Puritans be distinguished by outer guise or even by her customs and manners from her of the Cavaliers, while the intermediate woman, she of the settlement erstwhile known as Manhattan, on her part came forward with the rest to the goal of identity. There were more women of fashion in Virginia and Maryland than in Massachusetts or Connecticut; but the type was the same, and a man might travel from Williamsburg to Boston, stopping on his way at Annapolis, Philadelphia, and New York, and find no considerable difference between the woman who sped him at the outset and the woman who greeted him at the end of his journey,--at least as far as the eye and ear could note. From Madame Berkeley to Madame Phips was no step at all. The gracious dame of the period, stately in silks and satins and brocade, was as easy to find at one end of the country as at the other; the "toasts" were just as lovely, if not quite so plentiful, in Boston as in Williamsburg. But all this gain, as is the inevitable law, was at the expense of compensating loss. Refinement and elegance had come to be the inheritance of the American woman, but at the cost and loss of individuality. There had come into existence a type which was neither Puritan nor Cavalier nor Dutch, but American; though a universal type, it was not a distinctive one, as had been the others. The word "American" had come to have a meaning of universality as applied to the women of this country, and was yet to have a more inclusive signification; but the passing of marked sectional differences had also brought with it the doing away as well with that subtle thing which we term individuality. As distinguished from her sisters of that country which was still termed "mother," though so soon to be encountered in bitter hatred, the American woman had lost definition and personality.