Notes on Jonathan's Daughters.
By Max O'Rell.
N an article on "The Typical American," which appeared in The North American Review (May, 1890), I ventured to hazard the opinion that the typical American does not exist, as yet: that the American gentleman differs not at all from a gentleman of any other country, and that no citizen of the Great Republic can be pointed out as typical, although in the ordinary American are to be found two traits which are very characteristic of him, and of other dwellers in new countries, viz., childishness and inquisitiveness.
But, although I failed to find a typical American man, I am very strongly of opinion that the American lady is typical. Good society is apt to mould all who frequent it into one pretty even shape, and it is all the more astonishing, therefore, to find the American lady with such a separate individuality.
Of the ordinary American woman I am not in a position to speak. In my wanderings through the United States I made acquaintance with all sorts and conditions of men; but, coming to the petticoated portion of the community, I had practically no opportunity of studying any but ladies.
The American lady, in my eyes, is a distinct type; her charm is distinct from the charm of any European lady, and is certainly equal in extent to any. Two traits struck me very forcibly in her, and to the first of these I think she owes a great part of her success. They are, naturalness, or utter absence of affectation, and—shall I say it?—a lurking contempt for man. Not a militant contempt, not a loud contempt, but a quiet, queenly, benevolent contempt. I talk about her owing her success to the first of these; but who shall say whether her triumphant progress has not been greatly due to the second?
I have often tried to explain to myself this gentle contempt of American ladies for the male sex; for, contrasting it with the devotion, the lovely devotion of Jonathan to his womankind, it is a curious enigma. Have I found the solution at last? Does it begin at school? In American schools, boys and girls, from the age of five, follow the same path to learning, and side by side on the same benches. Moreover, the girls prove themselves thoroughly capable of keeping pace with the boys. Is it not possible that the girls, as they watched the performances of the boys in the study, have learnt to say: "Is that all?" while the young lords of creation, as they looked on at what "those girls" can do, have been fain to exclaim: "Who would have thought it?" And does not this explain the two attitudes: the great respect of men for women, and the mild contempt of women for men?
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When I was in New York, and had time to saunter about, I would go up Broadway, and wait until a car, well crammed with people, came along. Then I would jump on board, and stand near the door. Whenever a man wanted to get out, he would say to me, "Please," or "Excuse me," or just touch me lightly to warn me that I stood in his way. But the ladies! Oh, the ladies! Why, it was simply lovely. They would just push me away with the tips of their fingers, and turn up such disgusted and haughty noses! You would have imagined it was a heap of dirty rubbish in their way.
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Just as one of the hardest ways of earning a living is to be a middle-class English wife, so one of the loveliest sinecures in the world is to be an American lady. A small, sometimes no, family to bring up; very often no house to keep; three months' holiday in Europe; a devoted, hardworking husband ever ready to pet her, worship her, and supply the wherewith; an education that enables her to enjoy all the intellectual pleasures of life; a charming naturalness of manner; a freedom from conventionality; a bold picturesqueness of speech; a native
