remarkable nose,-Pamphagus says, rather irritably, that he is not ashamed of that feature. "Ashamed of it! no, indeed," says Cocles; "I never saw a nose that could be put to so many uses!" "Ha!" says Pamphagus, whose curiosity is aroused, "uses! what uses?" Whereupon Cocles runs on with a countless list of the uses to which so vast a development of the organ can be applied. "If the cellar was deep, it could sniff up the wine like an elephant's trunk,-if the bellows were missing, it could blow the fire,-if the lamp was too glaring, it could suffice for a shade,-it would serve as a speaking-trumpet to a herald,it could sound a signal of battle in the field, it would do for a wedge in wood-cutting-a spade for digging-a scythe for mowing-an anchor in sailing;" till Pamphagus cries out, "Lucky dog that I am! and I never knew before what a useful piece of furniture I carried about with me." The author of “What Will He do with It?" has made use with effect of this passage-a passage which gives a full answer, by-the-by, to that interrogative title, nasologically applied. In this kind of sportive mood we may suppose Politian to have met the gibes his large nose must have elicited, from the Mirandolas and Medicis of Florentine high-life-for Politian not only had a wry neck and purblind eyes, but-ab enormi præsertim nasot-a portentous nose.

AMERICAN YOUNG LADYISM.

BY J. G. KOHL.

THE prevalent tendency of republican institutions I found to be, during a lengthened residence in America, the production of a general monotony. Even the mind and talent are brought to a similar level. There are no grand characters or prominent men, though, on the other hand, the brutalisation does not sink so deep as to produce cretins. Generally speaking, every American is "smart," although, of course, with variations of smartness. That beauty, however, should become democratic is a remarkable fact for the observer. The fair sex in America has not only the same universal feelings, impulses, and passions, the same education and acquirements, which they have obtained from institutions all of a like pattern, but also the same charms. There is a greater national family resemblance among American women than among those of any European country. The general affinity in manners, comfort, and social value has had such an effect on the type of beauty, that they all appear to have issued from the same mould and school. An American salon filled with ladies resembles a hyacinth-field in the sand-gardens of Berlin.

Clumsy, coarse features, striking deformities, original and characteristic ugliness, are found neither among American men nor women. No one could dream, there, of asserting that "le laid c'est le beau." The great

* See "The Caxtons," vol. i. part ii. ch. iii.

† Paulus Jovius.

majority of women are moderately pretty, very passable, or pleasingly pretty. Still they their charms are concentrated more in their features than in their demeanour, figures, or corporeal shape. A classical bust, rounded arms, and well-developed limbs are the greatest rarity among them. You may gaze on a hundred and not discover one shapely waist. The effeminate manners of these anything but Spartan republican ladies, their horror of bodily movement and physical exertion, produce a neglect and decay of the entire muscular system. Walking in the open air is something quite unusual with them, for in their country, where there are no footpaths or promenades, they move about in carriages, and rarely on horseback. The rest of the long day they spend, after the fashion of ladies in Eastern harems, on softly-cushioned sofas, or in their favourite rocking-chairs by the fireside. Full beauties à la Rubens are never found among them, and equally rare are those graceful, well-rounded, elastic, Junonic forms, which may still be seen in Italy and other European countries. The ladies of Kentucky alone offer an exception to this, but the rest all resemble tulips, in whom only the head delights. Their faces, too, are pleasanter through the delicacy of the outline than in the colouror expression. Their complexion is hardly ever rosy, and rarely lively and fresh. They are all somewhat pallid, like zealous romance readers among ourselves. They seem to be hothouse plants, and their entire education and formation in the fashionable ladies' academies is on the forcing system. These pretty, delicate, pale faces are met with not only in the capitals, but far away up the Mississippi, in the new settlements, and in the prairies among the Indians.

Even the farmer's daughter looks exactly like a denizen of the towns, reads romances, insists on dressing in silk, and dresses her hair with artificial French flowers in contempt of the natural children of Flora. Ladies in the larger towns are so proud of their pale, interesting complexion, that they disguise and try to drive away the natural roses on their cheeks as something coarse and vulgar. They veil themselves carefully from the beams of the burning sun, drink vinegar, and employ other artificial measures to develop still further the moonlight on their faces. An Englishwoman, or any fresh beauty arrived from Europe, resembles among American ladies the accompaniment of flutes by a key-bugle.

It is strange enough, and at the first blush seems inexplicable, how these descendants from the English parent-tree can have degenerated in this way. As the colonies the emigrants founded were agricultural, and so much that was new had to be created out of the rough, the contrary might have been expected, and that anything coarse in their ancestors would have been developed. But, on one side, there must certainly be something in the nature and climate of America possessing the tendency of weakening races transferred thither, for the Spanish inhabitants of South America and their fair sex form a similar contrast to European Spaniards and Portuguese. On the other hand, I explain the matter by the history of the country, and specially by its rough and semi-savage nature. In accordance with this nature men at first alone emigrated, and women were rare at the outset. Those ships which brought a cargo of female passengers were hailed with delight, and the girls, whether pretty or ugly, led home in triumph. In these circumstances, I fancy, lay the germ of that peculiar pampering, or, as they call it, reverence

for women, by which the Americans are distinguished from all other nations-even the English, among whom women, however, occupy a high place. The necessity for female society runs through the whole history of American colonisation side by side with the Indian wars. At a later date the "Pioneers of the West," who crossed the Alleghanies and settled on the Ohio and the Mississippi, wanted wives, who at all times have been, and still are, a rare and valued article in the United States. Just as the first emigrants attracted them from Europe by all sorts of promises, the later emigrants returned to the eastern cities, chivalrously paid court there to young girls, and worked hard to fulfil their promises. This, in my opinion, is the main basis of woman's position in America, and she has been pampered, caressed, dressed in silks and satins, till she gradually became the tender, pretty, delicate, capricious, fashionable puppet she now is.

The intercourse of American gentlemen with these pretty, pale, elegant ladies is so long as they are unmarried-of a nature that would not be tolerated in England. They stand in far too bold and confidential a footing for our notions. English parents, it is known, grant their daughters far more liberty than the French do, who keep theirs in a convent till it is time to marry them. Among the Americans, where the republican feeling of independence is added to that inheritance from English habits, and is born with children of both sexes, this liberty has necessarily degenerated, just as you find much across the ocean which in England would press out of the ground like a tender, sweet-tasted asparagus-head, but in America has shot up wildly and luxuriantly into a long hard stalk, with multitudinous side-shoots and seeds. The emancipation of young women in America is as perfect as it well can be: they hardly allow their parents the right of guardianship. They take care of themselves: they are allowed to receive the visits of young gentlemen, who again introduce other gentlemen without consulting the parents. The young ladies make appointments with these gentlemen, and ask them to call in the morning, or to take tea, even should papa and mamma not be at home, or happen to be engaged in another part of the house.

If there be any especial beauty among the daughters of a family, she assumes the mastery so utterly that, so to speak, everything is done in her name. Even though the official invitations to balls and parties are made in the parents' name, the daughter has most certainly selected the candidates. She will also invite any one she pleases, or may be introduced to, without asking papa and mamma. When young people arrange to visit any house in the evening, they do not say, as in Paris, "Shall we pay a visit to Madame N. to-night?" but, "Shall we go and call on Miss A. or Miss B.?" The good papa, some rum-bibbing member of congress, or senator bothered with political committees, is not at all taken into consideration. On entering the house, the daughter is naturally seen sitting in the centre of the sofa, and the conversation is exclusively addressed to her. In many cases the mother is quite passed over. If she be at all old and wearisome, she generally sits with grandmamma warming herself at the fire. It often happens that a stranger may stand on very intimate terms with the daughters ere he has been introduced to the mother.

The liberties which may be taken with young ladies in conversation

are, according to our notions, very great, even more so those they take themselves or provoke. They are very forward and self-conscious, and this can be seen at their meetings in the street or any public occasion. They look about them pertly and openly, stare into the faces of passing gentlemen, salute them first, and the gentlemen cast their eyes down bashfully, and approach them timidly when they have received the signal to begin the conversation, or what the Americans call so characteristically, the flirtation. For the conversations of the two sexes rarely consist of more than flirtation. The word is untranslatable: the ideas of paying court, coquettish and playful love-making, and trifling gossiping are comprised in it. The young chivalrous American "beaux" and their "belles" are wondrously practised hands at it. The couple have scarcely met ere the lisping, soft causerie begins, and goes on uninterruptedly, as if the watch-work had been wound up for the purpose. They twitter and flutter incessantly like a pair of turtle-doves: like two trout in a stream, they swim and sport round each other for hours, until the beau suddenly breaks off the affair, because he remembers that he wants a glass of rum-and-water or a chew. Among us, weather, events of the day, intended amusements, or those just enjoyed, new poetry or music, and other literary and artistic productions, are the basis, or, at any rate, the external covering of such tender conversations, in which the main theme, homage of woman, praise of beauty, love, and such matters, only breaks through now and then. American flirtations do not trouble themselves long with such externals; the covering of the bonbon is very loose, and the nude sweet truth, the real object of the conversation, comes to light much more rapidly and boldly. The young girl learns very soon and very openly how lovely, how amiable, how irresistible she is. If it take too long in coming, she will herself ask the question. When this is once out, she begins to feel the pulse of her beau, or, to speak more truly, she makes a direct attack on his heart. She wishes to know at once all its joy and suffering, investigates its most secret nooks, and demands to know all the romances in which it has played a part. She herself takes the initiative in this examination, and the gentleman must make a full confession. In return for this, of course, he can go very far, lay on his flattery thickly as paint, and discuss almost anything. For young American ladies have at an early age eaten from the tree of knowledge, and are as well up to things as the men. Reserved bashfulness, prudery, sentimentalism, and such failings, do not lie in their nature, and the lover is never repulsed by a modest blush or overdone timidity. At times it seems as if everything were permissible up to a certain point, but in that respect the American girls are too clever and wide awake: they know the danger, and carefully avoid it. Their parents are equally aware of this, and hence let them do as they please. It is remarkable how long American girls can play with that little god, considered so dangerous in other countries, and not be wounded by his darts. They sip all the honey from the cup of Venus and leave the poison in it. I felt amazed at times how, after all this preliminary playing at love, an ardent passion, terminating in marriage, could be at length aroused.

I just now employed the word "beaux," but the American ladies employ it much more frequently. They have incorporated this French word in their American-English, and have it constantly on their lips.

The expression is extremely characteristic of the superficiality of the relations and sympathies between the two sexes in America. External beauty is certainly highly valued in most countries; it is a human weakness, which, however, is not displayed so openly among ourselves. In America, on the contrary, ladies do not hesitate to state that they only estimate men by their beauty. "Who was your beau last night ?" they ask one another-even the farmers' daughters. "You shall be my beau to-morrow," they say to a young man. "Oh, indeed, Mr. P., you were last night a perfect beau for me: you left nothing to desire," they say to the old grey-haired Mr. P., when they want to flatter and console him. The English also employ the word, but more in the contemptuous sense of a "fop." The American ladies select this fop, pomaded and brushed up by the hairdresser, as their "cavalier." They also use very frequently the French words "chaperon" and "chaperoning," borrowed from the days of chivalry. Strangely enough, men are heard much less frequently alluding to their belles than girls to their beaux. It seems as if the American ladies had turned the world topsy-turvy and converted men into the fair sex. Frequently men are made love to and cajoled by the women; and American gentlemen hence have something passive about them, like ladies among ourselves, and they may often be seen retiring, exhausted and drooping, from ladies' society, to sink into silence and indifference in the drinking-saloons.

The American ladies have also received into their every-day English language many other French expressions which the English employ rarely, or give a very different meaning to. Thus, they have a remarkable propensity for the term "elegant." It has grown one of their favourite words, which they incessantly repeat, and whose broad and various application is no little characteristic of them. English ladies generally apply this word, borrowed from the French, to articles of luxury, to products of the lower branches of art, where it is in its place, and means so much as "pleasing in exterior and form." English ladies would never think of expressing their pleasure with things of greater internal value, which must be gauged by a higher standard, by employing the trivial expression "very elegant." Only American ladies do this: they describe as elegant the toilet and amiable behaviour of their beaux, equally with the garish furniture of a room all glistening with ormolu and enamel. For the pretty verses an adorer lays at their feet, they have, too, no higher praise than that they are "very elegant, very elegant indeed." They also call the speech of a high standing political orator "very elegant." A flower in a garden-bed, the fragrant lily, or the regal rose, is only called by them an elegant flower." Even a picture by Rafaelle or Corregio receives in the outburst of their enthusiasm no other attribute; if they return from Switzerland and are asked what they have seen amid the Alps, they praise the "elegant scenery" of the mountains. This unlucky word, and the more unlucky predilection for the elegant, which is met with at every step among American ladies, is so deeply rooted in them, that they have extended the territory of the word to extraordinary lengths, both upwards and downwards. For instance, going downwards, they will talk of an "elegant dish" they have eaten; and going upwards, what we call a good or classical taste, is generally characterised by them as an "elegant taste." Does not this indicate an extraordinary confusion