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Show HOW AN ITALIAN WOMAN VIEWS THE AMERICAN WOMAN. i Tho American woman is queen In i her own county; she is more educated and reads more than the American man; sho shines in foreign drawing-rooms drawing-rooms and is a successful exotic; says Amy A. Bernardy In tho Nuova Antologla (Itomo). Miss Bernardy is professor of Italian at. Smith College in Northampton, Mass. This writer claims that she herself Is not llko many other foreigners who have wrlt- ten about America after a brief stay i in NeV, York or Chicago. She knows tho whole inner life and background ! of the country, and has resided here a sufficient time to render her a com petent witness. She accordingly sweeps tho whole field of American life trade, society, politics, and lit-J lit-J e-atur'f'. Particularly does she dwell '1 upon' 'tho charcateristlcs of the Amerl- l can. woman the most Important and 1 interesting phenomenon, she declares, I which she has met with from New i York to California, from Maine to J New Mexico. She. bohigs as follows 1 to emphasize the lmjjqrtnnce of tho I' softer sex in tho western hemisphere: "I do not exactly see why all Amer-J Amer-J lean writers pass by tho men of their I stories and exalt tho women. It Is also said that tho American nation Is tho only one in tho world which ilnds It .Impossible to write a bcok, on whatever subject, without Introducing a brlgado of petticoats,, flr, at any rate, without dovoting.'.rit least one chapter to her Majesty tho American Woman, Queen of the Republic. People Peo-ple have also so often said to the American woman that sho is incomparable, incom-parable, or they have so often declared de-clared this to others, that they all end by believing it." Tho writer begins here to qualify this unbounded eulogy, and makes an exception to tho "all" of tho preceding preced-ing passage: "I mean nearly all. Ugo Ojettl must havo smiled as ho wrote that happy phrase, 'the American woman is a fine article of exportation.' And really, real-ly, when sho has been transplanted to Europe, polished by contact with those of long descent and ancient name, and has breathed the atmosphere of conventionality con-ventionality which belongs to an old patrician society, sho shows off to vast advantage, In her freshness of outline, and tho reserved chic which by its very stiffness, enhances tho seduction which a fine toilet of perfect per-fect fit Imparts to a beautiful Amer- lean girl. It Is then that sho exhibits that exquisite elegance, that inexhaustible inex-haustible luxury of life, that imposing impos-ing audacity which gradually, from the fact of its unfamlllarlty, wins the European eye. She Is what is styled 'well-groomed,' evidencing in every detail tho caro sho bestows upon up-on her person, whose appearance suggests sug-gests frequent baths, gymnastic exercise, ex-ercise, open-air habits, which result in the equilibrium of a mechanical organism, or-ganism, "in interesting contrast to the feminine personality, languid, fastidious, fastid-ious, and subject to broken sleep and mysterious tremors, which belongs to races which havo inherited an older 0 " country." When tho "beautiful American" Is seen In her own country tho observer misses In her tho novelty which strikes tho people of Europe, because j I there are so many llko her, her characteristics char-acteristics being no longer individual, ,but tho property of her race. Tho 'writer explains this by a referenco to tho affectations of tho American woman, wo-man, and writes as follows: "The great pity is that in America there are women of a certain typo far too common, who boast that they aro much more cultivated than tho men, and Impose upon others, because they havo acquired a certain vaguo and superficial knowledgo on a thousand subjects, so that they appear to bo of marvelous versatility, when in fact they are scarcely educated. Tho English Eng-lish havo invented a graphic pliraso which I wish to use In this connection, 'to master tho trick.' American women wo-men of this sort havo 'mastered the trick' of appearing cultured. They are past masters in the art of making the gilded brick appear to bo a cube of gold, so as to cheat others into tho idea that the gold Is genuine, like their diamonds, If they havo any. They pose as Intellectuals, and their supreme su-preme nsplration Is to emancipate themselves from tho superiority of tho other sex, a superiority whoso existence ex-istence they deny. Thus America has a form of feminism, or rather a gyno-cracy, gyno-cracy, which is really formidable. Its Influence' spreads from tho fashions to religion, from literature to social rules from public opinions in some matters to public actions in others. It is tho women who imitate everything, who accomplish qverythlng, who direct certain cer-tain currents of thought, who wish to baptize war-ships with water instead of wine, and who try to cure their weakness of .nerves by secret alcoholism. alcohol-ism. They havo Invented Christian Science, and they shriek at Roosevelt because he has given them a lesson or two which they well deserved because they havo forgotten, in splto of their boasted culturo, the axiom of Euripides, Euri-pides, 'O woman, the best ornament of woman is silence.'" The writer says that the American woman prefers Intellectual pursuits to flirtation, and reads more than tho ordinary or-dinary American man, although this feminine intellectuallsm is not elevating elevat-ing tho standard of American literature. litera-ture. Thus: "We must allow that the American woman is intelligent and devotes to tho Metaphysical or Browning Club the hours a Parisian spends with n lover. There are more lettered women than lettered men in America. This, however, results in lowering the tone of American literature and art, tho code of morality is thus strangely distorted, dis-torted, the current of public opinion made to run with grotesque uncertainty, uncertain-ty, and life in general becomes filled witli tho oddest Inconsistencies." Translations made for Tho Literary Dlcost. |