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Show B More Reflections by Max O'Rell. B 'Tweon You an' I. Some Little Problems of Life. B By Max O'Rell. 12mo, pp. ix, 480. Boston; B Lothrop Publishing Company. B The vivacious Franco-Englishman who writes B these observations of men and women refuses to B apologize for his uungrammatical title, which he B thinks conveys something picturesque and cosey B which would not exist in the correcter forms. It B conveys the unpretentious aim of his book, he says, B which in truth develops an entertaining but not B very deep philosophy. Max O'Rell is at home in B France, England and America, and he is full of B comparisons. Franc is the happy country, for B reasons which have been amply developed before, B the cheerfulness and intelligence and simplicity of B the people; but is not the author ignoring what has B frequently been brought to our notice in recent B years when he extols the attitude of the French B toward alcoholic beverages to the great disad- B vantage of the Anglo-Saxon? The increase of B drunkenness in France is a fact that has perplexed B publicists who are not beguiled by the cheerful pic- B ture of the humble citizen and his wife at the cafe. B B He has his opinions of the modern young man, B who is conceited, assertive, blase. In Aemrica he B is pretty bad, as he is in France and England; B but "American women are about the best to put B a man in his proper place." He admires, in Amer-B Amer-B Ica not tne inventions and discoveries, but those B thousand and one little devices which add so much B comfort to everyday life; and he cannot sufficiently B praise the general intelligence of the people. The B American memory amazes him. He buys a rail-B rail-B road ticket and the clerk observes that five years B ago he sold him one to Oberlin, Ohio. "You go B into an American hotel and as if Mr. John Smith B is there. 'Pst!' says the clerk to a hallboy, 'go and B see if 876 is in.' " He watches hotel clerks sort B hundreds of letters into boxes without once re-D re-D ferring to the register, and has seen boys outside B a hotel dining room receive 500 hats in rapid suc-B suc-B cession, handing them back without once making B a mistake. But if you live in a London hotel a B year the elevator attendant will ask you every B time, "What floor?" The dream of a country with-B with-B out "tips" he found rudely shattered in America, B as soon as he got to a place where lie had to stay a week; and thereafter he "insulted" every Ameri-B Ameri-B can of whom he expected a service. You will find B the custom even in the Antipodes. He says B I once gave a copper to an Australian native. B "Sir," he said, "it is not a coin of my color I want, it's one of yours." B I like a good repartee. I gave him a six-penny Piece, and I never saw such a beautiful set of teeth in all my life. IB MM Max O'Rell has mucb to say about women and the relations between men and women. He tells us the kinds of women men do not like; they are M the kind that run after them; and the acrid and sertive women. "We all know of Madame de m Stael; but who on earth ever heard of Monsieur de B tael? Those women are extinguishers of men ana dunned by them." Those who please them B are tue bright, pretty and piquante women, who B say antl do such things as no other women would aro say or do; and the sympathetic women who H admire them and love them as well as their com-m com-m Pany. The finest old ladies he knows are those of America, France and Italy; in England and Ger-B Ger-B many the woman who has passed 50 years of age seems to apologize for daring still to be alive. As m o the behavior of men to women, he holds to the eder belief that in France and America is to be lU,nd real Politeness to women, and the more real in America, "The most common of American m eu could teach a good lesson to the men of the world," even including the French, who, our author is afraid, live a little on the reputations of their ancestors in the times of Louis XIV, and Louis XV. But the women in America take advantage of their position: I know an Englishman who has to go to America on business once or twice every year, and who sternly refuses to allow his wife to accompany him. "Why don't you let her go?" I once said to him. "My dear fellow," he replied, "it would spoil her entirely. Women have inborn in them a power of imitation which is most dangerous. I don't want my wife to go to America and see women boss men as they do there." "Well," said I, "yes, men are very polite and respectful to women in the United States." "Polite! respectful!" he ejaculated; "poor devils, they are abject, absolutely abject." But this author is sure that Europe is destined to be conquered by the American women, as she is even now exerting an enormous influence on Paris society; while he sees many proofs of her influence in-fluence on English society. He has not, we may note, lost his power of writing amusingly and of hitting the mark frequently with a clever phrase. It may be that this book is of a little thinner dilution dilu-tion than the books that first brought him to the public view; but there is much in " Tween You an' I" that will entertain and prove quotable. New York Tribune. |