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20 THE GREAT LONE LAND.
Boston has a clean, English look about it, peculiar
to it alone of all the cities in the United States.
Its streets, running in curious curves, as though they had
not the least idea where they were going, are full of prettilydressed
pretty girls, who look as though they had a very
fair idea of where they were going to. Atlantic fogs and
French fashions have combined to make Boston belles pink,
pretty, and piquante; while the western states, by drawing
fully half their male population from New England, make
the preponderance of the female element apparent at a
glance. The ladies, thus left at home, have not been
idle: their colleges, their clubs, their reading-classes are
numerous; like the man in ee Hudibras/'—
** "Tis known they can speak
Greek as naturally as pigs squeak;"
and it is probable that no city in the world can boast so
high a standard of female education as Boston: nevertheless,
it must be regretted that this standard of mental excellence
attributable to the ladies of Boston should not have been
found capable of association with the duties of domestic
life. Without going deeper into topics which are better
understood in America than in England, and which have
undergone most eloquent elucidation at the hands of Mr.
Hepworth Dixon, but which are nevertheless slightly
nauseating, it may safely be observed, that the inculcation
at ladies'* colleges of that somewhat rude but forcible
home truth, enunciated by the first Napoleon in reply
to the most illustrious Frenchwoman of her day, when
questioned upon the subject of female excellence, should
not be forgotten.
There exists a very generally received idea that strangers
are more likely to notice and complain of the short-coming^