MELLOW ENGLAND. 171 



these days. About the only monstrosity I saw iu 

 the British man's dress was the stove-pipe hat, which 

 everybody wears. At first I feared it might be a 

 police regulation or a requirement of the British 

 Constitution, for I seemed to be about the only man 

 in the kingdom with a soft hat on, and I had noticed 

 that before leaving the steamer every man brought 

 out from its hiding-place one of these polished brain 

 squeezers. Even the boys wear them youths of 

 nine and ten years with little stove-pipe hats on ; 

 and at Eton School I saw black swarms of them 

 even the boys in the field were playing foot-ball in 

 stove-pipe hats. 



What we call beauty in woman is so much a mat- 

 ter of youth and health that the average of female 

 beauty in London is, I believe, higher than in this 

 country. English women are comely and good-look- 

 ing. It is an extremely fresh and pleasant face that 

 you see everywhere softer, less clearly and sharply 

 cut than the typical female face in this country less 

 spirituelle, less perfect in form, but stronger and 

 sweeter. There is more blood, and heart, and sub- 

 stance back of it. The American race of the pres- 

 ent generation is doubtless the most shapely, both in 

 face and figure, that has yet appeared. American 

 children are far less crude, and lumpy, and awkward 

 looking than European children. One generation in 

 this country suffices vastly to improve the looks of 

 the offspring of the Irish or German or Norwegian 

 emigrant. There is surely* something in our climate 



