ON FEMININE TASTE IN RURAL AFFAIRS. 51 



nay instead. But do you know what haymaking is ? I will tell you. 

 Haymaking is the prettiest thing in the world. You play at turning 

 the grass over in a meadow ; and as soon as you know that, you 

 know how to make hay." 



Is it not capital ? We italicize her description of haymaking, 

 it is so Frangaise, and so totally unlike the account that the Duchess 

 would have given Mr. Colman. Her garden, too ; she wanted to 

 have it put in order before her friend arrived. She would have 

 shown it, not as an English woman would have done, to excite an 

 interest in its rare and beautiful plants, and the perfection to which 

 they had grown under her care, but that it might give her friend a 

 pleasant promenade. 



Now we have not the least desire, that American wives and 

 daughters should have any thing to do with the rough toil of the 

 farm or the garden, beyond their own household province. We de- 

 light in the chivalry which pervades this whole country, in regard 

 to the female character, and which even foreigners have remarked 

 as one of the strongest national characteristics.* But we would 

 gladly have them seize on that happy medium, between the English 

 passion for every thing out of doors, and the French taste for nothing 

 beyond the drawing-room. Every thing which relates to the gar- 

 den, the lawn, the pleasure-grounds, should claim their immediate 

 interest. And this, not merely to walk out occasionally and enjoy 

 it ; but to know it by heart ; to do it, or see it all done ; to know 



* M. Chevalier, one of the most intelligent of recent French travellers, 

 says, in his work on this country " Not only does the American mechanic 

 and farmer relieve, as much as possible, his wife from all severe labor, all 

 disagreeable employments, but there is also, in relation to them, and to 

 women in general, a disposition to oblige, that is unknown among us, even 

 in men who pique themselves upon cultivation of mind and literary educa- 

 tion." ******* 



" "We buy our wives with our fortunes, or we sell ourselves to them for 

 their dowriea The American chooses her, or rather he offers himself to her 

 for her beauty, her intelligence, and the qualities of her heart ; it is the 

 only dowry which he seeks. Thus, while we make of that which is most 

 sacred a matter of business, these traders affect a delicacy, and an elevation 

 of sentiment^ which would have done honor to the most perfect models of 

 chivalry." 



