AN OCTOBER ABROAD 151 



iat, 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 

 football 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- 

 looking. 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 coun- 

 try, — less spirituelle, less perfect in form, but 

 stronger and sweeter. There is more blood, and 

 heart, and substance back of it. The American 

 race of the present generation is doubtless the most 

 shapely, both in face and figure, that has yet ap- 

 peared, American children are far less crude, and 

 lumpy, and awkward-looking than the 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 or conditions that 

 speedily refines and sharpens — and, shall I add, 

 hardens? — the human features. The face loses 



