THE AMERICAN WOMAN. 387 



that pleases her is, during the time she lives in it, her adopted 

 country. The thought never occurs to her that she may be 

 ridiculous or may appear so ; or that a woman can be ridiculous 

 or a man think it of her. Such is the confidence, justified by ex- 

 perience, which the privileges of her sex give her, that she has 

 neither timorous reserve nor sickly timidity. Homage paid to 

 her as a woman does not embarrass her, attention does not dis- 

 concert her. She is accustomed to them, and freely confesses the 

 pleasure they cause her. 



She is the resultant of a mode of education, of a kind of life 

 that differs profoundly from ours. She has been taught to rely 

 upon herself, to judge for herself. In her relations with men she 

 has always been free but responsible, guardian of her own honor, 

 and artisan of her future. She has seen and observed ; she is not 

 ignorant of the duties of life, or of the perils of independence. If 

 the objection is made that this too premature knowledge is often 

 liable to render her under a brilliant and sportive exterior coldly 

 calculating and too early cautious, we may answer that she will 

 sooner or later have to deduce her own conclusions from what 

 surrounds her, of the world in which she lives, and that it may 

 be better for her eyes to be opened to evidence and her judgment 

 to be formed before making the decisive choice of her life. 



It is hard in examining such a question to abstract one's self 

 sufficiently from the usages and the ideas of the medium in which 

 one lives — to be absolutely impartial. By instinct we are inclined 

 toward accepted ideas, usual customs, and current axioms. Our 

 own ideas are still too far away from those of the people across the 

 sea for strong contradictions not to arise between them. In such 

 a matter experience only is of value, and we can judge equitably 

 only by results. Here experience is conclusive and the results 

 are satisfactory. 



If the American Union is to-day one of the first countries in 

 the world, it owes the fact to a large extent to the American 

 woman, who was and still is an important factor in its astonish- 

 ing prosperity. The United States owes it to her that it has pre- 

 served the religious faith, the principle of vitality, imported by the 

 Pilgrim fathers to the American shores. She has been the effica- 

 cious artisan of the work. She has maintained it, extended and 

 enlarged it in the church and the school. In hours of difficulty, 

 as during the war of independence and the war of secession, the 

 patriotism of the woman sustained the courage of the man. Under 

 all circumstances she was his companion and his equal. As such 

 he respected her, and that respect which she inspired in him by her 

 self-denial and her courage in the beginning, by her intelligence and 

 good breeding afterward, by her charms and her confidence in his 

 protection, has fashioned American manners, and has strongly 



