MELLOW ENGLAND. 



155 



wears. At first I feared it might be a police regula- 

 tion 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 matter 

 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, though, 

 as some Frenchman has said, it is always and every- 

 where the same face. Cases of striking, of ideal, of 

 maddening beauty are, no doubt, easier to find in this 

 country, while American school-girls have the most 

 bewitching beauty in the world. 



ARCHITECTURE. 



One sees right away that the English are a home 

 people, a domestic people. And he does not need to 

 go into their houses or homes to find this out. It is in 

 the air and in the general aspect of things. Every- 

 where you see the virtue and quality that we ascribe to 

 home-made articles. It seems as if things had been 

 made by hand, and with care and affection, as they 



