side of this happy land
the institution is unknown. The _pension_ when it exists abroad, is only
an exotic growth for an American market. Among European nations it is
undreamed of; the poorest when they travel take furnished rooms, where
they are served in private, or go to restaurants or _table d'hotes_ for
their meals. In a strictly continental hotel the public parlor does not
exist. People do not travel to make acquaintances, but for health or
recreation, or to improve their minds. The enforced intimacy of our
American family house, with its attendant quarrelling and back-biting, is
an infliction of which Europeans are in happy ignorance.

One explanation, only, occurs to me, which is that among New England
people, largely descended from Puritan stock, there still lingers some
blind impulse at self-mortification, an hereditary inclination to make
this life as disagreeable as possible by self-immolation. Their
ancestors, we are told by Macaulay, suppressed bull baiting, not because
it hurt the bull, but because it gave pleasure to the people. Here in
New England they refused the Roman dogma of Purgatory and then with
complete inconsistency, invented the boarding-house, in order, doubtless,
to take as much of the joy as possible out of this life, as a preparation
for endless bliss in the next.

No. 15--A False Start

Having had, during a wandering existence, many opportunities of observing
my compatriots away from home and familiar surroundings in various
circles of cosmopolitan society, at foreign courts, in diplomatic life,
or unofficial capacities, I am forced to acknowledge that whereas my
countrywoman invariably assumed her new position with grace and dignity,
my countryman, in the majority of cases, appeared at a disadvantage.

I take particular pleasure in making this tribute to my "sisters" tact
and wit, as I have been accused of being "hard" on American women, and
some half-humorous criticisms have been taken seriously by
over-susceptible women--doubtless troubled with guilty consciences for
nothing is more exact than the old French proverb, "It is only the truth
that wounds."

The fact remains clear, however, that American men, as regards polish,
facility in expressing themselves in foreign languages, the arts of
pleasing and entertaining, in short, the thousand and one nothings
composing that agreeable whole, a cultivated member of society, are
inferior to their womankind. I feel sure th