y American men, and that the quality of the articles
has something to do with it.

The American duchess, I take it, comes over to Europe, and desires
incontinently to drag the European duke at the wheels of her chariot.
And the European duke is fascinated in turn, partly by this very fact,
partly by the undeniable freshness, brightness, and delicate culture of
the American woman. For there is no burking the truth that in many
respects the American woman carries about her a peculiar charm ungranted
as yet to her European sisters. It is the charm of freedom, of ease, of
a certain external and skin-deep emancipation--an emancipation which
goes but a little way down, yet adds a quaint and piquant grace of
manner. What she conspicuously lacks, on the other hand, is essential
femininity; by which I don't mean womanliness--of that she has enough
and to spare--but the wholesome physical and instinctive qualities which
go to make up a sound and well-equipped wife and mother. The lack of
these underlying muliebral qualities more than counterbalances to not a
few Europeans the undoubted vivacity, originality, and freshness of the
American woman. She is a dainty bit of porcelain, unsuited for use; a
delicate exotic blossom, for drawing-room decoration, where many would
prefer robust fruit-bearing faculties.

I dropped into the Opera House here at Nice the other night, and found
they were playing "Carmen"--which is always interesting. Well, you may
perhaps remember that when that creature of passion, the gipsy heroine,
wishes to gain or retain a man's affections, she throws a rose at him,
and then he cannot resist her. That is Merimee's symbolism. Art is full
of these sacrifices of realism to reticence. Outside the opera, it is
not with roses that women enslave us. But the American duchess relies
entirely upon the use of the rose; and that is just where she fails to
interest so many of us in Europe.

And now I think it's almost time for me to go and hunt up the material
arguments for that rusty six-shooter.

VI.

_IS ENGLAND PLAYED OUT?_

Britain is now the centre of civilisation. Will it always be so? Is our
commercial supremacy decaying or not? Have we begun to reach the period
of inevitable decline? Or is decline indeed inevitable at all? Might a
nation go on being great for ever? If so, are _we_ that nation? If not,
have we yet arrived at the moment when retrogression becomes a foregone
conclusion? These are momen