bably the result of the fact that the women have at the outset
received precisely the same education as the men and, since leaving
school or college, have had more leisure, being less engrossed in
business and material things.

But this feminine predominance in matters of aesthetics in the United
States does not as a rule increase the Englishman's opinion of the
intellectuality or culture of the people as a whole. He still judges
only by the men. Indeed, he is not entirely disposed to like so much
intellectuality in women--such interest in politics, educational
matters, art, and literature. Not having been accustomed to it he rather
disapproves of it. Blue regimentals are only fit for the blue horse or
the artillery.

The Englishman in an American house meets a man more rough and less
polished than a man holding a similar position in society would be in
England; and he thinks poorly of American society in consequence. He
also meets that man's wife, who shows a familiarity with art, letters,
and public affairs vastly more comprehensive than he would expect to
find in a woman of similar position in England. But he does not
therefore strike a balance and re-cast his estimate of American society,
any more than in his estimate of the American press he makes allowance
for the American magazines. He only thinks that the woman's knowledge is
rather out of place and conjectures it to be probably superficial.
Wherein he is no less one-sided in his prejudice than the American who
will not believe in English humour because he cannot understand it.

Philistinism is undoubtedly more on the surface in educated society in
the United States than in Great Britain; but in England outside that
society it is nearly all Philistinism. Step down from a social class in
England, and you come to a new and lower level of refinement and
information. In America the people still "come mixed."

Twenty-five years ago in England, you did not expect a stock-broker, and
to-day you do not expect a haberdasher (even though he may have been
knighted), to know whether Botticelli is a wine or a cheese. In America,
because the Englishman meets that stock-broker or that haberdasher in a
society in which he would not be likely to meet him in England, he does
expect him to know; and I suspect that if a census were taken there
would be found more stock-brokers and haberdashers in America than in
England who do know something of Botticelli. I am quite certain tha