treat the wandering globe-trotter. They declare that they speak
the truth, and the news of dog politicslately vouchsafed to me

in groggeries inclines me to believe, but I won't. The people
are much too nice to slangander as recklessly as I have been

doing.
Besides, I am hopelessly in love with about eight American

maidens--all perfectlydelightful till the next one comes into
the room.

O-Toyo was a darling, but she lacked several things--conversation
for one. You cannot live on giggles. She shall remain unmarried

at Nagasaki, while I roast a battered heart before the shrine of
a big Kentucky blonde, who had for a nurse when she was little a

negro "mammy."
By consequence she has welded on California beauty, Paris

dresses, Eastern culture, Europe trips, and wild Western
originality, the queer, dreamy superstitions of the quarters, and

the result is soul-shattering. And she is but one of many stars.
Item, a maiden who believes in education and possesses it, with a

few hundred thousand dollars to boot and a taste for slumming.
Item, the leader of a sort of informal salon where girls

congregate, read papers, and daringly discuss metaphysical
problems and candy--a sloe-eyed, black-browed, imperiousmaiden

she.
Item, a very small maiden, absolutely" target="_blank" title="ad.绝对地；确实">absolutely without reverence, who can

in one swift sentencetrample upon and leave gasping half a dozen
young men.

Item, a millionairess, burdened with her money, lonely, caustic,
with a tongue keen as a sword, yearning for a sphere, but chained

up to the rock of her vast possessions.
Item, a typewritermaiden earning her own bread in this big city,

because she doesn't think a girl ought to be a burden on her
parents, who quotes Theophile Gautier and moves through the world

manfully, much respected for all her twenty inexperienced
summers.

Item, a woman from cloud-land who has no history in the past or
future, but is discreetly of the present, and strives for the

confidences of male humanity on the grounds of "sympathy"
(methinks this is not altogether a new type).

Item, a girl in a "dive," blessed with a Greek head and eyes,
that seem to speak all that is best and sweetest in the world.

But woe is me! She has no ideas in this world or the next beyond
the consumption of beer (a mission" target="_blank" title="n.委任(状) vt.委任">commission on each bottle), and

protests that she sings the songs allotted to her nightly without
more than the vaguest notion of their meaning.

Sweet and comely are the maidens of Devonshire; delicate and of
gracious seeming those who live in the pleasant places of London;

fascinating for all their demureness the damsels of France,
clinging closely to their mothers, with large eyes wondering at

the wicked world; excellent in her own place and to those who
understand her is the Anglo-Indian "spin" in her second season;

but the girls of America are above and beyond them all. They are
clever, they can talk--yea, it is said that they think.

Certainly they have an appearance of so doing which is
delightfully deceptive.

They are original, and regard you between the brows with
unabashed eyes as a sister might look at her brother. They are

instructed, too, in the folly and vanity of the male mind, for
they have associated with "the boys" from babyhood, and can

discerningly minister to both vices or pleasantly snub the
possessor. They possess, moreover, a life among themselves,

independent of any masculine associations. They have societies
and clubs and unlimited tea-fights where all the guests are

girls. They are self-possessed, without parting with any
tenderness that is their sex-right; they understand; they can

take care of themselves; they are superbly independent. When you
ask them what makes them so charming, they say:--"It is because

we are better educated than your girls, and--and we are more
sensible in regard to men. We have good times all round, but we

aren't taught to regard every man as a possible husband. Nor is
he expected to marry the first girl he calls on regularly."

Yes, they have good times, their freedom is large, and they do
not abuse it. They can go driving with young men and receive

visits from young men to an extent that would make an English
mother wink with horror, and neither driver nor drivee has a

thought beyond the enjoyment of a good time. As certain, also,
of their own poets have said:--

"Man is fire and woman is tow,
And the devil he comes and begins to blow."

In America the tow is soaked in a solution that makes it
fire-proof, in absolute liberty and large knowledge;

consequently, accidents do not exceed the regular percentage
arranged by the devil for each class and climate under the skies.

But the freedom of the young girl has its draw-backs. She is--I
say it with all reluctance--irreverent, from her forty-dollar

bonnet to the buckles in her eighteen-dollar shoes. She talks
flippantly to her parents and men old enough to be her

grandfather. She has a prescriptive right to the society of the
man who arrives. The parents admit it.

This is sometimes embarrassing, especially when you call on a man
and his wife for the sake of information--the one being a

merchant of varied knowledge, the other a woman of the world. In
five minutes your host has vanished. In another five his wife

has followed him, and you are left alone with a very charming
maiden, doubtless, but certainly not the person you came to see.

She chatters, and you grin, but you leave with the very strong
impression of a wasted morning. This has been my experience once

or twice. I have even said as pointedly as I dared to a man:--"I
came to see you."

"You'd better see me in my office, then. The house belongs to my
women folk--to my daughter, that is to say."

He spoke the truth. The American of wealth is owned by his
family. They exploit him for bullion. The women get the

ha'pence, the kicks are all his own. Nothing is too good for an
American's daughter (I speak here of the moneyed classes).

The girls take every gift as a matter of course, and yet they
develop greatly when a catastrophe arrives and the man of many

millions goes up or goes down, and his daughters take to
stenography or typewriting. I have heard many tales of heroism

from the lips of girls who counted the principals among their
friends. The crash came, Mamie, or Hattie, or Sadie, gave up

their maid, their carriages and candy, and with a No. 2 Remington
and a stout heart set about earning their daily bread.

"And did I drop her from the list of my friends? No, sir," said
a scarlet-lipped vision in white lace; "that might happen to us

any day."
It may be this sense of possible disaster in the air that makes

San Francisco society go with so captivating a rush and whirl.
Recklessness is in the air. I can't explain where it comes from,

but there it is. The roaring winds of the Pacific make you drunk
to begin with. The aggressiveluxury on all sides helps out the

intoxication, and you spin forever "down the ringing grooves of
change" (there is no small change, by the way, west of the

Rockies) as long as money lasts. They make greatly and they spend
lavishly; not only the rich, but the artisans, who pay nearly

five pounds for a suit of clothes, and for other luxuries in
proportion.

The young men rejoice in the days of their youth. They gamble,
yacht, race, enjoy prize-fights and cock-fights, the one openly,

the other in secret; they establish luxurious clubs; they break
themselves over horse-flesh and other things, and they are

instant in a quarrel. At twenty they are experienced in
business, embark in vast enterprises, take partners as

experienced as themselves, and go to pieces with as much splendor
as their neighbors. Remember that the men who stocked California