The American Girl.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 361, 20 April 1889, Page 4

The American Girl.

Tins following brightly-written extract is taken from an article in the 'St. James's Gazctto ' on the great American Girl question by an Ameiican wife: — ' As with Minnehaha, so with American girls who have less musical names — they leave all ttiiugs for the stranger. The Englishman coinos among us surrounded with the pleafctin'- fragrance of mystery. We don't kno f all about his people, nor where he was- &b college, nor what his business is, nor how much his last speculation brought him. Indeed, he never talks about his business at all, which is quite too fascinating a peculiarity ; and then he listens to what wo say with an air of absorption and delight which our young men never succeed in acquiring 1 . They also, no doubt, listen to our remarks, but they never give us their undivided attention. There is always a wrinkle on their foreheads, or at alx events an anxious twist in the eyebiow, which means that they have still an eye on their business, and are wondering how it is getting on while they aro away wasting their precious time on our nonsense. The Englishman at a picnic will stretch himself on the grass at your feet and smoke hin cigarette lazily in manifest content ; and by-and-by he will say very slowly, ' Ah, you know — this is what I call happiness. I should like it to go on for ever.' The American gets you ices with exemplaiy zeal and promptitude, and lie finds for you the coolest nook wherein to rest ; then he stands bolt upright against a tree, and looks furtively and anxiously at his watch. After a while he hopes ' the girl« won't think of going for a ramble in the woods,' because he must catch the hulf-past 5 train back to town. He may be an Apollo to look at ; but who would not prefer the lazy Englishman, be he never so plain ? The American men are not idle enough to make love with any chance of success against the leisurely European. Mr Max O'Rell strikes the keynobo of American life when he says everybody works —young, old, rich and pooi\ The idle man, who in Europe is called a gentleman, in Chicago is called a loafer. That is just it — work without ceasing is making America one of the most prosperous but also one of the most nnbeautifnl lands imaginable. Nobody, eithor rich or poof, has time to idle ; and nobody soerns to realise that it is only in idleness and leisure^ or at least in cessation from the pin suit of wealth, that anything beautiful will be evolved out of either brain or hand.'