What we call beauty in woman is so much a matter of youth and health that the average of female beauty in London is, I believe, higher than in this country.  English women are comely and good-looking.  It is an extremely fresh and pleasant face that you see everywhere,—­softer, less clearly and sharply cut than the typical female face in this country,—­less spirituelle, less perfect in form, but stronger and sweeter.  There is more blood, and heart, and substance back of it.  The American race of the present generation is doubtless the most shapely, both in face and figure, that has yet appeared.  American children are far less crude, and lumpy, and awkward-looking than the European children.  One generation in this country suffices vastly to improve the looks of the offspring of the Irish or German or Norwegian emigrant.  There is surely something in our climate or conditions that speedily refines and sharpens—­and, shall I add, hardens?—­the human features.  The face loses something, but it comes into shape; and of such beauty as is the product of this tendency we can undoubtedly show more, especially in our women, than the parent stock in Europe; while American schoolgirls, I believe, have the most bewitching beauty in the world.

The English plainness of speech is observable even in the signs or notices along the streets.  Instead of “Lodging,” “Lodging,” as with us, one sees “Beds,” “Beds,” which has a very homely sound; and in place of “gentlemen’s” this, that, or the other, about public places, the word “men’s” is used.

I suppose, if it were not for the bond of a written language and perpetual intercourse, the two nations would not be able to understand each other in the course of a hundred years, the inflection and accentuation are so different.  I recently heard an English lady say, referring to the American speech, that she could hardly believe her own language could be spoken so strangely.

ARCHITECTURE

One sees right away that the English are a home people, a domestic people; and he does not need to go into their houses or homes to find this out.  It is in the air and in the general aspect of things.  Everywhere you see the virtue and quality that we ascribe to home-made articles.  It seems as if things had been made by hand, and with care and affection, as they have been.  The land of caste and kings, there is yet less glitter and display than in this country, less publicity, and, of course, less rivalry and emulation also, for which we pay very dearly.  You have got to where the word homely preserves its true signification, and is no longer a term of disparagement, but expressive of a cardinal virtue.