In his evening garb, which generally fits him, but which generally is not pressed as to trouserlegs and coatsleeves, the Englishman makes anexceedingly good appearance.  The swallow-tailed coat was created for the Englishman andhe for it; but on all other occasions the well-dressed American leads him—­leads the world, for that matter.  When a Frenchman attires himself in his fanciest regalia he merely succeeds in looking effeminate; whereas a German, under similar circumstances, bears a wadded-in, bulged-out, stuffed-up appearance.  I never saw a German in Germany whose hat was not too small for him—­just as I never saw a Japanese in Occidental garb whose hat was not too large for him—­if it was a derby hat.  If a German has on a pair of trousers that flare out at the bottom and a coat with angel sleeves—­I think that is the correct technical term—­and if the front of his coat is spangled over with the largest-sized horn buttons obtainable he regards himself as being dressed to the minute.

As for the women, I believe even the super-critical mantuamakers of Paris have begun to concede that, as a nation, the American women are the best-dressed women on earth.  The French women have a way of arranging their hair and of wearing their hats and of draping their furs about their throats that is artistic beyond comparison.  There may be a word insome folks’ dictionaries fitly to describe it—­there is no such word in mine; but when you have said that much you have said all there is to say.  A French woman’s feet are not shod well.  French shoes, like all European shoes, are clumsy and awkward looking.

English children are well dressed because they are simply dressed; and the children themselves, in contrast to the overdressed, overly aggressive youngsters so frequently encountered in America, are mannerly and self-effacing, and have sane, simple, childish tastes.  Young English girls are fresh and natural, but frequently frumpy; and the English married woman is generally dressed in poor taste and appears to have a most limited wardrobe.  Apparently the husband buys all he wants, and then, if there is any money left over, the wife gets it to spend on herself.

Venturing one morning into a London chapel I saw a dowdy little woman of this type kneeling in a pew, chanting the responses to the service.  Her blouse gaped open all the way down her back and she was saying with much fervor, “We have left undone those things which we ought to have done.”  She had too, but she didn’t know it, as she knelt there unconsciously supplying a personal illustration for the spoken line.

The typical highborn English woman has pale blue eyes, a fine complexion and a clear-cut, rather expressionless face with a profile suggestive of the portraits seen on English postage stamps of the early Victorian period; but in the arranging of her hair any French shopgirl could give her lessons, and any smart American woman could teach her a lot about the knack of wearing clothes with distinction.