I

THE WOMEN

BEGIN with the women, because I am

writing this essay in the hope of saving a favourite niece, who thinks of making a plunge into the vortex of Paris. Her impulse seems to be due to an illusion that she has artistic talents.

The clever woman who is born in America and craves excitement without having the vigour to be emotional, finds herself in Paris as easily as the young silk-worm, on emerging from the egg, finds himself sitting on a mulberry leaf and prepared to begin his breakfast. The worm has bitten his way through the leaf and sits on top.

The novelists have given us pictures of the climbing American girl-pictures perhaps too dark, yet true in the main. They show that by the mere instinct of climbing, or the mere passion for excitement, a certain type of American woman finds herself in Paris. These novels often come from the hands of

the women themselves, and show a great mastery over one side of the subject. They depict with unchristian gusto the moral degeneration of the characters. They seem to be punishing the children of their own imaginations, as if the creatures were their personal enemies. The general tendency of social fiction has of late years been towards this sort of cruelty, and enough has never been said in extenuation of the faults of the American heroines, or indeed in explanation of the whole phenomenon of those wingless women who sit crunching mulberry leaves in Paris. They are maids who have been starved at home; they have been bored, they have been left unsatisfied by the social amenities of America. And from infancy they have struggled and fought, and sought, and tasted, and pushed blindly up until, at last, they have reached Colombin's cakes, Louis XV decorations, the titillation of refined conversation; in short, tous les agréments de la vie. Here in Paris is the elegance which they longed for in their cradles-chairs that rest them, sensibility that understands them, a new and not too great excitement for each hour of the day the trees in the spring, the hats in the shop windows, the latest book, the latest

genteel gentleman with something to say that is full of interest (he has seen a balloon, he knows the Swedish ambassador, he is a complete knight and a delightful, educated, romantic European).

There is something that Paris gives to the American woman whose domesticity is unsatisfactory which nothing in heaven or earth can replace-not religion, not love, not ambition, not care for the children of her womb, not the memory of scenes of her childhood, not old friends: nothing but the feeling of beautiful Paris goes quite to the right spot in this American female.

Of course there are differences in quality and in the refinement of taste among these enraptured children of Eve. The coarseminded and uneducated find the pang of the poison in lace and diamonds; the refined and educated find it in the phrases and nuances of the drawing-room life. It is a fact, however, that a specific psychological relation exists between these women and this city. This is what makes the whole matter a fair subject for examination and analysis, for prayer and meditation, for uplift and reform, for record and historic commemoration.

Surely mankind may draw some lesson

from a devout study of these acknowledged mysteries. The great thing would be to find out what happens to these pleasure-seeking females at the turning-point; that is to say, at the very moment when they reach Paris. They must, of course, do something different from what they did before reaching Paris, for Paris is the top; once Paris is reached, there is nowhere to go but down. This must cause some sort of convulsion in their silken natures. I assume, of course, that each one has got to the top of her own particular Paris, whether it be in a restaurant or in French salons. What happens

when the worm reaches her limit and further climbing is positively impossible? Does she go round and round? Does she get thinner or fatter? Does she go into a doze and spin? My belief is that when she strikes her limit she begins to die. Thereafter the refinements become a habit, their pleasure-giving power of course diminishes. She is now a complete product of the American colony. Desiccation and contraction gradually reduce her to the paper-doll condition which is familiar to us all.

Another interesting study would be to determine whether a woman has ever been saved from the fate of Paris. Has a lover

or a son ever plunged through the fire and brought one back alive, set her by an American fireside, interested her in her children's fate, warmed her back to such a point of vigour that the coarse blasts of American life could blow upon her soul and feed her within? The novelists have never imagined such a rescue, and the thing is probably very

rare.

Still another point to be determined would be whether this Paris disease is congenital (which I rather believe), or depends upon circumstances. Given the American girl with such and such a percentage of passion, so much brains, so much education, so much money: does not the rest follow inevitably, just as the tadpole grows into a frog and not into a lion? And might not some extremely great doctor in North Adams, Massachusetts, as he examines a new-born female infant and holds the little worm to the light, wrinkle his brow, think deeply, take off his glasses, and say impressively the single word, "Paris"?

There is an innocence about these fellowcountrywomen of ours to whom this essay is dedicated, somewhat like the innocence of a man who has a paper attached to his coattail without being aware of it, or the inno