Never yet, to my knowledge, have I seen even a livery worn by a white
native American; and to restrain the Sunday bonnets of her handmaidens,
what lady has attempted?

This is as it should be. The Sunday bonnet of the Irish damsel is only the
symbol of a very proper effort to obtain her share of all social
advantages. Long may those ribbons wave! Meanwhile I think the fact that it
is easier for the gentleman of the house to control the dress of his groom
than for the lady to dictate that of her waiting-maid,--this must count
against the theory that it is women who are the natural aristocrats.

Women are no doubt more sensitive than men upon matters of taste and
breeding. This is partly from a greater average fineness of natural
perception, and partly because their more secluded lives give them less of
miscellaneous contact with the world. If Maud Muller and her husband had
gone to board at the same boarding-house with the Judge and his wife, that
lady might have held aloof from the rustic bride, simply from inexperience
in life, and not knowing just how to approach her. But the Judge, who might
have been talking politics or real estate with the young farmer on the
doorsteps that morning, would certainly find it easier to deal with him as
a man and a brother at the dinner-table. From these different causes women
get the credit or discredit of being more aristocratic than men are; so
that in England the Tory supporters of female suffrage base it on the
ground that these new voters at least will be conservative.

But, on the other hand, it is women, even more than men, who are attracted
by those strong qualities of personal character which are always the
antidote to aristocracy. No bold revolutionist ever defied the established
conventionalisms of his times without drawing his strongest support from
women. Poet and novelist love to depict the princess as won by the outlaw,