simple infants; I mean everything of less than twenty. The social
importance of the young American increases steadily up to that age,
and then it suddenly stops. The young girls, of course, are more
important than the lads; but the lads are very important too. I am
struck with the way they are known and talked about; they are little
celebrities; they have reputations and pretentions; they are taken
very seriously. As for the young girls, as I said just now, there
are too many. You will say, perhaps, that I am jealous of them,
with my fifty years and my red face. I don't think so, because I
don't suffer; my red face doesn't frighten people away, and I always
find plenty of talkers. The young girls themselves, I believe, like
me very much; and as for me, I delight in the young girls. They are
often very pretty; not so pretty as people say in the magazines, but
pretty enough. The magazines rather overdo that; they make a
mistake. I have seen no great beauties, but the level of prettiness
is high, and occasionally one sees a woman completely handsome. (As
a general thing, a pretty person here means a person with a pretty
face. The figure is rarely mentioned, though there are several good
ones.) The level of prettiness is high, but the level of
conversation is low; that's one of the signs of its being a young
ladies' country. There are a good many things young ladies can't
talk about; but think of all the things they can, when they are as
clever as most of these. Perhaps one ought to content one's self
with that measure, but it's difficult if one has lived for a while
by a larger one. This one is decidedly narrow; I stretch it
sometimes till it cracks. Then it is that they call me coarse,
which I undoubtedly am, thank Heaven! People's talk is of course
much more chatiee over here than in Europe; I am struck with that
wherever I go. There are certain things that are never said at all,
certain allusions that are never made. There are no light stories,