Matthew Arnold, Civilization in the United States: First and Last Impressions of America.

The French, those great authorities in social life and manners, find Mr. enough, and the Americans are more and more, I am glad to say, following the French example. I only hope they will persevere, and not be seduced by Esquire being “so English, you know.” And I do hope, moreover, that we shall one day take the same course and drop our absurd Esquire.

The other point goes deeper. Much may be said against the voices and intonation of American women. But almost every one acknowledges that there is a charm in American women — a charm which you find in almost all of them, wherever you go. It is the charm of a natural manner, a manner not self-conscious, artificial and constrained. It may not be a beautiful manner always, but it is almost always a natural manner, a free and happy manner; and this gives pleasure. Here we have, undoubtedly, a note of civilization, and an evidence, at the same time, of the good effect of equality upon social life and manners. I have often heard it observed that a perfectly natural manner is as rare among Englishwomen of the middle classes as it is general among American women of like condition with them. And so far as the observation is true, the reason of its truth no doubt is, that the Englishwoman is living in presence of