AMERICAN COURTSHIP.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 15, 18 January 1905, Page 3

AMERICAN COURTSHIP.

HOW IT IS DONE. _____ Extravagance, says an American lady in the "Daily Telegraph," is the order of the day in American courtships. The period leading up to the engagement Is one of continuous entertainment for the admired , young woman. The admirer expects to provide a succession of theatre parties, opera parties, dinners at expensive cafes, etc. He also is expected to render his homage in the shape of perishable luxuries, such as towers and candy, before the engagement. Books, music, and gloves are also possible. Pictures, not too expensive, and similar gifts, whose principal qualifications seem to be that they are not useful, are permitted to lend variety to the preengagqment devotion. After the engagement the homage takes a more solid form, appearing usually as jewellery, saddlehorses, dogs, ivory and silver desk articles, etc. In the most exclusive social circles In t2he great cities, and especially in New York, the relatives of the bewitched young mam, rather than himself, provide the entertainments given to THE OBJECT OF HIS REGARD. Teas, dinners, and dances are given by his relatives and old friends, and up to her marriage the young woman lives in a whirl of pleasurable excitement, which is all the more Intoxicating in that it Is evoked in her honour. Love-making In America is sincere, but not effusive. The American feels very deeply in affairs of the affections, but he doesn't say -much. Perhaps that is why in the international manage m which America is a partner it Is usually the American girl who weds the non-American man. The American man rarely goes outside his country to choose a wife. The women of other nations, it may be, do not understand his silent advances. He lacks the ability or the' wish to express emotion. Repression, rather, Is the first word of his cult. It is not to be denied that the American face has, through the influence of tradition; developed a resemblance to that of the North American Indian. The stoicism of the red man has also crept into his supplanted character. The American man's chivalry in love, not to be excelled anywhere in the world, is expressed in deed. His vocabulary is all that is required in the field of commerce. In that of love It is apt to fail pitiably. But the American girl understands him perfectly. When the man who hasn't said anything much goes away, and his 1 departure Is followed by the arrival df a succession of'messenger boys, staggering under the weight of MAMMOTH BOXES OF CONFECTIONERY. mammoth boxes of flowers, mammoth bundles of new books —the American girl hasn't a bit of doubt what he means. Modern American couples do much of their courting on the golf links and the bridle-path. There Is also the ball-room and the drawing-room courtship, but these are apt to be to severely chaperoned for the individuality of either to assert itself. The verandah, however, Is the real home of the American courtship. The Southern girl has this almost all the year round. That Is why, perhaps, that courting is so much more a fine art there than elsewhere in the United States. She calls it "the gallery," and presides over It, gowned Innocently, but oh, so beguilingly, in white. It Is lighted by moonlight only t It Is scented with jasmine and magnolia. One of the first things that a Southern girl who comes to New York always asks is, "Where do you do your courting?" But in the summer the piazza is a universal possibility. AH the American summer resort hotels provide vast miles of It, and every summer cottage rates Its piazza as its most Important accessory. The American girl from all parts of the country takes possession of THIS PARADISE OF COURTSHIP. The piazza may account for the recklessness of the American girl in regard to summer engagements. Engagements beginning in summer are an especial brand. They are lot expected to last, and the "summer en-f-agement" is known from the Atlantic to ■-i' Pacific as an excessively fragile ar.:;'.;:;cment. Many girls take on two or '.hr;>e engagements for the heated period, .-ruing them off with equal nonchalance ■■:: their return to town in the fall. The Southern girl Is supposed to be partlularly • Mr-ted to the double and even triple en-

her weakness in this direction Is only tk* summer engagement habit prolonged, as is her summer climate, throughout the year* Chaperones have no serious part to play, in an American engagement. The chaperoa has never been taken seriously by Americans. It is only in a few of the great Eastern cities that the idea obtains at all, an* then only among a very limited class. Published columns on etiquette advise the chaperone on every occasion, but in reality) she is as much a matter of tradition ia most American communities as the obedient child or the stern father. Like them, she is known in the novel and drama only. When 6he does hold a place in'the community it Is as the friend of both wooed and wooer and the official smoother of differences. The national sense of humour is usually, present in American courtships. Only a fer; Americans can be sentimental without a lurking consciousness that it is just pos-t slble they are MAKING THEMSELVES RIDICULOUS. To be ridiculous in America is a situation singularly obnoxious to the most earnest lover. It is to this fear somewhat that American girls owe their loss of much that Is pleasurable in the courtships of less humour-loving nations. When it comes t» the proposal, for instance, tne American; man, with a remembrance of the comic papers that cannot be banished, absolutely refuses to kneel, he refuses to rave, to tear his hair, and to lay his ruined Ufe at tha feet of his cruel sweetheart. Parents in America venture little interference in the love-making of their sons and daughters. Tales are told of young American heiresses so successfully courted by young stars of the footlights that their parents are obliged to whisk them over the water until the passion cools, giving place to a practical yearning for a ducal establishment. But if the young aspirant ta love and fortune be a business clerk instead of a footlight favourite, for which; career the American papa has a profound! dislike, he will probably be taken into the family business, and married to the heiress without a moment's hesitation. Usually true love is allowed to take its own course In America, and Is even helped on its way ( by the parents and guardians most com cerned.