AWEJUOAN LADIES,

Wellington Independent, Volume XIX, Issue 2176, 7 March 1865, Page 5

AWEJUOAN LADIES,

Mr George Augustus Sala, a well-known metropolitan literaleur, has lately, as the special correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, been giving his opinions of America and the people therein. The following chapter on American ladies is interesting : — "Inside the States Hotel, at Saratoga, you may smoke in two of the piazzas, but the third is a promenade eclusively for ladies, children, and such gentlemen as may be permitted to enjoy their society. In this piuza.l there is an inner range of gallery still above the basement row on which opened the windows of the priv.ite parlours. It is veiy charming to see the ladies sitting in these balconies, rlutleiibg their fans and eating ice-creams. It is more charming to hear their shrill prattle. It would be most chmning perhaps to see them engaged in some kind of needlework, even of the must frivolous ornamental kind; but the spiightly belles of Yankeedom very seldom take a needle between their delicate fingers— at least, in public. I dare say they work like so many Penelopes at Lome, but neither crochet, "application," nor embroirlery, is an avocation pursued out of doors. It is not tiie mode. I have peeped into a good many American households, hut I never yet saw a lady darning stockings. I trust that I have not committed a heinous crime in mentioning such things as stockings. I should perhaps have called them hose. Why, indeed, should they trouble themselves with the drudgery of the'seamstress ? Are there not sewing-machines to do all the needlework they require ? If they need any embroidered hems to their garments, cannot they purchase any quantity of such articles in Broadway? Why should they spoil their pretty digits with thimbles and housewife ? A blushing, timid, English girl— may she blush and be timid until this old world of ours grows dry and shrivelled as an orange of last Christmas that has lain forgotten in a drawer! — bends over some inscrutable strip of muslin, or evokes the misty phantoms of slippers and braces wiih Berlin wool from squares of canvass, chiefly because she has nothing to say for herself, or, having something dares not say it. A startled fawn can't talk to you about the " Balloa in Maschera," or the Morrill Tariff. The autelope just caught is rather given to palpitating and trembling than to discoursing on the Missouri Compromise or the conduct of England with regard to the Alabama. Our English girl 3 Lave certainly much to learn. They are behind the age, It is a reproach to civilization, progress, and woman's elevated mission to see them pouring over samplers like so many schoolgirls. That" beaming belle in the balcony, despises such mean and mechanical trumpery as needles aud tin end. She It as plenty to say for herself. Nay, conversationally, she would gi\eyou fifty and beat you easily at a hundred up. She never staimmrs, she never hesitates. If cow and then she is at a loss for a sentence — she is never at a loss for a word — she giggles ; and what can be more delightful thau giggling ? You mustn't swear when you are conversing with a Yankee young lady ; but apart from profanity— ~which is intolerable in all conversation — you may talk to her about anything and everything. Don't be nervous ; she understands it all. — No prejudiced papa, no over-strict mamma have thought of any kind of Index Expurgalorins as an element in domestic medicine. She was probably up much earlier than you weve this morning, and read the New York Herald while you were still dreaming. From newspapers she has gathered an infinite variety of scraps of information — a perfect patchworkcounterpane of facts. Try her on any topic, and you will iind her well posted up. Astronomy, Renan's Life, differential duties, the Monroe doctrine, and the Schleswig-Holstein question, the Old Red Sandstone and the fossil man of Abbeville, the rriracle of La S.ilette and Les Mohicans des Palis, Swedish gymnastics and the Turkish Bath, the origin of species and theVenusofMilo, photo-sculplureandPenn-sylvania oil stock, Meisonmer's pictures aud the Seven Thirty Loan, Bishop Colenso and the abolition of slavery, miscegenation and the Pacific Railway, the last novel and the next comet— she has something to say of every one of^these subjects, and on a great many more. Iv all seriousness and sincerity, I render to the young ladies of America the tiihute of being the most accomplished talkers in the woild. Their readiness of dictation, their facile flow of ideas, their quickness of apprehension, are really and truly astounding. I have talked to a good many ladies both old and young. I found some that were difficult and some that were facile to hold parley with. In talking to an English young lady, the most sensible plan to adopt is to endeavor to find out her strong point, if she have any; beitPuseism — with which are incorporated the arts of illuminating on vellum and embroidered ecclesiastical vestments — broad church, lowchurch, poor men's kitchens, botany, the collection of postage stamps, or the airangement of British ferns; the which stuck in albums, always remind me of so many highly elaborate preparations of pickled cabbage. Then, having discovered her forte, hie you home and read up the subjects in the " Eucyclop»dia Britantiica," or one of Mr Weale's handbooks ; and the next time you meet her sport the knowledge you have acquired. If you are only to meet her once, talk about the weather, Garibaldi, " John Marchmont's Legacy,'' or " A Life for a Life," and you will get along pretty well. Or another way, as the cookery-books say. If Providence has not made you a tool, pretend to be one. It is then that the timidest and bashfulest of English girls will show her kind and pitying heart. She will try to lead you on ; she will strive to find out your strong point: she will relate little apologues to you, as a mother would, reading stories in one syllable to the child at her knee ; and she will speak of you afterwards as a very gentlemanly persou, but rather diffident. The diffident young men who are mainly diplomatists — marry the handsomest and wealthiest young ladies. In talking to a German irirl all you have to do is to speakin a very soft voice, sigh occasionally, and, whenever you have an opportunity, oiler hei something to eat. The maidens of Deutschland are exceedingly sentimental, and have tremendous appetites ; and she will speedily grow U like you as the Heir who sighed so sweetly and brought her such nice things. HOW3OU should talk to a Frenchwoman I need scarcely particularise. A young unmarried lady never talks ai all ; she is merely uue jeune personne who turn: scarlet when you look at her, and, until she i: married par devant notaire to a man she ha; not seen half-a-dozen times in her life before, i; nobody. Married, she does all the talking herself. You have nothing to do but to listen an< be fascinated. She talks nothings, but uolhin] Li a whole world to a Frenchwoman. With th Russian ladies it is the same: they are as wilt)' and as fasciualiug, and have as frail a basis a jealism to talk upon ns their French sister; With the ladies of Italy what have you to d save to learn the art of handing a glass i lemonade and of understanding the languag of the eyes? Nobody talks at Venice, but ever) body falls in love. In the society of Spain's ladies you have simply to take care that neithe your cigarette nor that of your interlocutor {foe out. The fan does all the rest. At Vera Cm the vomito is an unfailing and inexbanstib! theme of conversation for both sexes. Bi jjone of these will ser^e your turn in talking I a young lady in the United States, who armed at all points. She is a very porcupine sharp sayings, It is not that she is witty, i humorous, or sarcastic, or profound ; but si bristles with facts, or at least with asserlioi

milled f}.ora nfiwepiipori} oV tho aphdinern}. publU cations, which she assumes to be facts. She is the most overwhelming conversationist in the world. Balzic used to say that there were fifty thousand Madame Savigncs in France; and I sun certain there aye at least half a million Madame de Staels in the States. One can imagine the terrible loquacity of Neckei's daughter. Why did Napoleon exile her forty leagues from Paris? Because she talked him down. Why did the Duke of Wellington declare that she was the only person who had ever made him know fear ? Because she w.is 100 much for him in conversation. Beware of the American young lady, unless you have the tongue of the Angelic Doctor, thf eloquence of Mirabeau, tho wit of Jack Wilkes to back you up. Her facls real or assumed— her readiness, her confidence, her iinextinguisbable volubility, will otherwise route and utterly discomfit you. Did I speak of Madam de Stael ? The comcomparison is wholly inadequate. She is a combination of Mesdames dv Deffand, Recamier, and D'Epinay, of Sophia Arnould and Delphine of Gray, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Mr 9 Thr.ile, and Lad} Morgau. She is a wonderful result of civilization, i'iee institutions, and femalh seminaries, where the fair students graduate in honors. She is as fair as polished and discourses as brilliant music as the ivory keys of a grand pianoforte — and she is quite as hard.