lady who cried out 'Alack, I've married a black,' you appeal to
heaven against the injustice of being mated with a clown. You are
not a nice girl, either in your ideas or in your behaviour. I don't
blame you for it; you did not make yourself. But when you set to
work to attract all that is lowest in man, why be so astonished at
your own success? There are plenty of shocking American men, I
agree. One meets the class even outside America. But nice American
girls will tell you that there are also nice American men. There is
an old proverb about birds of a feather. Next time you find yourself
in the company of a shocking American man, you just ask yourself how
he got there, and how it is he seems to be feeling at home. You
learn self-control. Get it out of your head that you are the centre
of the universe, and grasp the idea that a petticoat is not a halo,
and you will find civilisation not half as wrong as you thought it."

   I know what Miss Sparhawk's reply would be.

   "You say all this to me—to me, a lady? Great Heavens! What has
become of chivalry?"

   A Frenchman was once put on trial for murdering his father and
mother. He confessed his guilt, but begged for mercy on the plea
that he was an orphan. Chivalry was founded on the assumption that
woman was worthy to be worshipped. The modern woman's notion is that
when she does wrong she ought to be excused by chivalrous man because
she is a lady.

   I like the naughty heroine; we all of us do. The early Victorian
heroine—the angel in a white frock, was a bore. We knew exactly
what she was going to do—the right thing. We did not even have to
ask ourselves, "What will she think is the right thing to do under
the circumstances?"  It was always the conventional right thing. You
could have put it to a Sunday school and have got the answer every
time. The heroine with passions, instincts, emotions, is to be
welcomed. But I want her to grasp the fact that after all she is
only one of us. I should like her better if, instead of demanding:

   "What is wrong in civilisation? What is the world coming to?" and so
forth, she would occasionally say to herself:

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