In
a contest against him she would have no chance at all--there is no
divorce; there is no redress.
"Yet, so far as my personal observation goes, numberless international
marriages have been happy. The American wife of a European finds many
compensations--for although her husband does not allow her freedom to
follow her own whims, and may not even permit her to spend her own
money, he gives her a ceaseless attentiveness that never relaxes into
the careless indifference of the husbands across the sea.
"It is after all a question of choice--do you want the little things of
life very perfectly polished or do you prefer rough edges and heroic
sizes! European men know how to make themselves charming to their wives,
because with them to be charming is an aim in itself. They have
versatility, ease, and grace of intellect, where the American men are
bound up in their one or two absorbing ideas, outside of which they take
no interest. The Europeans are brilliant conversationalists, they make
an effort to be agreeable and to take an interest in whatever occupies
the person they are talking to--even though that person is a member of
their family.
"But, of course, as in everything, there is a price one has to pay. One
can't have rigidity and flexibility both in the same person. For the
pliancy of understanding, the easy sympathy, one has to relinquish a
certain moral steadfastness.
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