Of course, in every nation there is a class of men who are as noble, as high-minded, as chivalrous as even the most captious American girl could wish.  But I refer to the general run of men when I say that there is something about men born outside of America, a native selfishness or callousness, a lack of perception and appreciation of the fineness of womanhood, amounting to a sort of mental brutality, which wellnigh unfits them for close social contact with the super-sensitive American woman.  And just as surely as American women persist in disregarding this subtle yet unmistakable truth, just so surely will they lay themselves open to these soul-bruises from foreign husbands which American men, as a race, are incapable of inflicting.  I say they are incapable of inflicting them, because American men, in the face of everything said and written to the contrary, are, in regard to women, the finest-grained race of men in the world.

Now in this generalizing, I beg that you will not accuse me of asserting that these strictures are true of every man who is not an American, or that all American men are perfect.  But I do wish to state clearly and frankly my admiration for American men as a race.  When an American man is a gentleman, he is to my mind the most perfect gentleman that any race can produce, because his good manners spring from his heart, and there are a few of us old-fashioned enough to plead that politeness should go deeper than the skin.

Now if the assertion is made that the American man makes the best husband in the world, let him not think that there is no room for improvement, for with him it is much the same as it is with the wild strawberry.  At first blush one would say that there could be no more delicious flavor than that of the wild strawberry.  Yet everybody knows what the skilled gardeners have made of it in the form of the cultivated fruit.  Nevertheless, the crude article, found growing wild upon its native heath, is much to be preferred to the candied ginger of other nations.

After admitting that the wild strawberry is capable of cultivation, and even attaining, under skilful care, the highest type of perfection, let no one make the mistake of thinking that the time for such improvement is after they have been grown and placed upon the market.  If they are found to be knotty, half green, or in a state of decadence, and you are bound to buy strawberries, you can take them, and, by your native woman’s wit, you can dress them into a state of palatableness, even if you have to reduce them to a pulp in the sacred mysteries of a short-cake.

But in order to take all the comfort which strawberries are capable of giving to mankind, they should be perfect in themselves when they come from the hand of the gardener—­just as it was his mother’s duty to have trained that husband of yours before he came under your influence.