If there was a well-dressed lady at table, she
was either an American or "fast." She attracted as much notice as
though she were on the stage. No one could possibly admire an
English dinner-table.
Least of all did Motley mean that the taste or the manners were
perfect. The manners of English society were notorious, and the
taste was worse. Without exception every American woman rose in
rebellion against English manners. In fact, the charm of London
which made most impression on Americans was the violence of its
contrasts; the extreme badness of the worst, making background
for the distinction, refinement, or wit of a few, just as the
extreme beauty of a few superb women was more effective against
the plainness of the crowd. The result was mediaeval, and
amusing; sometimes coarse to a degree that might have startled a
roustabout, and sometimes courteous and considerate to a degree
that suggested King Arthur's Round Table; but this artistic
contrast was surely not the perfection that Motley had in his
mind. He meant something scholarly, worldly, and modern; he was
thinking of his own tastes.
Probably he meant that, in his favorite houses, the tone was
easy, the talk was good, and the standard of scholarship was
high. Even there he would have been forced to qualify his
adjectives. No German would have admitted that English
scholarship was high, or that it was scholarship at all, or that
any wish for scholarship existed in England.
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