Ah, madam, my daughters are French girls. That is very
different. It would not be correct for a French girl to go about
alone and speak to men as English and American girls do. That is why
I so immensely admire the English people. You are so free--so
unprejudiced--your women are so brave and frank--their minds are
so--how do you say?--wholesome. I intend to have my daughters
educated in England. Nowhere else in the world but in England could I
have met at a Variety Theatre a charming young lady of perfect
respectability, and enjoyed a dance with her at a public dancing
saloon. And where else are women trained to box and knock out the
teeth of policemen as a protest against injustice and violence?
[Rising, with immense elan] Your daughter, madam, is superb. Your
country is a model to the rest of Europe. If you were a Frenchman,
stifled with prudery, hypocrisy and the tyranny of the family and the
home, you would understand how an enlightened Frenchman admires and
envies your freedom, your broadmindedness, and the fact that home life
can hardly be said to exist in England. You have made an end of the
despotism of the parent; the family council is unknown to you;
everywhere in these islands one can enjoy the exhilarating, the
soul-liberating spectacle of men quarrelling with their brothers,
defying their fathers, refusing to speak to their mothers. In France
we are not men: we are only sons--grown-up children.
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