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Women of all nations; a record of their characteristics, habits, manners, customs and influence . d cleverer over smallthings ; but life in the provincesand small provincial towns is,generally speaking, so dull and uniformthat brilliance of intellect is neither re-quired nor looked for, and life there is ata far less high intellectual level than withus. The type of mind found in Paris and that of the centres of population in theprovinces is totally different. In the formerthe question is rather what one is and whatone may attain ; than (as is the casein the latter) who ones grandfather andance
Women of all nations; a record of their characteristics, habits, manners, customs and influence . d cleverer over smallthings ; but life in the provincesand small provincial towns is,generally speaking, so dull and uniformthat brilliance of intellect is neither re-quired nor looked for, and life there is ata far less high intellectual level than withus. The type of mind found in Paris and that of the centres of population in theprovinces is totally different. In the formerthe question is rather what one is and whatone may attain ; than (as is the casein the latter) who ones grandfather andancestry were, and what the familys pasthistory has been, and what one all great provincial towns of Francehave their own individuality,which has arisenfrom either an historic past, or peculiaritiesof situation, or from a combination ofboth. In the commercial towns all thelife and energy and ambitions are deeplycentred in material prosperity, and the in-habitants esteem one another chiefly accord-ing to their wealth. In these towns religionwill be somewhat of a dead letter, or at. A PARIS ART STUDENT AT WORK. least the public exercise of it be left chieflyto the womenfolk. On the other hand, onestill finds here and there clerical towns inwhich traces of the exclusiveness of the oldregime of the aristocracy has yet a certain 728 WOMEN OF ALL NATIONS TheParisienne power ; where women of the commercialclasses, even though the wives or daughtersof well-to-do people and those of publicofficials, would have little or no chance ofgetting into Society. In such places noone appears to trouble much about modernideas or progress, but to be eternally dwellingupon the often vanished greatness of certaindistinguished families. Perhaps the provinces are chiefly dullbecause most ambitious, and intellectuallygifted or artistic people gravi-tate towards Paris. For thisreason it is possible, withcertain limitations, of course, to gain afairly accurate idea of Frenchwomen as awhole fr
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpublisherl, booksubjectwomen