This Is Drivel

Saith the Duc de Liancourt, writing in 1797:

… it must be acknowledged that the beauty of the American ladies has the advantage in the comparison [to European ladies]. The young women of Philadelphia are accomplished in different degrees, but beauty is general with them. They want the ease and fashion of French women, but the brilliancy of their complexion is infinitely superior. Even when they grow old, they are still handsome; and it would be no exaggeration to say, in the numerous assemblies … it is impossible to meet with what is called a plain woman.

As to the young men, they for the most part seem to belong to another species.

Not much has changed in two-hundred-plus years, has it?

– from “The Formative Years: A History of The United States During the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison,” by Henry Adams