French and English: First Paper

I.

INTRODUCTORY.

IT may be taken as typical of the present writer’s intentions in these papers that he has felt uncertain which of the two nationalities he would put first in the title, and that the question has been settled by a mere consideration of euphony. If the reader cares to try the experiment of saying “ English and French,” and then “French and English ” afterwards, he will find that the latter glides the more glibly from the tongue. There is a tonic accent at the beginning of the word “English” and a dying away at the end of it which are very convenient in the last word of a title. “ French,” on the other hand, comes to a dead stop, in a manner too abrupt to be agreeable.

The supercilious critic will say that I am making over-much of a small matter, but he may allow me to explain why I put the Frenchmen first, lest I be accused of a lack of patriotism. These chapters are not, however, to be written from what is usually considered a patriotic point of view ; they are not to be simply an exposition of the follies and sins of another nation for the comparative glorification of my own; nor are they to be examples of what Herbert Spencer has aptly called “ anti-patriotism,” which is the systematic setting-down of one’s own countrymen by a comparison with the superior qualities of the foreigner. I should like to write with complete impartiality, if it were possible. It is at least possible to write with the desire to be impartial.

Not even the most impartial writer can ever succeed in seeing all things quite from a cosmopolitan point of view. We cannot divest ourselves of our personality, and impersonality includes the hereditary national instincts and feelings. It would not be desirable, if it were possible, to divest ourselves of these. Every Englishman who writes with any force is sure to write not only English words, but English opinions also.

Still, there is an inevitable difference between the Englishman who has always been surrounded by English things and the Englishman who has been surrounded for a long time by foreign things. The first is apt to fall into the common delusion of supposing that all around him is not only right according to English custom, but absolutely right, so that it could not rightly be otherwise ; the second has at least had a chance of disengaging, in English customs, what is national from what is universally and inevitably human.

To know two nations intimately is a valuable experience, because it supplies a term of comparison for everything. Whatever the English do is either left undone by the French, or done differently by them. If it is left undone, we may observe the consequences of the omission, and so ascertain whether the thing has only a national or a more general utility. If the thing is done differently in France, then we have a valuable opportunity for comparing two ways of doing it when we knew of only one before.

These opportunities are especially frequent in England and France, because the two countries are so extremely unlike each other. Except in some minor matters, English usage has not been derived from France, nor French usage from England. Each nation has formed its own customs by a national growth and development, determined for it by its own character and circumstances.

This independence in the formation of usage has probably been one of the strongest reasons for the intense and jealous hatred with which the two nations regarded each other in times past, as we all know that there is nothing that human beings (especially when in a low state of culture) are so little disposed to tolerate as divergences of custom.

In the present day, the English and French can scarcely be said to hate each other, with the exception of some old-fashioned people on both sides the Channel, who understand patriotism in the old way, as an injunction to hate your neighbor and never to forgive his trespasses ; but although hatred of the fiercer sort has died away, there remains a fund of quiet malevolence and much jealousy which unscrupulous rulers might easily provoke into hostility.

Every attempt, however humble, to make different nations understand each other better is, in its degree, an impediment to future war; and so perhaps these pages may have a feeble influence in preserving, at any rate, the sort of illnatured peace which at present subsists between the two great Western powers. A more cordial peace might be desirable, were it not that anything like warm friendship between nations is a condition of things that makes each of them so ready to take offense that a cooler state is the less dangerous of the two. By a most extraordinary persistence of good luck, the peace between France and England has been unbroken for more than seventy years, and the preservation of it has been certainly due to the influence of a small class of people, who know both nations well enough to counteract in some degree the malevolence natural to rivals.

The reader will observe that I use the pronoun “ they ” equally for both nations, — that I do not say “ we ” for the English and “ they ” for the French, as most English writers would do. This is in consequence of a decision deliberately arrived at. The use of the same pronoun in both cases is a great help to impartiality ; and as I happen to be addressing an American audience, there is this additional reason, that my reader will think of the English as “ they,” though they are nearer to him by blood and language than the French.

II.

THAT TRUE PATRIOTISM DOES NOT CONSIST IN BEING UNJUST TO OTHER NATIONS.

I have been lectured sometimes on my lack of patriotism, and fully expect that the accusation will be repeated with reference to these papers. There is a kind of patriotism which appears to me only suitable to the most crude and ignorant minds,— the patriotism which accepts with credulous avidity whatever can be discovered or invented to the disparagement of the rival state. This patriotism is the delight of the ignorant, and it keeps them permanently in the condition of ignorance which they prefer. To me it seems entirely unsatisfying, for if I have not ascertained to my own satisfaction the truth of the accusation against the foreigner, it must be a hollow semblance of satisfaction at the best. But beyond this, if it were really proved that the foreigner were abominable, how and in what should I be the better for it ? It would be a saddening fact, if it were a fact, that English people were the only decent people on the planet. My patriotism feels hurt when English people fall below a certain standard, but there is nothing to hurt it when I learn that a foreign state is advancing in civilization.

To prevent misunderstanding, let me declare frankly that there is a kind of patriotism which no Englishman can possess to a greater degree than I claim to do, — the patriotism which desires the real good of our country as distinguished from the hollow gratification of her vanity. It is not really a good thing to domineer over subject races. The common Englishman can get little good out of the consciousness that, in his name, somebody is lording it over ten Hindoos, or slaying a Soudan Arab, or burning a Zulu’s hut; but it would be much for the common Englishman to feel that he was living in a country where his chances of decent existence were as good, at least, as they could be anywhere else. My patriotism desires that for him, and the desire includes of necessity a position of such military and naval strength as to insure the most complete security and independence. This for the common Englishman; but there are also many rich Englishmen, and for these something more than simply decent existence may reasonably be desired. For them shall we ask more horses, more servants, more extensive shootings ? Nay, they have enough of these and to spare, so let us wish them “ neither riches for themselves nor the life of their enemies,” but “understanding to discern judgment,” that they may meet the difficulties of the future.

It is with nations as with individuals. The best of gifts, the best thing we can desire for them, is wisdom, provided only that they have power enough, liberty enough, to carry their wisdom into practice. But I began by wishing for England complete security, with sufficient wealth for the well-being of her population. Wisdom and well-being, then, are the two blessings I desire for my country, and to desire these for her is the beginning and end of my patriotism.

After that comes a sentiment of a larger patriotism, felt already by a few, and which is destined to take year by year a larger place in the feelings of educated men.

Looking beyond our own frontiers, we may come to desire sincerely, by human sympathy only, that other nations should enjoy prosperity and happiness. In this way it was a satisfaction to the English that Italy was able to constitute herself. This sympathetic feeling has now become very general with regard to those foreign countries that we are not jealous of ; but when jealousy interferes, the kindly desire for the prosperity of others is not yet strong enough to overcome it. There is, however, a reasonable and an unreasonable jealousy. For example, it is a reasonable wish on the part of the French that England should never become a great military power ; and it is, I think, a reasonable jealousy that makes some Englishmen displeased at the increasing strength of the French navy. The two nations may be reasonably jealous of each other’s power, but such jealousy would never lead rational men in either country to accept untrue, depreciatory statements with regard to the army or navy of the other. Unreasonable jealousy, on the other hand, does not simply take the form of desiring that a rival power should remain in a condition of military inferiority ; it enters into a thousand details of ordinary civil existence, and incessantly depreciates what the people in the other country do in the common affairs of life. More than this, it receives and circulates with eagerness innumerable falsehoods concerning the rival people and their ways of life. Or it does what is even worse than receiving a falsehood that can be simply and easily refuted : it gets hold of some evil thing which is partly true of the rival nation, and affects to believe that it is generally applicable. In this way every Englishwoman drinks, and every married Frenchwoman is an adulteress.

Now, in my view, this kind of feeling is not necessary to true patriotism, but there are numbers of people in England and France who are convinced that there is a staunch patriotic virtue in believing all evil of one’s neighbor. In this way the most uncharitable sentiments are kept up, and ideas which are as destitute of truth as they are of charity take root and flourish in both countries.

III.

HOW TO WRITE BRILLIANTLY ABOUT A FOREIGN COUNTRY.

The art consists simply in flattering the patriotic jealousy of your readers by a remorseless satire on the foreigner. As there is always much that is ridiculous in every country, and a fearful amount of most real and undeniable evil besides, you have only to show up one or the other in the pitiless glare of day. A fine contrast may be produced by hiding your own faults and exhibiting those of your neighbor.

The foreigner may be effectively dealt with in two ways. He may be made to appear either ridiculous or wicked. The satire may be humorous, or it may be bitter and severe. The French, with their lighter temperament, take pleasure in making the Englishman absurd. The English, on their part, though by no means refusing themselves the satisfaction of laughing at their neighbors, are not disinclined to assume a loftier tone. It is not so much what is obviously ridiculous in French people that repels as that which cannot be described without a graver reprobation. A writer cannot acquire experience in his profession without discovering that the spirit of justice is the greatest of all hindrances to effect. Just writing does not amuse, but malevolence can easily be made entertaining. What is less obvious is that Justice often puts her veto on those fine effects of simulated indignation which the literary advocate knows to be of such great professional utility. It is a fine thing to have an opportunity for condemning a whole nation in one terribly comprehensive sentence. The literary moralist puts on his most dignified manner when he can deplore the wickedness of thirty million human beings. It is ennobling to feel yourself better and greater than thirty millions, and the reader too has a fine sense of superiority in being encouraged to look down upon such a multitude. Justice comes in and says, “ But there are exceptions, and they are too numerous to be passed over.” “ That may be,” replies the Genius of Brilliant Literature, “ but if I stop to consider these I shall lose all breadth of effect. Lights will creep into my black shadows, and I shall no longer appall with gloom. I want the most telling oppositions. The interests of art take precedence over commonplace veracity.”

And there is such tempting safety in effective untruth about foreigners! A clever Frenchman who sets to work to compose a caustic, superficial book about the English or the Germans is well aware that his readers will never study any answer to his statements. He knows that the secret of success is to make the foreigner either odious or ridiculous. It is not long since a Frenchman wrote two silly little books about the English, treating them in that lively style which is always sure of popularity. Nearly at the same time, another Frenchman, more careful and more serious, published a volume on the same subject, which, though it contained a few unintentional errors, was on the whole likely to be instructive and useful to his countrymen. The flippant little books had an enormous sale; the instructive book had but a moderate circulation. The rule holds good for a paragraph or a sentence as well as for a volume. An unjust brief paragraph, with a sting in it, has a far better chance of being remembered than a duller but more accurate statement of the truth.

And yet, delightful as may be the pleasures of malice and uncharitableness, there is a far deeper and more delicate satisfaction in knowing the exact truth. The pleasures of uncharitableness must always be alloyed by the secret misgiving that the foreigner may possibly, in reality, not be quite so faulty as we describe him and as we wish him to be. But the pleasure of knowing the truth for its own sake is a satisfaction, without any other alloy than the feeling of regret that the truth should often be no better than it is. This regret has its compensations. The truth sometimes turns out to be an enjoyable surprise.

IV.

MUTUAL FEELING BETWEEN FRENCH AND ENGLISH.

It has already been observed that there is a reasonable and an unreasonable international jealousy. That which exists between France and England is both reasonable and unreasonable, according to the natures of the people who entertain it. In all cases it is very strong.

I cannot think it unreasonable in either country to look with some frank and honest jealousy on the general greatness of the other. Here we see two great nations, two nations which before the rise of Russia and the United States were unquestionably the greatest in the world, so near to each other that on a clear day their shores are visible at the same time; and even now, after centuries of rivalry, they are so nearly matched in strength that it would take a long war to determine the superiority of either. Try to imagine a French general surrounding London with his troops : the idea is inconceivable; one cannot see how he is to get them there. And now try to imagine an English army, without Continental allies, surrounding Paris with a ring of iron, as the Germans did : the idea is as inconceivable as the other; one cannot see how the English army is to reach Paris. Could it land? And if it landed, could it get as far as Amiens ?

In the arts of peace and in the wealth that sustains them, the two countries are comparable to each other in this way that the superiority on one side in some specialty is generally compensated by an equivalent superiority on the other side in some different specialty. Reasonable jealousy on each side is extremely anxious to prevent the other nation from taking the lead, but unreasonable jealousy utterly denies that the rival has any rank whatever in those arts where her superiority is not so manifest as to be absolutely unassailable.

As an example I may mention the way in which the jealousy of vulgar French patriotism treats English endeavor in the fine arts. The vulgar Frenchman confounds artists of the most opposite kinds, attributes to them principles which they do not themselves either profess or act upon, and then condemns them without mercy as ignorant sciolists in art. “ The English,” he says, “ have no painters.” He can say this, because English greatness in art is not recognized on the Continent, like her commercial and manufacturing greatness, and because the French school has for some time been the most influential of the modern schools. The French also say that the English have no musical composers, because English composers do not enjoy the world-wide fame of Beethoven and Mozart. There is a difficulty about denying the rank of England in literature, and it is not attempted.

The English, on their side, cannot deny that the French have a living school of painters and a living theatre, but they can say. “ There is no university in France,” and “ There are no scholars in France,” there being no such institution as a French Oxford.

In these and a hundred ways, the international jealousy is continually betraying itself. It is not serious enough in the present day to produce war, but it permeates the entire thinking of each nation concerning the other.

I have never been able to determine in which nation the feeling of jealousy is the stronger. It varies in intensity from time to time, as circumstances happen to excite it. Possibly it may be more on the surface in France and deeper in England. French jealousy is ready to express itself on trifling as well as important occasions. English jealousy is more taciturn, but unceasingly watchful.

The jealousy aroused in France by the occupation of Egypt was at one time of considerable force, and has diminished only since a pleasing consolation came in the shape of the English disappointment in the Soudan. The English, on their part, betrayed deep feeling about Tonquin and Madagascar, but their sense of pious horror at French rapacity was soothed by exercising a little British rapacity in Burmah.

Enough has been said about jealousy for the present, especially as we may have to recur to the subject. Let us now turn to another question. Do the French and the English respect each other ?

There are two qualities in the English that intelligent Frenchmen respect most heartily and desire to see acclimatized in France. The first is the art of adapting the system of government to the changing needs of the nation without convulsive disturbance; and the second is the skill of English statesmen in the management of their foreign affairs,— a skill which on the whole has had these results, that either England has meddled in Continental matters in such a way as to obtain the results she desired, or else, when she could not compass them, she has been prudent enough to abstain from meddling. Therefore, on the whole, England’s foreign policy has been either successful or safe, whereas that of France has on various critical occasions been first a perilous adventure, and then a disastrous failure. Intelligent Frenchmen respect England for this superiority, and endeavor to imitate it by having a constitution that can be modified and by following a prudent policy abroad. I do not perceive that French people respect the English for those eminent virtues to which the English lay claim, or that they greatly believe in the validity of the claim.

The English, on the other hand, often admire the cleverness of the French, but they do not respect them, except in special cases. The exceptions generally belong to the arts and sciences. An Englishman who is a good judge of work in some specialty will respect a Frenchman who shows great skill in that direction. English painters, for example, sometimes express hearty respect for the discipline to which French painters subject themselves; or an English writer may respect the brightness and vigor of a Frenchman’s prose, or the perfection of his dramatic skill. The same regard is felt by Englishmen eminent in science for Frenchmen who have done good scientific service. But in these cases it is more the quality of the work that is respected than the character of the nation.

The difficulty with which the English can be brought to respect the French may be partly explicable by their difficulty in respecting foreigners in general, unless they have been dead for a long time, like Homer and Virgil, or are invested with a sacred character, like Moses and Isaiah.

It may be farther elucidated by the peculiar condition of the English mind with regard to respect and contempt generally. This is a subject of considerable intricacy, which cannot be properly treated in a few words; but I may observe here that although the English are said to be a deferential people, and have, no doubt, the habit of deference for certain distinctions, they are at the same time an eminently contemptuous people, a people remarkably in the habit of despising, even within the limits of their own island. Their habit of contempt is tranquil, but it is almost constant, and they dwell with difficulty in that middle or neutral state which neither reverences nor despises. Consequently, when there is not some very special reason for feeling deference towards a foreigner, the Englishman is likely to despise him.

The French, on the other hand, are generally less disposed both to the feelings of respect and of contempt. They look upon the world with an easier indifference, not much respecting anybody or anything, but ready enough to acknowledge the merits and qualities of people and things that are not the best. The French are severe critics only where there is great pretension ; they regard ordinary, unpretending people and things with a good-humored indulgence. When there is much pretension, their leveling instinct makes them ready to debellare superbos. It is a remarkable proof of the substantial strength of Victor Hugo’s reputation that a man of such immense vanity, such boundless pretension, should have been able to get himself taken at his own estimate in France. Napoleon III., although he had at his disposal the theatrical machinery of imperial state, was never able to win any real deference.

V.

ON SOME EFFECTS OF GEOGRAPHICAL SITUATION.

England and France have the two most favorable situations in Europe, except that they cannot easily increase their European territory.

The confinement of England to one narrow island, with a smaller island close to it which is inhabited by a hostile and alien race,¹ has driven the English people to that peculiar form of expansion which has formed the subject of Professor Seeley’s very interesting and instructive lectures. But, after reading them with the care that they deserve, a troublesome doubt came over me. Is it really expansion, after all ? Is it not rather propagation ? In physics a body is said to expand when it increases in volume, and Littré tells us that the primitive sense of “ propagation ” is planting afresh, whence planting by slips. Therefore I should say, with all due deference to a much superior authority on the subject, that England has become great by propagation, just because her narrow and fixed geographical boundary made expansion impossible for her. In connection with this subject I remember vaguely an interesting speech by Mr. Gladstone, delivered some time ago, in which he recognized, as the distinction between England and Russia, that annexation by the extension of frontier, which was possible for Russia, was quite different from annexation by crossing the sea, which was all that an insular nation could do. And travelers tell us that the territories absorbed by Russia become with remarkable rapidity a part of Russia, whereas nobody says that India is a part of England ; and we are only hoping that Australia and New Zealand may be parts, not of the mother country, but of a great confederation.

Another excellent example is the case of the United States, where the extension of the frontier has increased the mother country in such a manner that nobody talks of America’s colonies, they have so rapidly become part of herself. We all see that if the Western colonies had been separated by an ocean from the Eastern colonizing States, they would have remained colonial, and simply attached to a mother country.

Therefore, notwithstanding the wonderful propagation of the English race, we see that the real Britain is confined by the sea, and confined within narrow limits, France is not confined by the same physical boundary, but there are ethnological limits almost equally restricting. France has not, like the Eastern American States, a great unoccupied territory to expand in. If she would expand her frontiers, it can only be by subjugating populations which would offer strenuous resistance, and on her eastern frontier, at least, the resistance could not be overcome.

France and England are therefore in much the same condition with regard to the possibility of expansion.² The only case of real expansion in recent French history has been the annexation of Savoy. That increase of territory was a genuine national growth, for Savoy very quickly became an integral part of France.

In all European countries the military situation is of enormous importance to the happiness of both rich and poor inhabitants. At first sight that of England appears incomparably superior to that of France, as England is a natural fortress surrounded by its ditch ; but on further examination this superiority is seen to be connected with a cause of inferiority to France. A fortress is tenable only so long as its provisions hold out, and the soil of England cannot maintain the population. The people in the fortress maintain themselves partly by what they cultivate, but also in great part by what they purchase outside with the results of their industry. The condition of France is more favorable in this respect. If France were cut off from all communication with the rest of the world, she would still be able to exist on the produce of her soil, missing only luxuries, and not many even of these. The useful things which she most lacks, such as coal and iron, she still possesses in quantity sufficient for all the emergencies of war.

Nevertheless, in spite of these and other compensations, the great difference remains that the English live in a degree of security which is not enjoyed by any nation of Continental Europe. The strongest military state on the Continent is not sure of untroubled existence for a year. But England feels secure ; England feels herself safely outside of that armed and watchful and anxious Continental life, which she looks upon as Cedric the Saxon looked upon the Tournament at Ashby. This security places the English in a safe and pleasant position for the exercise of the critical function, and so they have taken upon themselves the office, the thankless office, of critics to the continent of Europe. Now the feeling of Frenchmen, or of any other Continental people, on reading English criticisms, is something of this kind. They believe that in many cases, probably in most cases, the English would act precisely as they themselves act, if they were placed in the same situation. For example, with regard to expansion. A continental nation desires to expand ; all continental nations have this instinctive desire, which is the universal national instinct. England, being an island, cannot expand; she can only propagate beyond the sea. But if the English had been placed on the soil of France, their naturally enterprising disposition would have led them to enlarge their borders at the expense of their Continental neighbors, as the other nations (when they are not so weak that such an enterprise would be utterly hopeless) are always endeavoring to do. No Frenchman doubts the desire of England to absorb and assimilate Ireland if she could ; no Frenchman believes that the English would desire to do otherwise than the Russians if they had equal opportunities.

VI.

THE TWO NATIONAL ESTATES.

A thorough and minute comparison of France and Great Britain, as vast properties possessed by the French and English races, would be valuable and interesting, but it lies outside of my manner of writing. It would require extensive statistics, a great array of figures, and that purely scientific style which properly belongs to the writings of economists.

My way is only to point to a few facts or considerations that the ordinary reader is likely to care about and remember. Thus, to begin with, I should say that there is a misleading habit, both in England and France, of considering the two nations as nearly equal to each other geographically, because

they are nearly equal in wealth and population. Very few people in either of the two countries realize how much greater is the area of France. The effect of contrast may make France small for an American or a Russian, but an Englishman who really knows its area looks upon it as a large country in comparison with his own. France is not exactly twice as large as Great Britain and Ireland together, but a very near approximation may be made by taking the British archipelago first, including the Hebrides and the Channel Islands, and then adding a second Scotland, a second Ireland, a second Wales, and Belgium. Then you have nearly, yet still not quite completely, the area of France. Nobody would believe this on simply glancing at the map of Europe, because the British Islands are long and straggling, and have outlines much cut into by the sea, whilst France is a remarkably square and compact country.³ Few English people travel in France to see the country and the provincial towns; they generally confine themselves to Paris in the north, glancing at Rouen and Amiens, or at Nice and Cannes, in the south, glancing at Avignon, Arles, and Marseilles. There are, however, a very few English people who really try to explore France, and these come gradually to be impressed with a sense of extent and general inexhaustibleness, which, instead of diminishing, curiously increases with their experience. An English lady, who knows the country better than anybody of my acquaintance, said to me last year, “I despair of ever knowing France as I desire ; it seems to get bigger and bigger, and the objects of interest in it that I have not seen appear to become more and more numerous.” Another, who knew nothing of the country, was surprised to find that towns which she imagined as near together were in fact separated by long railway journeys. Her first impression had been based on the idea that France was nearly the size of England, all distances being reduced accordingly.

From the agriculturist’s point of view. France is an incomparably better estate than Great Britain, as well as a far larger one, but the insular power has two great compensations in her rich mines and her many excellent harbors.

As France produces some luxuries, especially wines and silks, and has a great reputation in the fine arts, and is supposed (erroneously enough) to be a land of pleasure, her advantages in matters of common utility are very frequently forgotten. The real superiority of France is, however, in being a great food-producing country, not only in luxurious food, but in that which is used by the poor as well as the rich. To this natural advantage may be added the tendency in the genius of the French people to make the best use of food material and to appreciate variety, so that none of the bounties of Nature are neglected or despised.

The situation of France, with one shore on the Mediterranean and another on the Atlantic, is ideally convenient, and her little India in North Africa is so accessible that it is felt to be a sort of extension or annexe of the mother country. France herself has the advantage of the best European latitudes. I have found it practically convenient to remember, in thinking about the geographical situation of France, that the small triangle to the north of Amiens is in English latitudes, and all the great region south of Lyons is in north Italian latitudes, the space between being in those of Switzerland and Bavaria. It is the best position in Europe, equally free from the cold, wet rigor of Scotland and the dry, hot region of Spain, at least in their excess, though there is something both of Scotch and Spanish weather in the great variety of the French climates.

This variety needs to be remembered both for France and Great Britain, as there is really no single British or French climate to be praised or blamed. All that can be said in a general way is that the summers are hotter in France, and that the eastern and central departments have a more continental climate than that of any counties in England; but even in Saône-et-Loire the west wind is still the rain wind, as it is in Scotland, and the east wind has just the same characteristics that make it both disagreeable and dangerous at Edinburgh.

The French are fortunate enough to be profoundly contented with their climates, in this sense : that every Frenchman, at least so far as I have been able to observe, is well satisfied with the climate of his own department, though he criticises that of another region. There are even people in the south who prefer the infliction of the mistral, with its blinding dust, to the refreshment of a little rain. But all who live outside the region of the mistral have feelings of commiseration for those who are subjected to it. The rainy district on the west coast seems to the inhabitants of the dryer departments as trying as Argyllshire might seem to an inhabitant of Norfolk. Nevertheless, each Frenchman is profoundly satisfied with his own climate, and when it becomes unpleasant he always says that it has borrowed its unpleasantness from some other country, — its fogs from England, its cold from Siberia, and its heat from Senegal. There are two things in which the Frenchman’s faith is imperturbable, the climate and the decimal system ; if he had only as much faith in the government and the clergy, it is certain that France would be the most contented country in the world. Even as things are, he believes that France is preëminently favored by Nature or by Providence, and sometimes, with a little qualm of conscience, will humorously admit that the land is a richer gift than the population deserves ; or he will put the same idea into another form, and regret that such apparent care for the arrangement of so perfect a land was not extended to the invention of reasonable inhabitants. No Englishman would say that of the race he belongs to, even between jest and earnest. The English believe that if their country does not grow grapes and olives, it grows men and women in unapproachable perfection. This quiet belief in the excellence of the race makes the English indifferent to any remarks that the foreigner may make upon their climate or the smallness of their island ; for as little Greece bore the greatest race of antiquity, so little England has brought forth the best and noblest of the modern races. This is the English belief. It is not precisely humble or modest, but it has at least the merit of the most absolute conviction and sincerity.

Philip Gilbert Hamerton.