CHAPTER IX.

"Dear Sir: Please to speak of what you know something about. We are no more virtuous than you."

And I can vouch for the truth of this little anecdote: I was one of those who signed the letter.

Call a Frenchman a "good father" or "good citizen," he will smile and probably answer back, "You humbug!" Yet heisa good father and a good citizen, and he used to be a goodgarde-national, notwithstanding his objection to be told so. He proved it during the siege of Paris, although his wife had never been able to look at him in his uniform without laughing.

Now, if the Englishman, who ornaments his buttonhole with a piece of blue ribbon, does not put on two pieces more to proclaimurbi et orbithat he is a good father and a good citizen, it is because the idea never occurred to him—for nobody doubts that, like his neighbor, he, too, is a good father and a good citizen.

Ah! I say once more, if we only knew how to hide our faults as we can hide our virtues, what a respectable figure we could cut by the side of our neighbors!

The English hypocrite is the hypocrite of virtue and religion. English novelists have exposed him, but have not succeeded in extinguishing him; the Chadbands, the Stigginses, the Podsnaps, the Pecksniffs, all the saintly BritishTartuffes, are as flourishing as ever.

Molière could, in his times, put on the stage such a man asTartuffe; at the present day the type is extinct; the religious hypocrite would not go down in France; the character is exploded.

Pecksniff, one of the most powerful creations of Dickens, a photograph from the life, had named his two daughters, Mercy and Charity. In France, this worthy father and the Misses Mercy and Charity would find every door shut in their faces. This kind of vocation would lead straight to the workhouse.

It is not that we have no hypocrites, however. We keep the article, but it is of a different pattern.

The French hypocrite is the hypocrite of sentiment—the crocodile.

It is natural enough that it should be so.

The hypocrite does but force the characteristic note of his race. The English are religious (I mean church-going), the French sentimental; therefore, the English hypocrite is the hypocrite of religion, and the French hypocrite is the hypocrite of sentiment.

The former will enter into conversation with you by expressing a hope that you do not concern yourself too much with the things of this world. Chadband presents himself at the house of a friend with the salutation: "Peace be upon this house." Then, seeing the table garnished with good things, he cries: "My friends, why must we eat? To live. And why must we live? To do good. It is then right that we should eat. Therefore, let us partake of the good things which are set before us." Thereupon he gorges himself, that he may be able the better to support life, and do the more good. No French novelist would dare portray such a personage in his books.

The French hypocrite proceeds differently. He makes professions of friendship for you, embraces you, enters into your woes with touching displays of feeling; when occasion seems to require, he can shed a few tears, his lachrymal gland is inexhaustible. As he takes his departure, he "hopes things will soon look brighter," and offers you a cigar.

It is at the funeral of a good bequeathing uncle that he is especially edifying. He follows, with staggering steps, the remains of the beloved defunct; he is literally supported to the grave by the two friends on whose arms he leans. Tears trickle down his cheeks, he is pale and exhausted. His handkerchief has a wide black border, but smells of musk. He tells you, with sobs, that his uncle was a father to him, and begs you to excuse him, if he finds it impossible to master his grief.

On arriving home, he writes to his upholsterer to order new furniture.

The two kinds of hypocrisy, one as loathsome as the other, are clearly manifested even in the criminals of the two countries.

The English prisoner at the bar is not submitted to examination, and thus the public is spared his professions of faith; but the letters he writes to his friends, and to which the newspapers generally give publicity, show him in his true light. "He believes in God; he knows that Heaven will not fail to confound the infernal machinations of the wretches who accuse him."

The French criminal makes professions of sentiment in the dock.

I extract the following lines from the trial of the vile assassins of Mme. Ballerich:

"Q.You loitered about the house and asked Mme. Ballerich for a fictitious person, in order to take stock of the premises, did you not?"A.I do not deny that I meant to commita theft, but a crime was far from my thoughts. A crime is going too far; I would not dishonor my family; I swear it by my mother."Q.You struck the fatal blow that killed the victim. When you left she was still alive?"A.I did not look to see whether Mme. Ballerich was dead. It is bad enough to be mixed up at all in affairs of that kind! It made me feel sick to see the blood. I suffered internally; I was struck with remorse and repentance and I thought of my mother. (Here the prisoner burst into tears.)"

"Q.You loitered about the house and asked Mme. Ballerich for a fictitious person, in order to take stock of the premises, did you not?

"A.I do not deny that I meant to commita theft, but a crime was far from my thoughts. A crime is going too far; I would not dishonor my family; I swear it by my mother.

"Q.You struck the fatal blow that killed the victim. When you left she was still alive?

"A.I did not look to see whether Mme. Ballerich was dead. It is bad enough to be mixed up at all in affairs of that kind! It made me feel sick to see the blood. I suffered internally; I was struck with remorse and repentance and I thought of my mother. (Here the prisoner burst into tears.)"

The English assassin, on mounting the scaffold, generally gives his friendsrendezvousin the better land, and implores his Maker's pardon. The French murderer implores the pardon of his mother.

At this solemn moment both of them probably cease to be hypocrites.

The French social failure is generally a radical. If he had cared to do as plenty of others do (and seeing you prosperous, he accompanies this with an expressive glance), if he had cared to intrigue and curry favor, he too could have cut a figure in the world. But unhappily for himself, he does not know how to disguise his opinions; he is, according to the formula, poor but honest.

It is his pride that leads him to avoid the lucky ones of the earth; he has no desire to be taken for a schemer. If he has lost all else, honor still is left, and this, his only remaining treasure, he intends to preserve intact.

He despises money, and if he does not return that little loan he borrowed of you, it isbecause he presumes that your contempt for filthy lucre is equal to his own.

Yet the sight of gold melts him, and there flits across his face a smile of satisfaction, mingled, however, with a tinge of sadness at the thought of being caught capitulating with the enemy. But to convince himself that he has lost none of his independence of character, he goes straightway and says evil of you, so that no man shall say of him that he was corrupted by the loan of a paltry coin.

You will generally find that he has been bankrupt once or twice; but as that has not made a rich man of him, you conclude that, if he has not a great love of money, neither has he a great talent for business.

He lays his poverty at everyone's door but his own. Society does not understand him. He shall go to his grave without having had a chance of revealing himself to the world. Meanwhile he opens a general agency. Not having been successful with his own affairs, he hopes to have better luck with other people's.

As a rule, you find that he has married a servant or a laundress, "to pay a debt he owed to Society," as he puts it. But Society, who is but a thankless jade, turns her back upon him and his wife. Never mind, he has done his duty. Upon this point he finds nothing to reproach himself with. Some men marry for money; thank Heaven, he is not one of that sort.

Let anything you undertake prove a success, and you will hear him say that he had thought of doing it long ago; it was only his idea stolen from him. But there's the rub; what is the use of ideas, when one has no capital?

And, instead of setting to work to get a capital, he writes anonymous letters.

He occasionally talks of committing suicide, of throwing himself into the sea; but this idea of his has been stolen so many times over that he gives it up in disgust.

When he does die, it will be of spite.

You will survive the loss of him without difficulty.

His presence is a hair in your soup, a crumb in your bed.

The French social failure is not uncommonly a philosopher, and even keeps a spark of facetiousness through all his misfortunes.

About ten years ago, I was talking one day with a Frenchman, who had been established in England some time.Established!I am getting facetious, too, you see.

I was erroneously maintaining to him that imprisonment was still inflicted in England for debt.

"You are mistaken, I can assure you," said he.

"I do not think so," I replied.

"Imprisonment for debt was abolished two years ago."

"Are you quite sure?" said I, seeing him so positive.

"Parbleu!I ought to know better than you," he said. "I was the last to come out."

The English social failure is much more humble than his like in France, for the simplereason that, in France, poverty is no crime, while in England, as in America, it is. Apart from this the two types do not differ much.

In the commercial world, the English social failure is an agent of some sort; generally wine or coal. In the exercise of his calling, he requires no capital, nor even a cellar. He not unfrequently entitles himselfGeneral Agent: this, when the wreck is at hand. Such are the straws he clutches at; if they should break, he sinks, and is heard of no more, unless his wife comes to the rescue, by setting up a lodging house or a boarding school for young ladies. There, once more in smooth water, he wields the blacking brush, makes acquaintance with the knife board, or gets in the provisions. In allowing himself to be kept by his wife, he feels he loses some dignity, but if she should adopt any airs of superiority over him, he can always bring her to a sense of duty by beating her.

In the republics of art and letters, you generally find him playing the part of critic, consoling himself for his failures by abusing the artists who sell their pictures, or the authors who sell their books. For these he knows no pity. He can all the more easily abuse his dear brethren of the quill or brush that he has not to sign his invectives; his prose is anonymous. Once a week, in the columns of some penny paper, he can, with perfect impunity, relieve his heart of the venom it contains.

The mud he scatters has one good quality—it does not stain; one fillip ... and it is gone.

Here is a sample of this kind of production. I extract it from a paper as pretentious as it is little read:

"The fortunate writer woke up one morning to find himself famous, and his book on a tide of popularity which carried it, in one year, through some fifty editions. A grand stroke of this kind insures the ambition to repeat it.... His new book bears throughout manifest evidences of having been scrambledthrough, and put together anyhow, in order to recapture the noticeand the money of the public."

Now Carlyle, who was very sensitive to adverse criticism, used to call these revengeful failures in literature "dirty puppies," and it was kind of him to so far notice them.

But if I were the author in question, an answer somewhat in the following style would rise to my pen:

"My Dear Sir: I admire your independence and your contempt for the money and the favors of the public. But one question I would ask of you: Why do you send your invectives to the wrong address? If I am famous, as you are pleased to say, without believing it any more than myself, do not lay the blame upon me, my dear sir; lay it rather upon that 'fool of a public' who is silly enough to prefer my scribblings to yourchefs-d'œuvre. Not for the world would I say anything that might be disagreeable to you, but I would fain remind you that, ever since the days of Horace, the authors of booksthat sell have never been appreciated by the authors of the books that do not."

The bitterness of Mr. Tommy Hawk's criticisms forms a curious contrast with the fairness and good-nature of the serious English critic.

The latter possesses a large stock of good sense, good taste, learning, and independence. He can blend counsel and encouragement, and he has a conscience; that is to say, as much aversion to disparaging as to flattering. The same author whom he praised yesterday because his work was worthy of praise, he blames to-day because his work is deserving of blame; he is no respecter of persons.

Criticism should be taken with thanks and deference, if fair and kind; with deference and no thanks, if fair but unkind; with silence and contempt, if insulting and unfair.

So says D'Alembert.

⁂

May I now permit myself to indulge in a little personality?

Mr. George Augustus Sala, the wittiest and best-humored of English journalists, in one of his interestingEchoes of the Week, not long ago accused a book of my own, after paying it one or two compliments, of being as full of blunders as an egg is full of meat.

Now, could Mr. George Augustus Sala, with his knowledge of London dairy produce, pay my book a more witty and graceful compliment?

Languages have this in common with many mortals; when they borrow they do not return. This is perhaps a happy thing, for when borrowed words do get returned, good Heavens! what a state they come home in!

We thought we were doing a fine thing in taking the wordsticket,jockey,budget,tunnel,fashionfrom the English. They are, however, but French words mutilated, and there is not much to be proud of in reacquiring them. The English had borrowed of usétiqueter, jacquet(petit Jacques),bougette(the king's privy purse),façon. Better they had kept them. Up to the nineteenth century, it was by reason of war and conquest that both conquerors and conquered saw their vocabularies invaded byforeign words; but is it not strange that in the nineteenth century, the century of civilization, so-called, peace between England and France should bring about such a disastrous result?

Formerly we used todéjeuner.

Nous avons changé tout cela; nowadaysnous lunchons.Nous lunchons!What a barbarous mouthful, is it not?

The worddéjeunersignifying "to cease fasting," or, as the English say, "to breakfast," it is wrongly used in speaking of a second repast.Déjeuneris, therefore, irrational; but is this any excuse for making ourselves grotesque?

But, my dear compatriots, we are avenged. I read in the LondonStandard:

"Prince Albert Victor was yesterday admitted to the freedom of the City of London.... The royal party and a large company of invited guests were afterward entertained at adéjeunerin the Guildhall, the Lord Mayor presiding."

Now that the Frenchlunch, the English willdéjeunermore than ever, of course.

⁂

Parisian good society no longer takes tea, it "five o'clocks"; and thebourgeoisis beginning to put at the foot of his cards of invitation:

"On five o'clockera à neuf heures."

⁂

When the English wish to have a song or a piece of music repeated by an artist, they shout:Encore!And, the following day, the papers, in their accounts of the performance, announce that Mademoiselle So-and-So wasencored.

While I am upon this subject, allow me to give you a little sample of modern English; it will prove to you that Alexander Dumas was right, when he pronounced English to be only French badly pronounced, and I would add, badly spelt:

"Theconcertwasbrilliant, and theensemble excellent. Miss N—— wasencored, but Mr. D——, who made hisdébut, only obtained asuccès d'estime."

Go to Trafalgar Square. Place yourself at the foot of that long Roman candle, on the summit of which the statue of Nelson may be perceived ... on a clear day. Turn toward the Palace of Westminster, and you will see on your left theGrand Hôteland theAvenue Theatre, on your right theHôtel Métropole. In your rear you will find theNational Gallery. As all these buildings are within a hundred yards of Charing Cross station, the terminus at which you alight on coming from France, your first impression will be that it will not take you long to learn to speak English. Ah! dear compatriots, be not deceived; you little guess the terrible perfidiousness of that language. Those provoking Britons seem to have taken a wicked pleasure in inventing a collection of unheard-of sounds, a pronunciation that will fill your hearts with despair, andthat puts them quite out of the reach of imitation.

Thou mayest dress like an Englishman, dear compatriot, eat roast beef like an Englishman, but, never, never wilt thou speak English like an Englishman. Thou wilt always massacre his language; let this console thee for hearing him massacre thine.

In theSpectatorof the 8th of September, 1711, Addison wrote:

"I have often wished, that as in our Constitution there are several persons whose business it is to watch over our laws, our liberties, and commerce, certain men might be set apart as superintendents of our language, to hinder any words of a foreign coin from passing among us; and, in particular, to prohibit any French phrases from becoming current in this kingdom, when those of our stamp are altogether as valuable. The present war has so adulterated our tongue with strange words, that it would be impossible for one of our grandfathers to know what his posterity have been doing, were he to read their exploits in a modern newspaper."

Oh, Addison, stop thy ears, and veil thy face!

M. Hippolyte Cocheris, the learned French philologist, quotes, in one of his writings, a piece of prose from an aristocratic pen, which appeared in No. 116 of theNew Monthly. It runs as follows:

"I waschez moi, inhaling theodeur musquéeof my scentedboudoir, when the Prince of Z—— entered. He found me in mydemi-toilette, blasée sur tout, and pensively engaged in solitary conjugation of the verbs'ennuyer, and though he had never been one of myhabitués, or by any meansdes nôtres, I was not inclined at this moment ofdélassementto glide with him into thecrocchio restrettoof familiar chat."

To edify his readers, and make them appreciate this little masterpiece of hybrid style atits due value, M. Cocheris proceeds to translate the piece into French, carefully replacing all the words in italics by English ones, thus:

J'étaisat home, aspirant lamusky smellde monprivate room, lorsque le Prince de Z—— entra. Il me trouva en simpledress,fatigued with everything, tristement occupé à conjuguer le verbeto be weary, et quoique je ne l'eusse jamais compté au nombre de mesintimates, et qu'il ne fût, en aucune façonof our set, j'étais assez disposée à entrer avec lui dans lecrocchio restrettod'une causerie familière.

M. H. Cocheris maintains that a French author would never dare to have recourse to such a literary proceeding. Nonsense! Read our novels, read our newspapers. At every page, you find mention made offashionablesinknickerbockers, who, dressed inulsters, repair to theturfin adogcartwith agroomand abulldog. They bring up at abarand eat a slice ofpuddingor asandwich, washed down with abowl ofpunchor acocktail. These gentlemen have thespleen, in spite of thecomfortablelife they lead. In the evening, they go and applaud thehumorof aclown, and callsnobsthose who prefer theComédie Française.

If this picture of the state of things be really a true one, the French Academy, which was founded to look after the mother tongue of Molière, had better lower its blinds and burn tapers.

Humor is a subtle, witty, philosophical, and greatly satirical form of gayety, the outcome of simplicity in the character, that is met chiefly among English-speaking people.

Humor has not the brilliancy, the vivacity of French wit, but it is more graceful, lighter, and above all more philosophic. A sarcastic element is nearly always present in it, and not unfrequently a vein of sadness. There is something deliciously quiet and deliberate about humor, that is in perfect harmony with the English character; and we have been right in adopting the English name for the thing, seeing that the thing is essentially English.

Germany has produced humorists, among whom Hoffman and Henry Heine shine conspicuously; but this kind of playful railleryis not to be met with in French literature, except perhaps in theLettres provincialesof Pascal.

In France, irony is presented in a more lively form. Swift and Sterne are the acknowledged masters of British humor, as Rabelais and Voltaire are the personification of French wit.

British humor does not evaporate so quickly as French wit; you feel its influence longer. The latter takes you by storm, but humor lightly tickles you under the ribs, and quietly takes possession of you by degrees; the bright idea, instead of being laid bare, is subtly hidden; it is only after you have peeled off the coating of sarcasm lying on the surface, that you get at the fun underneath.

⁂

I believe Parisian wit might be correctly described as a sudden perception and expression of a likeness in the unlike. Here is an example of it; an English one:

Sydney Smith, the most Parisian wit England has produced, one day asked the Corporation of the City of London to pave St. Paul's Churchyard with wood. The Corporation replied that such a thing was perfectly impracticable.

"Not at all, gentlemen, I assure you," cried Sydney Smith; "you have only to lay all your heads together, and the thing is done."

This is a specimen of French wit in English.

Sarcasm is one of the most important and frequent ingredients in French wit.

Voltaire is the personification of that kind of wit; but other countries have produced men whose wit he should have had the modesty of calling "as good as French." England is foremost among those countries. Douglas Jerrold, Sydney Smith, Sheridan, Lord Eldon, had they been born in France, would have been called French wits.

Two anecdotes of these men, to illustrate the point.

Sheridan's son one day came to his fatherand announced that he would be a candidate for Parliament.

"Indeed," said Sheridan, "and what are your colors?"

"I have none," said the son, "I am independent, and belong to no party. I will stick on my forehead: 'To be let.'"

"Good," said Sheridan, "and under that, put 'Unfurnished.'"

Lord Eldon was a great sufferer from gout. A sympathizing lady friend had made him a beautiful pair of very large slippers to wear when his enemy troubled him.

One day his servant came to him, and announced that the lovely slippers were gone, and had been stolen.

"Well," said Lord Eldon, "I hope they will fit the rascal."

⁂

That kind of wit, peculiar to the Irish, and commonly called Hibernianism, is an apparent congruity in things essentially incongruous.In fact, it expresses what is apparently rational, but in reality utterly irrational.

Thus, when an Irishman was told that one of Dr. Arnott's patent stoves would save half the usual fuel, he exclaimed to his wife: "Arrah! thin I'll buy two and save it all, my jewel."

We have nothing in French wit that can properly be compared to Hibernianism, except perhaps thegasconnadeat times, but in thegasconnadethere is no humor, the essence of it is exaggeration.

"You often forget to close the shutters of the ground-floor rooms at night," an Irishman would say to his servant; "one of these fine mornings I shall wake up murdered in my bed." I do not know that friend Paddy has ever perpetrated this one, but he is quite capable of it.

⁂

During the famous Michelstown Inquiry, Pat Casey was examined. He had seen the affray, hidden behind a wall.

"Was that brave, to hide behind a wall?" said the lawyer.

"Well, sor," said Pat, "better be a coward for foive minutes than to be dead for the rest of your loife."

⁂

The Hibernianism is one of the forms of laziness of the mind, but it is not at all a proof of stupidity. On the contrary, all those jokes that the English are fond of putting to the credit of the Irish, are only the proof of a certain overflow of intelligence, two ideas issuing simultaneously from the brain, and getting confused into one. Dissect a Hibernianism, and you will generally find two ideas, perfectly sensible, but not agreeing together.

I have met with just as many noodles in England as elsewhere. But among all the Irish that I have come across, though some have been lazy, and many have been bunglers, I have not yet met one who was not intelligent, amiable, and witty.

While on this subject, I might remind the English of the remark made once by their celebrated critic, John Ruskin, at Oxford: "English jokes are often tame, but there is always wit at the bottom of an Irish bull."

And we might add:

Burke, the greatest English orator that ever lived, was an Irishman. Excuse, I beg, this Hibernianism of mine.

Lord Dufferin, that ambassador, and Lord Wolseley, thatonlygeneral, whom England has been serving for the past few years, roast, baked, and boiled, to her friends and foes alike, the two saviors to whom she invariably turns when anything is going wrong ... or is wanted to go wrong, are sons of Erin.

Goldsmith, the immortal author of the "Vicar of Wakefield," was Irish.

Sheridan, the author of the "School for Scandal," that the English might almost call theironlycomedy, was Irish.

Jonathan Swift and Richard Steele were Irish.

The names of Ireland's great men would fill a long list.

One might almost say that all that is most delicate and most witty in English literature is of Irish origin.

When we have added that the Duke of Wellington was an Irishman, perhaps we shall have succeeded in showing that England is very far yet from having paid her little debt of gratitude to Ireland.

To think that those worthy French and English people, who only live twenty-one miles from each other, should not be able to exchange visits without first making acquaintance with themal de mer! To think that this must be the last impression that each one takes home with him!

Themal de mer! That uninteresting complaint which awakes no pity in the breast of man!

⁂

The sky is serene, a light breeze gently fans your cheek, the water in the harbor is as smooth as a sheet of glass. You timidly ask the first sailor you come across a question or two as to the weather and the outlook for thepassage—not for your own reassurance, foryouare a pretty good sailor, but ... for a friend, or ... for a lady who is traveling with you, and who suffers dreadfully from seasickness. The sly fellow sees through your little ruse, and answers, with a serio-comic look: "The sea, sir! like a lake, sir; like a lake."

You feel reassured. You say to yourself: "Well, this time, at all events, we shall have a good passage;" and you cheerily pace the deck, light of heart and firm of foot, convinced that if anyone is ill, it will not be you.

The illusion is a sweet, but short-lived one.

The whistle sounds, the boat is set in motion, and gently and smoothly glides to the mouth of the harbor.

Everyone seems in the best of spirits, people chatter in groups, and handkerchiefs are waved to the friends who have come down to the quay to see you off.

The end of the pier is passed. There you are—now for it. You have hardly roundedthe projection which would be for you a little Cape of Good Hope, if you were only arriving instead of departing, when the horrible construction heaves heavily forward, and then seems to sink away from under your feet, making you feel as if it were about to leave you in mid-air, and trust to your intelligence to catch it again. You would fain make your escape without delay; but everybody is there, so you hold on and look around. Little by little the faces grow serious; they begin to pale and lengthen visibly; the groups melt and gradually disperse. Everyone finds a pretext for going below and hiding his shame.

"I am not generally ill on the water," you remark to your neighbor; "but to-day, I don't know why, I am not feeling quite up to the mark; I must have eaten something at luncheon that does not agree with me.... Oh! of course, it's that wretched lobster salad! I was cautioned not to touch it, too. Oh!la gourmandise!" Confident of having persuaded your traveling companion that you are a tolerably good sailor, you too disappear below ... and he, not sorry to see you go, is not long in following your example.

You go down to the cabin. Alas! that is the finishing touch. The stuffy, heavy, unwholesome atmosphere, charged with a mixed odor of tar, mysterious cookery, and troubled stomachs, brings your digestive apparatus up to your throat. You feel stifled. All the vital forces crowd to your head, and your legs are powerless to support you. You throw yourself on your berth like a log, and instinctively close your eyes, so as not to see that man over there, who is just about to open the ball, or that other who is looking at you with a mixture of amusement and pity, as he calmly eats his chop. This creature is the most annoying of all your fellow-passengers. His compassion for you is insulting. You hate his healthy-looking face, his calm, his good appetite even; and your indignation reaches its climax when you see him coolly filling his pipe and preparing to go on deck and smoke. Unable to endure the atmosphere of the saloon any longer, you make a grand effort and return to the upper regions. The first sight that meets your eyes is that man again, now lavishing the most careful attentions upon your wife; he has been to fetch her some brandy and water, or a cup of tea. You would thank him, but you do not care for your wife to see you in your pitiful condition. That fellow is unbearable, overpowering. This is the only reflection suggested by his kindness to your wife; and away you steer, making a semicircle, or rather two or three, on your way to an empty bench, where you once more assume the horizontal.

A friend comes to tell you that your wife is giving up the ghost somewhere in the stern of the ship, but you make believe not to hear, and only murmur through your teeth: "So am I; what can I do for her?"

You ask the steward to send you some tea, and it comes up in an earthenware basin an inch thick. You put it to your lips. Horrible! What can it possibly be made of, this nauseating decoction? The smell of the flat, unpalatable stuff makes you feel more qualmish than ever; the remedy is worse than the evil.

⁂

Just as, at Monaco, you never fail to come across a gambler who has his system, you rarely take a sea journey without meeting with the good soul who has an infallible preventive for seasickness. "This succeeds with nine persons out of ten," she tells you. Next time you cross, you try it, but only to find that you are evidentlythe tenth. However, it is not a failure or two that can shake the blind confidence she has in her remedy, I must say it to her credit.

⁂

Though there exists no cure for this strange evil, I think, notwithstanding, that by the exercise of a little self-control, one can retardthe catastrophe. At least such is my experience.

We were one day between Guernsey and Southampton, just near the Casquettes, where the Channel makes things very uncomfortable for you, if there is the least wind blowing. I had curled myself up in a corner in the stern of the boat and was preparing to feel very sadly. Up came two French ladies, appearing, like myself, to have strayed that way in search of solitude.

"Saperlotte," thought I, "here are women looking at you, my boy; be a man."

I fixed my eyes on a point of the horizon, and no doubt appeared to my neighbors to be plunged in profound contemplation.

The ladies took up their position not very far from me, and began to heave very heavy sighs. I looked at them. They were green.

"Ah, Monsieur!" said one of them to me, "how fortunate you are, not to be ill!"

I was saved, for the moment at all events. It put fresh strength into me. Forcing asmile, and gathering up my courage, I had the impudence to affirm that I felt pretty well. The effort of the will had the power to keep the evil in check.

At that moment I understood how you can make a hero of a frightened soldier by telling him that bravery is written in his eyes.

⁂

A man who crosses the Channel several times a year is pretty sure to have one or two little anecdotes of themal de mer, and its consequences, in a corner of his memory.

Here is one chosen at random:

It was between Boulogne and Folkestone, on amare contrarium.

Seated quietly on deck, I was just dozing over a book, the author of which I will not name, since his volume had less power over my senses than the rolling of the boat. I was presently brought back to consciousness by the weight of a head, laid on my shoulder. I opened my eyes, looked out of the cornersof them; the head was a very pretty one, upon my word.

What was I to do?

To stay would be compromising; to get away suddenly would be ungallant and perhaps not without danger, for the poor little head might fall against the bulwarks of the boat. I reclosed my eyes, and made believe not to have noticed anything. All at once I heard a sweet voice in my ear:

"O Arthur! What shall I do? If you only knew how sick I feel. Oh! I must lean my head on your shoulder; you don't mind, do you?"

The situation was getting alarming. I kept my eyes closed, so as not to scare away the poor creature, who was evidently at sea, in more senses than one. I kept quiet, buried in my wraps and traveling cap, and, without moving my head, just murmured, "I am really awfully sorry, madam, but I am not Arthur."

This was startling enough in all conscience. I quite expected a small explosion; apologies,little screams, a fainting fit, perhaps. Happily, however, on board ship, dignity is laid aside. Certainly, on dry land, this lady could not have done less than faint, if it were only for the sake of appearances. Butà la mer, comme à la mer.

So there was no fuss or fainting; for that matter my poor fellow-traveler had not the strength to move. I rose, helped her to assume a more comfortable position, placed a cushion under her head, and covered her with my rug. Then, having called the steward and recommended Mme. Arthur to his care, there remained nothing but to decamp, and quit the thanklessrôleof caretaker of somebody else's wife.

When we got into harbor at Folkestone, Arthur suddenly made his appearance from somewhere in the lower regions. He was my very double—the same size, the same dress.... I saw through the misadventure.

On joining the London train, I found myself in the same compartment as the youngcouple. Arthurknew all, as they say in sensational novels, and we had a hearty laugh together over the affair. Arthur was as gay as a lark. I attributed his mirth to the fact of his having left the sea behind, and to his finding himself once more onterra firmawith his beloved one. I found in the course of conversation that he had only been married the day before, and the happy pair had come over to hide their bliss in the fogs. They intended passing their honeymoon in London. It would have been sacrilege. I dissuaded them from their project, and induced them to go to Scotland, to see its lakes and mountains, and the bracken lit up with autumnal gold.

British philosophy!

Why notEnglish Philosophy?

The difference is enormous. If I were to publish a treatise on the English philosophers, Bacon, Locke, Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Frederic Harrison, etc., I should call my work: "A Study of English Philosophy." But if I said to you that the English, not having succeeded in regaining Khartoum, contented themselves with regaining the road to England, I should add, that is British philosophy.

You would not say, "History of British Literature," you say, "History of English Literature."

There is something serio-comic about the word "British," or something chauvinistic.You would be right in saying "British army, British soldiers." The lady who fills the newspapers with her outcries against the few nudities exhibited in the Academy every season, is known only by the name of "British Matron."

An Englishman only calls his fellow-countrymen "Britons" when he is half laughing at them. When he says, "We Britons," he is not quite serious; on the contrary, when he says, "We Englishmen," his face reflects the feeling of respect with which the sound of his name inspires him.

The "English public," is good society; the "British" public means the common run of mortals in the United Kingdom.

British philosophy! that philosophy that makes us like what we have when we cannot have what we like; that philosophy taught by that good mother, and incomparable teacher, whose name is Necessity.

Alas, we French people do not possess this kind of philosophy. I wish we did. As a matter of fact, we are the most absurdly sensitive, thin-skinned people on the face of the earth. We do not know how to take a kick, much less, make use of it. I mean a kick in the figurative sense; the one that leaves no trace, and does not prevent us from sitting at our ease.

But, if the Englishman knows how to take it, do you believe he feels it the less for that? Be not deceived on the point. He exercises control over himself. He does not give it back on the spot, but stores it up, rubs the injured part, applies a little cold cream, if necessary, and awaits the moment when he will be able to return it with interest. Such is the difference between the two men. To my mind, the Englishman is the more intelligent of the two.

Success turns our heads in France, reverses discourage and demoralize us; we know neither how to profit by victory, nor put up with defeat. In victory, we see only glory; in defeat, only disgrace.

Thus we are led to make war to serve dynastic interests; we go to the Crimea for the English, who do not go to Germany for us; we set the Italian nation on its feet, and to-day, see it, in its profound gratitude, preferring Germany to ourselves.

⁂

Criticism exasperates instead of benefiting us, and even occasionally amusing us. We hate our enemies, instead of being grateful to them for the good they do us; for if we owe part of our success to our friends, we owe a still greater part to our enemies.

There are two ways of causing an animal to advance—whether that animal be an artist, a writer, or a prime minister—first, by kind encouragements ... in front; secondly, by something less pleasant ... on the other side.

I firmly believe the second process to be the more efficient of the two.

It is only indifference that kills; in religion, in love, in politics, in literature, in everything.

Christianity came out of the Roman arenas,English Protestantism out of the Smithfield fires; and many a demagogue owed his success, under the Second Empire, to the few months' imprisonment at Ste. Pélagie that the Imperialist judges were silly enough to condemn him to.

Enemies? Why, they are our fortune. When I hear a man spoken of after his death as never having had any enemies, as a Christian I admire him, but I also come to the conclusion that the dear fellow must have been a very insignificant member of the community.

If you do something new, you make enemies of all the red tapeists; if you do something intelligent, you make enemies of all the fools; if you are successful, you make enemies of all the army of failures, the misunderstood, the crabbed, and the jealous; but these little outbursts of hatred, one as diverting as the other, are really so many testimonials in your favor.

If you send in your application for some vacant post, and you succeed in obtaining it, you may be sure that there will be but onecandidate who will consider that the election was made according to merit; yourself. The rest will cry out in chorus that your luck is something wonderful. Luck! What a drudge this poor word is made of! The privations you have imposed upon yourself, and the long nights that you have devoted to work, areluck.Luck, as a great English moralist puts it, means rising at six in the morning;luckmeans spending tenpence when you earn a shilling;luckmeans minding your own business and not meddling with other people's.

The Englishman knows that it falls to everyone's lot to be criticised, and he makes up his mind to endure it. He even has a certain admiration for those who criticise and rally him, if the operation is performed with a little dexterity. Violent criticism is the only kind he has a contempt for. "The fellow loses his temper," says he; "he is a fool, who proves that his cause is a bad one;" and he goes on his way unconcerned. So, while, in Paris, a Republican and a Bonapartist, who meet onthe Boulevards, will look daggers at each other; a Liberal and a Conservative, who meet in Pall Mall, will shake hands and go and dine together amicably. They both know that it is all humbug. After dinner, they repair to the House of Commons; one takes his seat on the left, the other on the right of the Speaker, who ought rather to be called theSpoken to, since everyone addresses his remarks to him, but he very rarely opens his lips.

Never any insults in this Parliament. You will never hear any such phrase as "the honorable member has lied," but rather, "the honorable member has just made a remark which is scarcely in accordance with strict truth." These euphemisms are the soul of the English language, the outcome of the cool British temperament. Violent language has not the least power to move an Englishman to wrath—it rather excites his pity. In an English club, two members who had called each other "liars," would find their names promptly struck off the roll, and there would be an endof the matter. In France they would fight a duel.

The following anecdote shows how ready the English are to acknowledge their littlefailings.

I was speaking of the English spirit of colonization one day at a lecture, and in the course of my remarks on the subject, I took the liberty of saying, not without a slight touch of satire:

"When John Bull makes colonies, it is for the good of the natives."

"For their goods!" cried a jolly Briton from the gallery.

He evidently thought me too indulgent. By the manner in which my interrupter was applauded, I judged that he had properly seized and expressed the general feeling of the audience.

⁂

It is in adversity that the Englishman is to be admired. If he is defeated, he puts a goodface upon it; he accepts his defeat, and makes the best of it. "I have proved that I can fight," he says; "why should I fight a hopeless battle?" If the door must give way to the burglars, he does not wait for them to break it open, he opens it himself; if he cannot save his furniture, he saves his door; it is so much gained.

⁂

It is thanks to this practical philosophy that, on the day after an election, you see all the newspapers express their satisfaction at the result. The winning side has always gained a more brilliant, more decisive, victory than ever, in spite of the enormous difficulties that had to be overcome. The losing side invariably gains a moral victory, and this is proved bya + b.

When, after the defeat at Majuba Hill, England abandoned the conquest of the Transvaal, a feat which would have been mere child's play to her, but which would probably have arousedsome indignation in Europe, Mr. Gladstone announced that, after all, the Boers were only fighting for their independence, and it was not seemly for generous England to annex by force a country that wished to be free, and had given such proof of valor.

A little masterpiece in its way, this speech!

⁂

What a strange, ungrateful animal is man! What respect he has for his conquerors! What contempt for those he can conquer! When he speaks of the lion that devours him, or the eagle that tears his flesh, he is ready to take off his hat to them; when he speaks of the donkey that renders him great service, or of the goose that furnishes him a good dinner, a pen to write with, and a bed to lie on, he cannot sufficiently express his contempt.

Do you remember, dear American friends, how, some four years ago, a certain LordSackville, British minister in Washington, was given twenty-four hours to leave the country? Never had John Bull been administered a better kick before. Did he go to war with America? Oh, no. The prime minister of England declared that you could not expect "gentlemanly manners from American politicians," and John Bull was satisfied, and he set about bullying little Portugal about some South African bit of territory.

⁂

When the Englishman meets with his superior, he is ready to admit it. If he be jealous of him, he will not expose himself to ridicule by showing it. He does not shun the prosperous man, he cultivates his acquaintance. He is not necessarily a schemer for that; where there is no meanness there is no scheming. He acknowledges all the aristocracies; the aristocracy of birth, the aristocracy of money, and the aristocracy of talent; and I onlyblame him for one thing, which is that he has much less admiration for the third of these than for the other two. At a public dinner, in England, you may see in the places of honor, on either side of the chairman, one or two lordlings, then the wealthy guests ... then, but much farther down, the literary men, artists, and other small fry.

We French people have not the bump of veneration very much developed, it is true; but we have an admiration, approaching veneration, for talent and science, and the same Frenchman who takes no notice of a duke, will turn to get a second look at a great literary man or a savant. The commonplace Englishman, who humbles himself before a village squire, or a big banker, takes his revenge when he meets the schoolmaster who, in France, would be aprofesseur, but who, in England, were he a double first of Oxford, an ex-scholar of Balliol College, goes through life by the name ofschoolmaster; rinse your mouth quickly.

In England, social disparity excites no jealousy. On the contrary, the noble and the wealthy are popular.

In France, we have given up admitting superiority since our walls have been ornamented with the announcement thatallFrenchmen are brethren, free men, and equals. This rage for equality degenerates into jealousy of all superiority. In fact, the French are all equal to their superiors, and most of them superior to their equals. As soon as superiority clearly manifests itself, in political life, in literature, in the fine arts, anywhere, it is ostracized.

⁂

I was talking one day with a Frenchman, who still massacres the English language, although he has lived in this country more than twenty years. In the course of conversation I named a compatriot of ours. "Now,thereis a man," said I, "who speaks English admirably."

"Admirably?" cried he, "well, yes, he does ... like the rest of us."

This is a truly French retort.

⁂

Jealousy is the commonest and most characteristic failing of the French.

With us, jealousy is not only the stamp of mediocrity, as it is everywhere else; it is a malady that our greatest men have been tainted with. The acrimonious and contemptible polemic that Bossuet and Fénelon engaged in, the implacable hatred of Voltaire toward Rousseau, are but two instances of it; the history of French literature abounds with others. Our Parisian newspapers are daily filled with polemics and personalities.

In England, everyone minds his own business, and does not trouble himself about what his neighbor says or does.

⁂

May I be allowed to make another comparison here?

If the Englishman is less jealous than the Frenchman of the success of his fellow-creature, it is because he often does not attribute it to the same causes.

The Englishman maintains, rightly or wrongly, that a man owes his successes far more to his character than to his talent. If I am not mistaken, it was Thomas Carlyle who laid down this rule of British philosophy.

This philosophical proposition is very comforting to the misunderstood; to hint to a man that he is less talented than another, is to vex him; on the contrary, to tell him that he has less shrewdness, is almost to pay him a compliment.

It would be imprudent, not to say impudent, to attack the subject of English snobs. There are themes which seem marked "Dangerous ground." If the French want to know all about English snobs, they must turn to Thackeray, who has completely exhausted the subject.

⁂

The snob is the man who is utterly destitute of nobility. I should like to explain the word etymologically thus:SnobfromS. Nob. (Sine Nobilitate).

⁂

The snob is the man who is ashamed of his origin, and wishes to occupy a better place in society than he is entitled to; who hires acouple of flunkeys by the evening, to make folks believe he keeps a grand establishment; or who lowers his blinds from the middle of July to the middle of September, to make it appear that he is out of town,en villégiature, at the seaside, or at his place in the country.

⁂

The king of French snobs calls himself M. du Bois, M. du Val, M. du Mont—or better still, M. de la Roche-Pichenette. His father, an honest man, and useful member of society, amassed penny by penny a snug fortune; his name was Dumont, Duval, Dubois, of theboisof which useful men are made. The son squanders the money of his lamented papa, and calls himself Du Bois, of theboisof which parasites and idlers are made. If one of his estates happens to be called "la Roche-Pichenette," he dubs himself M. de la Roche-Pichenette, which looks grander still. He would be puzzled to show you the letters patent which authorize him in assuming thisgrotesque name; but he will tell you that, if he cannot do so, it is because those Republican scoundrels of '93 destroyed them. He is a clerical and stanch Royalist, as a matter of course;noblesse oblige. In this respect he outdoes the genuine nobleman, who needs make no noise to attract attention to a name which everyone knows, and which, in spite of what may be said on the subject, often recalls the memory of some glorious event in the past. Noise he must make, unfortunately for his cause. So a German jumps on the table to make believe that he is merry.

He talks of his ancestors, and rails at the Revolution which made a man of him. Ancestors he has, of course, as you and I have; they were, doubtless, worthy fellows, good patriots, who may have been present at Fontenoy, at Rocroy, or even at the siege of Jerusalem, for the very simple reason that the principle of spontaneous generation has never been applied to man. But if his ancestors lent a helping hand at the taking of Jerusalem, andalso, perhaps, by the irony of fate, at the taking of the Bastille, he, for his part, has taken nothing particular except a sham title.

This kind of snob is not met with in England. The names of the lords, baronets, and knights are published every year; fraud is impossible. The few contraband barons that are to be found in England are barons of the Holy Empire.

The Anglophobist of the purest water that France ever produced, was the late Marquis de Boissy, senator of the second Empire. This witty, eloquent, spirited old Gaul, was the soul of the august assembly, the only member of it who was not either stuffed or embalmed, and his memory alone will save it from oblivion. His philippics will long ring in the ears of the French.

Whether he was in the tribune treating the subject of home or foreign politics, or whether he was making a speech at the agricultural committee meeting of his borough, he had but one peroration, his cherished device, his hobby:

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