in France, we "get wet to the bones," and you know that, when the English go as far as the backbone, the French, not to be outdone, go as far as the marrow of the bone.
In England, people are witty "to their fingers' end"; in France, "to the end of their finger-nails."
The index is placed at the beginning of English books, but at the end of French ones.
Both the French and English languages have aspirate h's, but, whereas in English it is vulgar to drop them, in French it is vulgar to sound them.
In France, it is considered very bad form to call people by their names directly after being introduced to them. We simply address them as Monsieur, Madame, Mademoiselle. In England, only shopmen address ladies as Madam, or Miss. When you have been introduced, you must add a person's surname to the title, to Mr., Mrs., or Miss, in speaking to them.
In England, they "take French leave"; but in France we "take English leave," and we are quits.
The pound sterling contains twenty shillings, the shilling twelve pence, the penny four farthings; and if you want to find out, for instance, how much the sum of 356 pounds, 18 shillings, and 9 pence 3 farthings, has brought in, at compound interest, in four years, five months, and eight days, at the rate of 37/19 per cent., I would advise you to procure a ream of foolscap paper and set to work. When you have waded through the sum, you will wonder how it is that the English, practical as they are, have not adopted the decimal system. But then, you see, they have adopted it in France.
Even down to the manner of holding a fork or an umbrella, the two nations seem to be saying to each other: "You do it that way? very well, then, I shall do it this way."
In making an inventory of the contrasts in the two nations, it would be difficult to say which is oftener in the right. The balance is probably pretty even.
The last I will mention is the difference in the manner of keeping Good Friday, and in this, I think, the good mark ought to be for us.
Good Friday, being the anniversary of the death of our Savior, the French keep it in fasting and prayer. On the following Sunday, the day of His Resurrection, they rejoice. Easter day, being Sunday, finds the English people plunged in solemn silence; but, on Good Friday, they take their holiday, and the lower orders celebrate their Redeemer's death by knocking down cocoanuts.
CHAPTER VII.
FRENCH IMPULSIVENESS AND BRITISH SANGFROID ILLUSTRATED BY TWO REMINISCENCES
Two incidents that took place lately, in Paris and London respectively, may serve to illustrate French impulsiveness and English sangfroid.
The other evening the opera "Les Huguenots" was played at the Grand Opera. The singer who took the part of Marcel was out of sorts, and sang flat. An old gentleman, seated in an orchestra stall, was observed to be restless and uncomfortable during the performance. At the end of the last act, Marcel passes before the church, just at the moment when the Duke of Nevers and his partisans come out of it.
"Qui vive?" cries the Duke.
"Huguenot," answers Marcel, and he falls, shot dead by the followers of the Duke.
This part of the opera had no sooner been acted, than the old gentleman, who now looked radiant, rose from his seat, put on his hat, and, shaking his fist at the dead hero, to the great amusement of the public, cried at the top of his voice:
"You donkey, it serves you right, you have been singing out of tune the whole evening."
And indignantly he left the theater.
In a beautifully appointed English house, afternoon tea, served in costly china, had just been brought to the drawing-room, when the mistress of the house inadvertently overturned the tea-table. Without the slightest show of vexation, without oh! or ah! Lady R – calmly touched the bell, and, on the appearance of the domestic, merely said:
"Take this away, and bring more tea."
"My dear," whispered Lady P – to a friend, "she won't match that china for $500."
Another illustration of the latter:
A fearful railway accident has taken place. The first car, with its human contents, is reduced to atoms.
An Englishman, who was in one of the first-class cars at the rear, examines the débris.
"Oh!" he says to an official, pointing to a piece of flesh wrapped up in a piece of tweed cloth. "Pick that up, that's the piece of my butler that has got the keys of my trunks."
CHAPTER VIII.
ENGLISH PHARISEES AND FRENCH CROCODILES
The French and the English have this very characteristic feature in common: they can stand any amount of incense; you may burn all the perfumes of Arabia under their noses, without incommoding them in the slightest degree.
With this difference, however, in the extremes.
The French boaster is noisy and talkative. With his mustache twirled defiantly upward, his hat on one side, he will shout at you, at the top of his voice that,1 "La France, Monsieur, sera toujours la Fr-r-rance, les Français seront toujours les Fr-r-rançais." As you listen to him, you are almost tempted to believe, with Thackeray, "that the poor fellow has a lurking doubt in his own mind that he is not the wonder he professes to be."
But allow me to say that the British specimen is far more provoking. He is so sure that all his geese are swans; so thoroughly persuaded of his superiority over the rest of the human race; it is, in his eyes, such an incontested and incontestable fact, that he does not think it worth his while to raise his voice in asserting it, and that is what makes him so awfully irritating, "don't you know?" He has not a doubt that the whole world was made for him; not only this one, but the next. In the meantime – for he is in no hurry to put on the angel plumage that awaits him – he congratulates himself on his position here below. Everything is done to add to his comfort and happiness: the Italians give him concerts, the French dig the Suez Canal for him, the Germans sweep out his offices and do his errands in the City of London for $200 a year, the Greeks grow the principal ingredient in his plum pudding. The Americans supply his aristocracy with rich heiresses, so that they may get their coats of arms out of pawn. His face beams with gratitude and complacency, as he quietly rubs his hands together, and calmly thanks Heaven that he is not as other men are. And it is true enough; he is not.
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If my memory serves me, it was one of our wittiest vaudevillists who once laid a wager that he would get an encore, at one of our popular theaters on the Boulevard, for the following patriotic quatrain:
He won the bet.
The London
Is it not strange that music-hall jingoism and
