urbanity and courtesy are the least
distinguished for truth and sincerity; and hence the well-known
alliterations, 'fair and false,' 'smooth and slippery.' The fair and
false Greek, the polished and wily Italian, the courteous and deceitful
Frenchman, are associations which, to the strong, downright, courageous
Anglo-Saxon, make up-and-down rudeness and blunt discourtesy a type of
truth and honesty.

"No one can read French literature without feeling how the element of
courtesy pervades every department of life,--how carefully people avoid
being personally disagreeable in their intercourse. A domestic quarrel,
if we may trust French plays, is carried on with all the refinements of
good breeding, and insults are given with elegant civility. It seems
impossible to translate into French the direct and downright brutalities
which the English tongue allows. The whole intercourse of life is
arranged on the understanding that all personal contacts shall be smooth
and civil, and such as to obviate the necessity of personal jostle and
jar.

"Does a Frenchman engage a clerk or other _employe_, and afterwards hear
a report to his disadvantage, the last thing he would think of would be
to tell a downright unpleasant truth to the man. He writes him a civil
note, and tells him, that, in consequence of an unexpected change of
business, he shall not need an assistant in that department, and much
regrets that this will deprive him of Monsieur's agreeable society, etc.

"A more striking example cannot be found of this sort of intercourse
than the representation in the life of Madame George Sand of the
proceedings between her father and his mother. There is all the romance
of affection between this mother and son. He writes her the most devoted
letters, he kisses her hand on every page, he is the very image of a
gallant, charming, lovable son, while at the same time he is secretly
making arrangements for a private marriage with a woman of low rank and
indifferent reputation,--a marriage which he knows would be like death
to his mother. He marries, lives with his wife, has one or two children
by her, before he will pain the heart of his adored mother by telling
her the truth. The adored mother suspects her son, but no trace of the
suspicion appears in her letters to him. The questions which an English
parent would level at him point-blank she is entirely too delicate to
address to her dear Maurice; but she puts them to the Prefect of Po