ss of
England is softened by the women. "If I can leave England alive, it will
not be the fault of the women; they do their best." This is praise
indeed, when placed side by side with his dismissal of the women of
Hamburg. They are plump, we are told, "but the little god Cupid is to
blame, who often sets the sharpest of love's darts to his bow, but from
naughtiness or clumsiness shoots too low, and hits the women of Hamburg
not in the heart but in the stomach."

France was as delightful as England was doleful:

"My poor sensitive soul," he cries, "that often recoiled in shyness from
German coarseness, opened out to the flattering sounds of French
urbanity. God gave us our tongues so that we might say pleasant things
to our fellow-men.... Sorrows are strangely softened. In the air of
Paris wounds are healed quicker than anywhere else; there is something
so noble, so gentle, so sweet in the air as in the people themselves."

I suppose the only analogy to such superlative contentment is provided
by the phenomenon known as falling in love. Happily we do not all choose
the same object of affection. England has a curious way of inspiring
either great and lasting love or irritation and positive dislike. There
seems to be little or no indifference. I believe love predominates.

From exiled kings to humble refugees, from peripatetic philosophers to
indolent aborigines, the testimony of her charm can be gathered. I speak
as a victim. I love England with a fervour born of admiration (without
admiration no one ever falls in love). I love her ways and her mind, I
love her chilly dampness and her hot, glowing fires (attempts to analyse
and classify love are always silly). In her thinkers and workers, in her
schemes and efforts for social improvement, in her freedom of thought
and speech I found my mental _milieu_.

To me England is inexpressibly dear, not because a whole conspiracy of
influences--educational, conventional, patriotic--were at work
persuading me that she is worthy of affection. I myself discovered her
lovableness. Your Chauvinist is always a mere repeater. He is but a
member of the Bandar-Log, shouting greatness of which he knows nothing.
True love does not need the trumpets of Jingoism. I have no room for
lies about England: the truth is sufficient for me. Though I love
England, I have affection to spare for other countries. I feel at home
in France, in Sweden, in America, in Switzerland. Your Chauvinist will
exc