. 'How heartless!' cry we.
Not at all! The English show no cordiality, no enthusiasm to strangers,
it is true: but they equally turn their backs on them, and equally
forget them! The only respect, therefore, in which they differ from
you, is the previous kindness: now if we are to receive strangers, I can
really see no reason why we are not to be as civil to them as possible;
and so far from imputing the desire to please them to a bad heart, I
think it a thousand times more amiable and benevolent than telling them,
a l'Anglaise, by your morosity and reserve, that you do not care a pin
what becomes of them. If I am only to walk a mile with a man, why should
I not make that mile as pleasant to him as I can; or why, above all, if
I choose to be sulky, and tell him to go and be d--d, am I to swell out
my chest, colour with conscious virtue, and cry, see what a good heart I
have?

"Ah, Monsieur D'A----, since benevolence is inseparable from all
morality, it must be clear that there is a benevolence in little
things as well as in great; and that he who strives to make his fellow
creatures happy, though only for an instant, is a much better man than
he who is indifferent to, or, (what is worse) despises, it. Nor do I, to
say truth, see that kindness to an acquaintance is at all destructive
to sincerity to a friend: on the contrary, I have yet to learn, that
you are (according to the customs of your country) worse friends, worse
husbands, or worse fathers than we are!"

"What!" cried I, "you forget yourself, Vincent. How can the private
virtues be cultivated without a coal fire? Is not domestic affection
a synonymous term with domestic hearth? and where do you find either,
except in honest old England?"

"True," replied Vincent; "and it is certainly impossible for a father
and his family to be as fond of each other on a bright day in the
Tuilleries, or at Versailles, with music and dancing, and fresh air, as
they would be in a back parlour, by a smoky hearth, occupied entirely by
le bon pere, et la bonne mere; while the poor little children sit at the
other end of the table, whispering and shivering, debarred the vent of
all natural spirits, for fear of making a noise; and strangely uniting
the idea of the domestic hearth with that of a hobgoblin, and the
association of dear papa with that of a birch rod."

We all laughed at this reply, and Monsieur D'A----, rising to depart,
said, "Well, well, milord, your countrymen are g