re, when travelling, models of
good manners in comparison with the abominable English, who seem to
have been brought up in a stable, so careful are they not to discommode
themselves in any way, while they always discommode their neighbors.

Madame de L. to Madame de X.

LES FRESNES, Saturday.
My Dear Child:

Many of the things you have said to me are very sensible, but that does
not prevent you from being wrong. Like you, I used formerly to feel very
indignant at the impoliteness of men, who, as I supposed, constantly
treated me with neglect; but, as I grew older and reflected on
everything, putting aside coquetry, and observing things without taking
any part in them myself, I perceived this much--that if men are not
always polite, women are always indescribably rude.

We imagine that we should be permitted to do anything, my darling, and
at the same time we consider that we have a right to the utmost respect,
and in the most flagrant manner we commit actions devoid of that
elementary good-breeding of which you speak so feelingly.

I find, on the contrary, that men consider us much more than we consider
them. Besides, darling, men must needs be, and are, what we make them.
In a state of society, where women are all true gentlewomen, all men
would become gentlemen.

Come now; just observe and reflect.

Look at two women meeting in the street. What an attitude each assumes
towards the other! What disparaging looks! What contempt they throw into
each glance! How they toss their heads while they inspect each other to
find something to condemn! And, if the footpath is narrow, do you think
one woman would make room for another, or would beg pardon as she sweeps
by? Never! When two men jostle each other by accident in some narrow
lane, each of them bows and at the same time gets out of the other's
way, while we women press against each other stomach to stomach, face to
face, insolently staring each other out of countenance.

Look at two women who are acquaintances meeting on a staircase outside
the door of a friend's drawing-room, one of them just leaving, the other
about to go in. They begin to talk to each other and block up all the
landing. If anyone happens to be coming up behind them, man or woman, do
you imagine that they will put themselves half an inch out of their way?
Never! never!

I was waiting myself, with my watch in my hands, one day last winter
at a certain drawing-room