mille, la politique, et les
affaires_,--'domestic life, politics, and business,'--he complacently
infers that _le fond du caractere Anglais_, 'the basis of the English
character,' is nothing more nor less than _le manque de bonheur_--'a
want of anything like happiness.' An English thinker, on the other hand,
finds in the very language of France the evidence of superficial emotion
and unaspiring, irreverent intelligence. 'How exactly,' writes Julius
Ham, 'do _esprit_ and _spirituel_ express what the French deem the
highest glory of the human mind! A large part of their literature is
_mousseux_; and whatever is so, soon grows flat. Our national quality is
sense, which may, perhaps, betray a tendency to materialism; but which,
at all events, comprehends a greater body of thought, that has settled
down and become substantiated in maxims.'[A] How far a Frenchman is from
appreciating this distinction, as unfavorable to his own race, we can
realize from the following estimate of the historical evil which an
admired modern writer considers that race has suffered from the English,
and from the character of the latter as recognized by another equally a
favorite:--

[Footnote A: Guesses at Truth.]

'Iniquitous England,' writes a popular novelist, 'the vile executioner
of all in which France most exulted, murdered grace in Marie Stuart, as
it did inspiration in Jeanne d'Arc, and genius in Napoleon;'--'a race,'
says another, 'gifted with a national feeling which well-nigh approaches
superstition, yet which has chosen the whole world for its country. The
gravity of _these beings_, accidentally brought together and isolated by
mere interest, their life of mechanical activity, and of labor without
relaxation as without life, all interest, yet freeze you at the same
time.' 'The Englishman has made unto himself a language appropriate to
his placid manners and silent habits. This language is a murmur
interrupted by subdued hisses,'--'_un murmure entre-coupe de sifflements
doux_.'

The gregarious hotel life in America commends itself to the time-saving
habits of a busy race; but the love of speciality in France modifies
this advantage: in our inns a stated price covers all demands except for
wine; here each separate necessity is a specific charge--the sheet of
writing paper, the cake of soap, and the candle figure among the
innumerable items of the bill. Thus an infinite subdivision makes all
business tedious, involving so many distinct