Koerner in the prayer of such a man:--

"O God, save me,
My wife, child, and hearth,
Then my harvest also;
Then will I bless thee,
Though thy lightning scorch to blackness
All the rest of human kind."

A sentiment which finds its paraphrase in the following vulgate of our
land:--

"O Lord, save me,
My wife, child, and brother Sammy,
Us four, _and no more_."

The latter clause, indeed, is not quite frankly avowed as yet by
politicians.

It is very amusing to be in the Chamber of Deputies when some dull
person is speaking. The French have a truly Greek vivacity; they
cannot endure to be bored. Though their conduct is not very dignified,
I should like a corps of the same kind of sharp-shooters in our
legislative assemblies when honorable gentlemen are addressing their
constituents and not the assembly, repeating in lengthy, windy, clumsy
paragraphs what has been the truism of the newspaper press for
months previous, wickedly wasting the time that was given us to learn
something for ourselves, and help our fellow-creatures. In the French
Chamber, if a man who has nothing to say ascends the tribune, the
audience-room is filled with the noise as of myriad beehives; the
President rises on his feet, and passes the whole time of the speech
in taking the most violent exercise, stretching himself to look
imposing, ringing his bell every two minutes, shouting to the
representatives of the nation to be decorous and attentive. In vain:
the more he rings, the more they won't be still. I saw an orator in
this situation, fighting against the desires of the audience, as only
a Frenchman could,--certainly a man of any other nation would have
died of embarrassment rather,--screaming out his sentences, stretching
out both arms with an air of injured dignity, panting, growing red in
the face; but the hubbub of voices never stopped an instant. At last
he pretended to be exhausted, stopped, and took out his snuff-box.
Instantly there was a calm. He seized the occasion, and shouted out a
sentence; but it was the only one he was able to make heard. They
were not to be trapped so a second time. When any one is speaking that
commands interest, as Berryer did, the effect of this vivacity is very
pleasing, the murmur of feeling that rushes over the assembly is so
quick and electric,--light, too, as the ripple on the lake. I heard
Guizot speak one day for a short time. His manner is very deficient
in dignity,--has not eve