L'A.'ME DES ANGLAIS.*
THE clever writer who contributes to the Paris Figaro under the name of " Famine," and who is also known as "Jacque Vontade," gives in this agreeable and readable book her impressions of the English character. She knows England well; her English friends and acquaintances are many; she has visited noble old houses and lovely gardens innumerable; she has studied English literature, and knows how to seize the points that go to prove her theories; English history speaks to her through the Tower, English religion—this is • L• Anse des dinglais. Par FO3Milia Paris : Bernard Grasset. [3 tr. 50 6.1 not quite convincing—through Mr. Edmund Gosse's remark- able book, Father and Son. The further her studies lead her, the more assured she becomes that we are an original, a singular people, the source of whose peculiarities it is a diffi-
ca:t matter to trace. We are islanders, but so are the Corsicans; we are of Teutonic descent, but "Fcemina " finds se.ry little resemblance between the Germans and ourselves.
She seems to arrive at the conclusion that our foggy climate is largely responsible for both our qualities and our defects : the virtues for which she gives us full and generous credit, the faults she criticises politely and kindly, the oddities with which she deals so frankly and so faithfully as to make her book thoroughly amusing to the victims of her severest remarks. It is, on the whole, a strong and salutary lesson in the art of seeing ourselves as others see us.
Of course all good criticism being comparison, "Fcemina " compares the English with the French, and here, in most :rases, she is both fair and entertaining. She is particularly ;o in the chapter on love and friendship, which also shows perhaps a deeper penetration than any other part of her book. Elsewhere she falls rather easily into some of those snares which beset everybody who ventures to generalise with so much dogmatism on the soul of a people. We refer, among other things, to certain remarks on insensibility in the presence of death or any great and piercing sorrow. Because the best English show a certain power of self-control, largely gained by consideration for others, in their personal grief, it is not at all safe to conclude that they "ignore," that they "do not know," " cette tendresse terrible," " cette pitie passionnee," which wring the heart and vibrate through the whole being at sue'i times.
Matter for lighter argument might be found in the chapter of which the name alone is a kind of challenge, "Notre Ascetisnie et Leur Sensualit,e." Among many curious things, we are here told that the Englishman eats "formidably," and for the pleasure of eating alone ; he does not care what, or how badly cooked, so that his food is plentiful and includes pickles and red pepper. The Frenchman, on the contrary, eats little (!), and with perfect indifference; he only asks that his food may suggest ideas by nourishing his brain ; hence the superiority of French cookery. One of the author's bases for her conviction as to English gluttony is the fact that Queen Victoria sent Christmas puddings to her troops in South Africa! "Queen Victoria was right, and displayed a solid knowledge of her people." She did; but not in the way suggested by " Fcemina."
The chapter most flattering to English sensibilities is that on "Fair Play "; an untranslatable thing, " Fcemina" finds it ; a distinctly English law or quality, to be traced throughout our history, and certainly no weaker at the present day, when so many old glories, as our French friend does not fail to see, are crumbling about us. Her praise is just ; and for ourselves we are not even inclined to acknowledge the one exception she brings against us—Joan of Arc. At any rate we absolutely refuse to believe that the average English man or woman of the present day " detests " or wishes to despise Joan of Are. That old savage prejudice is gone for ever. If Shakespeare lived now, the Maid would be among his heroines. Neither are the advances of materialism such that
the English public specially admires M. Anatole France as the writer who has done his best to disparage and to belittle Joan of Arc. Let us ask " Fcemina" to believe that those English who spoke to her in such a sense did not
convey the mind of their nation ; so that she need not use far-fetched religious arguments to explain the jargon of a few would-be "intellectuals."
In the England of to-day our kind critic finds still living traces of Imperial Rome, of exclusive Judea, of the feudal system, of the ancient moralities of the Far East, of the Greek love of games ; and she sees, at the same time, that over almost all these relics a wind of change is blowing, while the last, the "religion du sport," alarms her by its possible results. However, her conclusion—may it be justified !is as hopeful as it is finely expressed:—
" Des menaces sent suspendues sur cette terre de force, d'orgueil et de gloire. Qu'importe, apres tout! Guest l'Angleterre, oa Yinatinct de resistance a la destruction eat plus puissant qne In destruction. Elle a connu bien d'autres troubles, des incerti- tudes plus tragiques, des luttes plus feroces, de pires menaces, et elle set . . . rAngleterre."
Previous page
