A Frenchman in America: Recollections of Men and ThingsO'Rell, Max
General
A Frenchman in America: Recollections of Men and Things
O'Rell, Max
United States -- Description and travel; United States -- Social life and customs -- 1865-1918
The Anglo-Saxon "unco guid" is easily recognized. He is dark (all bigots
and fanatics are). He is dressed in black, shiny broadcloth raiment. A
wide-brimmed felt hat covers his head. He walks with light, short,
jaunty steps, his head a little inclined on one side. He never carries a
stick, which might give a rather fast appearance to his turn-out. He
invariably carries an umbrella, even in the brightest weather, as being
more respectable--and this umbrella he never rolls, for he would avoid
looking in the distance as if he had a stick. He casts right and left
little grimaces that are so many forced smiles of self-satisfaction.
"Try to be as good as I am," he seems to say to all who happen to look
at him, "and you will be as happy." And he "smiles, and smiles, and
smiles."
He has a small soul, a small heart, and a small brain.
As a rule, he is a well-to-do person. It pays better to have a narrow
mind than to have broad sympathies.
He drinks tea, but prefers cocoa, as being a more virtuous beverage.
He is perfectly destitute of humor, and is the most inartistic creature
in the world. Everything suggests to him either profanity or indecency.
The "Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character," by Dean Ramsay,
would strike him as profane, and if placed in the Musée du Louvre,
before the Venus of Milo, he would see nothing but a woman who has next
to no clothes on.
His distorted mind makes him take everything in ill part. His hands get
pricked on every thorn that he comes across on the road, and he misses
all the roses.
If I were not a Christian, the following story, which is not as often
told as it should be, would have converted me long ago:
Jesus arrived one evening at the gates of a certain city, and he sent
his disciples forward to prepare supper, while he himself, intent on
doing good, walked through the streets into the marketplace. And he
saw at the corner of the market some people gathered together, looking
at an object on the ground; and he drew near to see what it might be.
It was a dead dog, with a halter round his neck, by which he appeared
to have been dragged through the dirt; and a viler, a more abject, a
more unclean thing, never met the eyes of man. And those who stood by
looked on with abhorrence. "Faugh!" said one, stopping his nose, "it
pollutes the air." "How long," said another, "shall this foul beast
offend our sight?" "Look at his torn hide," said a third; "one could
not even cut a shoe out of it!" "And his ears," said a fourth, "all
draggled and bleeding!" "No doubt," said a fifth, "he has been hanged
for thieving!" And Jesus heard them, and looking down compassionately
on the dead creature, he said: "Pearls are not equal to the whiteness
of his teeth!"
If I understand the Gospel, the gist of its teachings is contained in
the foregoing little story. Love and forgiveness: finding something to
pity and admire even in a dead dog. Such is the religion of Christ.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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