When M. Taine visited England towards the close of the nineteenth century one of the first things to attract his notice was the bashfulness which he encountered in unexpected places. He was surprised to meet travelled and cultured men who were habitually embarrassed in society, and so reserved that you might live with them six months before you discovered half their excellent qualities. To unveil their true nature there was needed the steady breeze of a serious interest or the hurricane of perilous times; the faint airs of courtliness could not stir the heavy folds that hung before their hearts. These strong men could not join in delicate raillery, but shrank back afraid; as if a tortoise, startled by a shower of blossoms, should withdraw into that thick carapace which can bear the impact of a rock. There was one who stammered pitifully in a drawing-room, but the next day sought the suffrages of electors with an unembarrassed and fluent eloquence, so proving that his failure came not of folly or cowardice, but from lack of training in a certain school of fence. He needed the open air for the play of his broadsword; and to his hand, apt to another hilt, the foil appeared a woman's weapon. Speaking of high aims and national ideals, he moved in a large place oblivious of himself; but in the social arena he tripped with timid steps, like a man essaying an unfamiliar dance. On the platform he had the enthusiasm and confidence of an orator; on the carpet he could not string three sentences in any courtly language. In the North the art of mercurial dialogue, which in the South is a natural gift, is only learned under favourable conditions, and is often condemned by those who have it not, as a popinjay's accomplishment. Immediate cordiality to strangers is frowned upon as tending to divorce courtesy from truth. It is otherwise with the southern peoples. While the Englishman conceals his benevolence by a frigid aloofness of manner, or blurts out friendliness like an indiscretion, the Italian is courtly without a second thought, and the Frenchman seems the comrade of a chance acquaintance from the moment when he has taken his hand. They are amiable without effort in the security of a harmonious nature, and if they encounter diffidence at all, observe it like an anthropologist confronted with a survival of primitive times in the culture of a civilized age.