Castles -- France; Touraine (France) -- Description and travel
Miss Cassandra, who in whatever portion of the globe she may be
travelling is sure to meet people with whom she has a link of
acquaintance or association, has discovered in the course of a long talk
with M. La Tour, this evening, that she knows some of his American
relatives. Indeed his Browns (how much more distinguished Le Brun would
sound!) are connected in some way with her family, and she and M. La
Tour are delighted to claim cousinship through these New York Browns. I
am sure that to establish the exact degree of relationship would defy
the skill of the most expert genealogist; but they are quite satisfied
with even a remote degree of kinship, especially as this discovery
brings Lydia, in a way, into the La Tour connection.
M. La Tour, who talks of visiting his American relatives next winter, is
evidently preparing himself in more ways than one for his projected
trip. Although his English is faultless, he seems to think it important
to be familiar with a certain amount of American slang. Yesterday he
turned to me, with a quite helpless expression upon his handsome face,
exclaiming, "This word 'crazy' that the Americans use so much--I am
crazy about this and crazy about that,--now what does that mean,
Madame?--_fou de ceci, fou de cela? Vraiment il me semble qu'ils sont
tous un peu fou!_"
It is needless to say that I quite agreed with M. La Tour, and after I
had given him the best explanation in my power, he laughed and said: "It
appears that what you call Quakers do not use this extreme language so
much. Miss Mott, for example, never uses such expressions." Yesterday,
when a party of our compatriots were drinking tea at a table near us, he
was again much puzzled. "These young people all say that they are
'passing away' on account of the heat of the sun, from fatigue, for
various reasons. Now what is it to pass away, is it not to die, to
vanish from the earth?"
The seriousness of his manner, as he gave us this literal and somewhat
poetical translation of the popular slang of the day, so amused Walter
that I had to send him off to make some inquiries about the route in
order to prevent an outburst of laughter which our French friend, who is
endowed with little sense of humor, could never have understood. Dear
Miss Cassandra, who enjoyed the humor of the situation quite as much as
any of us, but possesses the rare gift of laughing inwardly (the Friends
do so many things inwardly while presenting a serene face to the world),
exclaimed: "One of the foolish exaggerations of our modern speech! You
will probably notice that the young people who are always passing away
are usually uncommonly healthy and strong and blessed with vigorous
appetites. For my part, I consider it tempting Providence to be always
talking about passing away; but of course," her pride coming to the
fore, "the best people among us do not use such expressions."
HOTEL DE FRANCE, BLOIS, September 9th.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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