France -- Description and travel; France -- Social life and customs
I ran up to the landing, shook him by the hand, which he stood holding
out to me cordially, and expressed my sense of the honour he was
conferring. He told me, in substance, that the Princesse ---- had been
as good as her word, and having succeeded herself in getting hold of
him, she had good-naturedly given him my address. By way of cutting
short all ceremony, he had driven from his hotel to my lodgings. All
this time he was speaking French, while my answers and remarks were in
English. Suddenly recollecting himself, he said--"Well, here have I been
_parlez-vousing_ to you, in a way to surprise you, no doubt; but these
Frenchmen have got my tongue so set to their lingo, that I have half
forgotten my own language." As we proceeded up the next flight of steps,
he accepted my arm, and continued the conversation in English, walking
with more difficulty than I had expected to see. You will excuse the
vanity of my repeating the next observation he made, which I do in the
hope that some of our own exquisites in literature may learn in what
manner a man of true sentiment and sound feeling regards a trait that
they have seen fit to stigmatize unbecoming, "I'll tell you what I most
like," he added, abruptly; "and it is the manner in which you maintain
the ascendency of your own country on all proper occasions, without
descending to vulgar abuse of ours. You are obliged to bring the two
nations in collision, and I respect your liberal hostility." This will
probably be esteemed treason in our own self-constituted mentors of the
press, one of whom, I observe, has quite lately had to apologize to his
readers for exposing some of the sins of the English writers in
reference to ourselves! But these people are not worth our attention,
for they have neither the independence which belongs to masculine
reason, nor manhood even to prize the quality in others. "I am afraid
the mother has not always treated the daughter well," he continued,
"feeling a little jealous of her growth, perhaps; for, though we hope
England has not yet begun to descend on the evil side, we have a
presentiment that she has got to the top of the ladder."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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