What shall I say of the lively, entertaining, vivacious, polite people? They were another kind of human animal, altogether different from any that I had met. They are native to their own climate, light and airy. We were constantly reminded that we were in a land of epicures, among a people of good taste, for whom exquisite cooking was a necessity as well as a pleasure. I could well understand the remark of a Frenchman about England, as a country of a hundred religions and not one good soup. It may be heathenish in me, but I have always had a liking for good food, probably because there was such a fearful lack of it to me as a child. In the first part of our lives we are mostly growing animals, and think more of provender than we do of piety, or many other good things. I might have swallowed the Athanasian creed, and all like it at school, if only our grub had been a little more palatable. I recall Mr. Jasper’s remark that the boys in his father’s family were more obedient, and so more religious, because of the good Sunday dinners the mother gave them. I also remember that my villagers were very indifferent about the improvements I suggested, or to anything I told them, until they got enough to eat, and then I could have led them with a hair. But I am wandering again. I do not wonder that the sea-girt isle envies France the richness of her possessions and the prosperity and happiness of her people, yet I cannot understand why she should antagonize her and carp at everything she does, except it is in the nature of an Englishman to do so. He tries to speak French but fails egregiously. The attempt of a grumpy Englishman who speaks his own language as if he was afflicted with chronic catarrh trying to use that sprightly spirited tongue, is as grotesque as it would be to see an elephant trying a sword dance. Some one has said that if he spoke to God it would be in Spanish, to his mistress in Italian, to angels in French, to butchers in English and to hogs in German. I am not scholar enough to discuss this statement, yet I think he is correct in regard to French and English. Not only in their cookery, but in their homes, the French have fine taste. They are great admirers of the beautiful in art, and cultivate it in nature, even among the poor. As to their dress, especially of the women, even the servant girls, however cheap the material, had their clothing fitted with such grace that they might have stood as fashion models for the rest of the world. But as I am only an outside barbarian I may be mistaken. I can only tell of the way it appeared to me.