 | An image should appear at this position in the text. To use the entire page scan as a placeholder, edit this page and replace "{{missing image}}" with "{{raw image|French life in town and country (1917).djvu/209}}". Otherwise, if you are able to provide the image then please do so. For guidance, see Wikisource:Image guidelines and Help:Adding images. |  |
CHAPTER VII
HOME-LIFE IN FRANCE
There is no race on the face of the earth
whose home-life is so enviable as that of
the French. Both men and women bring the
best of their qualities to the making and maintaining
of this admirable domestic institution.
It is, perhaps, too perfect, too wadded, for any
people which may hold the theory that domestic
happiness is an inferior ideal. It explains to us
why the French are bad colonists, why initiative
and enterprise are less developed here
than in the regions of rougher interiors. The
atmosphere of a French home is the most delightful
I know. I cannot see why men and
women should be expected willingly to tear
themselves away from it in search of dubious
prosperity and happiness among barbarians.
After all, it seems to me that human happiness is
as high an ideal as any of us can justly lay claim
to; and if we want our own happiness we are
pretty certain to want that of others, for the few
who find their happiness in the misery of those
