these quaint and lovely streets with no slouching step, for he, and such as he, are too conscious of their stable efforts in the general work of order and national prosperity. He need touch his forelock to no great lord for permission to breathe the free air of heaven, for does not he, too, possess his bit of land, his little dwelling, from which none can oust him? And, on feast-days and Sundays, are there not always public museums at hand for his instruction and entertainment? No country in the world takes such care to provide museums for the people throughout all the provinces as France. Every year the State purchases pictures at the annual exhibitions of Paris to add to these provincial collections; and in every little town you pass through you are personally urged by some native to visit the Musée. This fact may have something to do with the astonishing intellectual superiority of the French peasant over Hodge beyond the Channel. For the fact remains that you can talk to the blue-bloused son of the soil and hope to learn something from him, when the absence of loquacity and ideas and manners in Hodge will leave you discouraged and in despair. The French peasant loves so many things that educate and refine—flowers and pictures and military bands, spectacles of all kinds, and independence.
His standard is by no means an exalted one.
