- vinces. They dress shabbily, will even wear
cotton gloves and badly cut boots when they consider themselves extremely exclusive, and carry off these defects of costume with a singular and unmistakable air of distinction. The commoner kind prefer to shine in fashions and colours unfamiliar to the eye of Paris; and, as a rule, look clumsy and obtrusive in their fine feathers. The same applies to the men. These, when they prefer to be shabby and roughly arrayed, look far better than the pretentious gallants who, by means of obvious tailoring, offer destruction to the susceptible dames around them. There can be no doubt that an elegant male costume is out of place and a vulgar blot along a sleepy little street where men in blouses pass and bonneted girls and women wheel barrows before them.
The farmer's life has undoubtedly a larger share of natural interests than that of the hobereau. It is more purely animal, without any attachments to a world unconnected with the land. Ask a farmer what he thinks of politics, and he will tell you that he has nothing on earth to do with idiots or tricksters. He who must warily watch the humours of the seasons cannot trouble himself with the humours of electors and the ravings of voluble deputies. He walks his dew-washed meadows at dawn in wide-leafed felt; and, as he surveys the produce of his labour, his long
