Page:French life in town and country (1917).djvu/45

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in France, but on consideration found it would make too large a volume. Here is exhibited the lasting charm of the French character. Had I said such a thing to an Englishman, imbued with a sense of his own correctness, he would have resented it as a foreign impertinence. My French host was charmed with a criticism which he understood to be meant good-naturedly, and added, "I have ever wondered at the reputation we give the English in France for excessive formality, for, personally,I have always found them to be a great deal more genial and easy than ourselves, and I readily recognise that we are much more formal." When you read French and English newspapers, and see these two great races, the greatest of the world, showing their teeth like angry dogs, you might believe both nations incapable of a just or generous word of each other. Well, I, who am neither French nor English, can testify to the magnanimous recognition of national virtues of both to each other. A feeling of rivalry, of jealousy, of bitterness, may exist on either side, but I know none who have expressed more cordial admiration of British qualities than the French, none who have returned the compliment to them so generously as the English. I still remember the words of a gallant French officer to me one evening after dinner: "It is an unfortunate misunderstanding, exploited by infamous