Page:French life in town and country (1917).djvu/86

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

these accidents may be, I always feel that they are a well-merited chastisement. Why must the poor, the obscure, the inoffensive clerk and shop-girl, go in fear and trembling of their lives, that the privileged few may add a fresh sensation to their list of entailed emotions? Is not the luxury of a horse good enough for those busy idlers, without adding heart disease to our inherited disorders?

Boxing and fencing are also favourite exercises, as well as polo and tennis amongst games. One of the more serious of diversions is the duel, the first of which must be fought in early youth, and the last when temperament and politics shall have said their final word. Then come the amusements of club life, which absorb a good deal of masculine leisure, of course, and where men meet to talk and be entertained, as well as to eat, and read the newspapers. The races and the horse-show are sources of pleasure at which every self-respecting Parisian drinks. Not to be connected with horses or exhibitions would be almost as bad as not to possess an automobile, not to be seen in the foyer on great theatrical nights, not to have fought a duel. But beyond even all these pleasures are the noisy suppers of the fashionable restaurant, where everybody who is anybody meets "tout Paris"; where the dresses of the women find rivalry in the decorations of the men, and the scene