upon the theme; and so it is very likely that the fellow is more of a brute than he seems to be in casual intercourse, without, however, sinking to the loathsome depths of the realism of La Terre. I, when I recall him to mind, own that I ever see him a dignified, well-mannered figure in blue blouse, generally clean, sometimes incredibly patched by his thrifty wife, frugal, sober, hard-worked, not too garrulous, and yet not resentful of easy speech, nor suspicious of the stranger who accosts him with courtesy. I find him in all things, as he presents himself to the eye and offers himself for observation, the superior of his British brother Hodge, neither so gross nor so unintelligent, with a look in his eye much resembling humour. He has his demands upon life, too, which are not those of the clownish brute, the inarticulate rustic. Not for nothing was the Revolution made, since by it has he learnt that he has his own share in the joys of civilisation, and that if he work hard enough his sons may aspire to such a measure of education as a harsher lot denied him. When business brings him into a little town or a great city, his eye alights on beautiful objects, placed there as much for him as for the owners of seigneurial dwellings. Flowers, trim parks, legends in stone, splendid cathedrals, every gracious blending of line and colour, combine to train his eye in beauty and refine his nature. He need thread
