ters on Morality, Intelligence, Sense and Sentiment, Manners, Women, The Art Instinct, The Provincial Spirit, and Democracy. One sees the cathedrals as the "grandiose links in the chain which unites the Revolution to the twelfth-century communal movement for equality." One follows the path that leads from Notre Dame de Paris to the Nouvel Opéra. One perceives the essential continuity of national effort from the Merovingian epoch to "the gayety, the bonhomie, the bright graciousness of a Parisian or provincial crowd." The book is consummately composed. One knows from point to point where one is and whither one is going. Perfect lucidity and firmness of design are united with great richness of detail; for the detail is always subordinated to the total intended effect.
If Mr. Brownell had limited his purpose strictly to displaying the relation between the traditional "instinct" of the French people and their characteristic qualities and defects, he would still have given us the most valuable American book about France that I know anything about—the book, that is which tells us most of that which is best worth knowing. But French Traits is also an "essay in comparative criticism." There are illuminating side flashes upon France from Germany, England, Italy, and Spain, but the national traits which are steadily present in Mr. Brownell's mind for comparison are the American traits. The parallel thesis which he develops by implication is, that America embodies
