San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-01-19
THE FRENCH cREoLES.
SEINE Of the recuIiarisies Of This Simple
Minded People

SEINE Of the recuiiarisies OF This Simple
Minded People.
The French creoles of the lower class are a
hand TO mouth class Of people, purchasing
Shs stick Of wood today and the handful of
herbs that are to cook and season their po-
Age, filing their small market baskets with
innumerable pinches Of this, that and the
other, laying In . few sous Of sugar and cof-
fee at q time, and-eoing next day, for S65
days in the year, and doing identically the
same thing, IN ssecula saeculorum. Dislike to
tho accumulation Of household goods, to well
stored cellars and pantries, to generous
abundance. TO picturesque profusion, to the
essentials Of large handed hospitality even
within the narrow limits of their neighbor-
hood acquaintance, an ant like economy and
abstemiousness, a curious juItaposition of
eternal self restraint and passion for sensa-
tions, colors, sounds, perfumes, fantastic sem
sualities, an instinct for microscopic money
getting welded to an instinct that has filed
New Orleans with noble institutions for the
poor, the blind, the sick, the world weary; q
passion for novels and for splendid churches, a
fond endurance Of rigors of cold and hunger
for the brilliant affiorescence of careme-
prenant ard Carnival, voluntary exile from
all laughter and Joy that their feet may
twinkle q night or two on the mirrored floors
of the mssque balls down in Charities and
Royal streets; such are the fragments Of
sweet and bitter herbs that go to make up
part of the paradox of creole character and
communicate to it an indefinable piquancy
and stranSenees by their thick bars of light
and shadow.
The chist charm of this character is a
touching gentleness and benignity that blends
all other characteristics and permeates the
whole constitution of the native creole. There
is something elegiac tender, dreamy abO1t
the race, a remnant or recollection Of earlier
and better days, an aroma of exile coming
from old colonial times when so many emf
grated from the gay fatherland to the track
less wilderness Of Louisiana, seeking their
fortunes. disappointment seems to have i'm
pressed itself as a trait of heredity on their
spiritual make up; a brooding languor has
Ipread from the luxurious climate through
he limbs and constitutions of the immi-
grants, the adventurous spirit of the mar
selous brothers Bienville, Ibervile and Sau-
vale, Laid under perpetual embargo by
Chinese wall Of swamp, bayou and bogue,
has sunk into a curious psychological numb
ness and content with surroundings; geOgra-
ply, exploration, literature, research, travel
beyond the inevitable transit to France once
in lifetime) are unknown luxuries to these
lotus eating folk, and in their way they are
as still in their sunny corner as the sun
loving alligator that haunts their streams.
The customs games and sports Of these
exiles are fun Of "reminiscences of the father
land, mingled with odd accretions and after
growths, a clinging conservatism, a poetic
susceptibility. There are songs and Christ
mas customs smacking OF Gascony, Provence,
Champagne, San Domingo, Franche-Comts,
such as linger in Canada and form touching
links with tbs folk over the sea.-Jamss A
Harrison in Autrefois.