The herald., 1896-12-27

stances has in France kept the same
families century after century within
sight Of the same church tower, stand
ing against the blue or grey sky above
the 1lchen-stained tiles and old garden
trees, but the sentiment of home? How
often do we find in England families of
the small agricultural or trading class
who have been sheltered by the same
paternal roof tree for 200 or 300 years?
Cases of this kind abound in the viii
lagos of France If they were less home
loving. the French would make better
colonists.
Conjugal life in France has been SUBJ
jected to much severe criticism, but the
harahest judges are invariably those
who are armed to the teeth with pre-
judices and secondhand information,
but are able to bring very little knowl-
edge derived from personal observation
to bear on the subject. 1t is not to be
denied that throughout the great middle
class, including, as 1t does, much that
Is patrician at one extremity and much
that Is plebeian at the other, there is a
strong tendency to allow perfectly ma
terial considerations to set aside those
of sentiment in match making. The
spirit of barter enters into the marriage
transaction to an extent that clashes
violently with the Anglo Saxon ideal of
the courtship that should always pre-
cede wedlock. But the magnitude of this
undoubtedly Is exaggerated in the
English mind. 1t is rarely that French
parents put undue pressure on their
children in the matter of marriage.
custom, moreover, permits some dis
Greet courtship-measuredo out, it is true,
In homeopathic doses. Admitting, how
ever, that dangerously wide margin is
left to chance and luck in the French
system of entering upon the matrimonial
state. we should expect to find unhappy
marriages much more frequent In France
than in England, where custom con-
cedes such full measure of liberty to
lovers. My own experience of France
has led me to the opinion-against the
wish to think otherwise-that happiness,
tased on the practice of the domestic
virtues. is quite as largely distributed
there as it is in England.
There Is an aspect of French family
life that should arouse in all impartial
observers ungrudging admiration. 1t
is one In respect Of which the inferiority
of the English people is unfortunately
but too manifest. l refer to the feeling
of kinship that usually binds all men,
bers Of a family together in France. in
cluding relatives so distant that in Eng
land the relationship would hardly be re-
membered, unless there was peculiar
reasons for doing SO. The French do
not allow their kin6aed to pass out of
sight; they look upon the bond of blood
even when it is not very close, as some
thing which 1t would be shameful to
ignore and despise, except in the case of
those who, by their misconduct, have
dishonored the family. Brothers help
brothers and cousins help cousins, and
to thi sadmirable manner of under
standing and accepting the duties and
obligations Of relationship may be at
tributed much of the general we'll being
which can hardly escape the notice of
anyone who travels thoughtfully in
France, especially If he be fs~a, h from a
country where the contrast Of wealth
and poverty, of abundance and want, is
more sharpely defined. 1t is very GU
rious to note how members of French
family will bring their advice and in
f1uence to bear upon an erring member
of the family They will not leave him
to get himself hanged with that selfish
Indifference to the fate of their kindred
who are less unfortunate and presum-
ably less virtuous than themselves,
which is to be observed SO frequently
among English people.
There is nothing more beautiful or
more edifying in social customs than one
OF those great family gatherings such
as so often occur in France on the oc-
casion of a golden wedding or some 9TH
er domestic festival and at which not
only descendants and ascendants-if
any are living-but uncles and aunts,
nephews and nieces and cousins of va
rious degrees Of consanguinity, meet
around the same board. In a country
where the obligations of the family tie
are so sincerely felt the people cannot
with justice be described as deficient in
those domestic virtues which are to the
social edif1ce what the piers andthe spire
are to the Gothic cathedral--the essen
tial support and the crowning grace
Leisure Hour.