The Olneyville times. (Olneyville [Providence, R.I.]) 1887-1917, 1907-11-29
THE FRENCH ANo THE ENGLISH.
Studies and EpIerams by a French
Woman, "Pierre de Coulevain."


The Frenchman, He appears to me
OF medium height. nervous and deli.
cately made: never as ugly as an An
glo-Saxon. never as beautiful either.
The upper part of the face. the fore
head and eyes, is full of intellectual
force and expression. The nose, chin
and mouth are weak and betray SEN
suality. Nobody wore bet
ter the costume of other days than
the Frenchman, no one wears the
modern costume worse. His tempera-
ment is in visible rebellion TO these
hard lines; il is all he can do 10 keep
them in shape. His prediction for
open collars, floating ties, soft shirt
fronts, are proofs of the hereditary
memory, "reminiscences of the brilliant
plumage of long ago. ! at
tribute TO the Latin element his femin-
Inc essence. his intuition, his need OF
artistic perfection, his fine sensuality.
also his frequent enthusiasms, his
want of practical sense, or organiza-
tion and Of discipline To the Celtic
element his passionate violence, his
idealism, his obscure dreams. his turn
of wit-at once brilliant and gross. To
the Gallic element his power of fore
sight, his fear of the morrow, his
lightning flashes of wisdom, his ten
acity, that undercurrent of egOtism
and avarice which paralyzes his first
fine impulses, for his first impulse is
fine
When these forces are about equal
ly balanced he is, as an Englishman
said to me, the right thing"--rerfec-
tion. That is why we see him athirst
for justice and unjust, in love with
liberty and incapable of understand
in git, great and trivial, maker and
destroyer OF idols. That IS Why We
find his thought upon all the SUBMITS
and in all the mud pools. Alter the
Slav soul there is no soul mere shad-
ed, more elaborated. With
him IT is always the hour he wants,
and not the hour it is. He is vast
er of minutes. Like a child ne rlays
on the road. then runs in order 10
catch up the time lost. and h9 catches
ii up. The prosperity of his country
proves it. A marvellous intuition aids
him in his task. No one possesses
more .frative science. 1t is thanks to
this gift that in spite of his school
boy escapades. he arrives an easy
first in art, in science, and in GER
tain industries.
The Englshman is human electric
and never missing the receptor. The,
Frenchman is free electricity. His.
sparks and waves pour to the right
and to the left, and do not all arrive
at the poa0t they should touch. What
matter? They are not lost for life.
To the majority of the French the
English woman is a woman with yell
low or red hair, freckles, protrudinS
teeth and big feet, woman who
scales mountains and reads the Bible.
To the majority of the English the
French woman is a graceful, frivolous
and perverse woman, who decelveS
her husband That is how, IN the be-
ginning of the twentieth century,
women who stand on the top of the
psychological ladder are still judged.
it is shameful and irritating.
French gayety shines of itself;
English gayety is like a match which
requires friction in order to take fire,
The English crowd has got fists, the
French crowd has got c,tws; and you
feel that these claws will appear upon.
the smallest provocatiOn.
The morality of the Anglio-SaXon
race is austerer, purer than the moral
ity of the Latin race, but its immoral
ity is infinitely worse. This explains
itself by the very strength of its racial
character, by the power of its in
stincts. whether good or bad. In
French immortality there is more form
than substance, in English immortality
more substance than form.
You feel and love London with your
mind; you feel and love Paris with
your temperament and your soul.
The Anglo-SaXon seems to me to,
stand nearer to God, the Latin nearer
TO the gods.
England is the only country in
which it is good to be queen or
horse.-From the Nineteenth Century.