Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1915-01-20

(By William Hard in Ev~erybody's)
j proceed now to the French, who are, L
understand, 'excitable" and volatile L
suppose they are. They nave taught their
hands and struggling of shoulders and
flashing of eyes. l admit that. But what
are the lessons they have taught? Les
sons. distinctively. of common sense. of
taste. of reason.
I'm what fields of art, for instance, has
French influence been strongest" In pre-
cisely those I'm which d feeling for proper
zion, for form, for restraint, is most nee
essary. In architecture. for instance, and
In painting and in statuary and in prose
style.
The French taught prose style to the
English. Before the great French infiu-
ence on english literature in the days of
Louis IN the English did indeed often
write and speak prose: but English prose
style, In its modern character. did not en-
list. So we'll. indeed, did France teach
English prose writer's to write prose that
it even taught English poets to do so: and
in the verse of Dryden and of Pope you
may see French influence at its prosiest.
1T is absolutely not AN influence to excite
the EngliShman or the German but rather
to steady him. In the two most genuinely
emotional of the arts the IFrenchman has
been overwhelmed by his rivals-in poetry
~ XIV OiiS i iIiCS PIV y
man and in music by the stolid. ineNpress-
I've German. The mental empire of France
has been in those things that are most
capable OF exact mental measurement.
Franco Homo Of Real Culture"
And this is the reason why France, after
all. is the center. the collector and con-
veyoi. OF the worlds whole culture.
uniquely. 1t is not only supremacy inhn-
entail today In many of the arts, but it
mas achieved IA mental mastery OF all of
them; and IL all European nations had to
perish except one. and that one We're to
be chosen for being best fitted to continue
civilization as a whole, why. that one
would be France.
France assemblies all culture and lives
it. Read the novels of Anatole France.
He is not the greatest novelist that ever
lived. But in the works of what English
or German or Russian novelist will YOU
find so full a transmission to future times
of all the culture thai the world has lived
SO far?
Rightly, Therefore. did Henri de Bornier
boast: EVERY mar has two countries
his own and France!'
But how does this intellectuality, this
r~easonableness show in the greatest
event i'm the history of France, it's great
est external contribution to Europe and
TO America-the F"ench revolution?
TWO tnlnRS nave oDScured the real IN
tluence of he French revolution. The
gllillotine and Napoleon.
But look at the results.
On October 8. 1866. the king of Prussia
decreed: From Martinmas. 1910. ceases
NIL serfdom in our entire estates. There
shall be only free lersons."
NAPOLEON Messenger Boy of Equality.
Why? Prussia had been trodden under
foot by France. France under Napoleon.
lust as under the republic which came
before him, had what the old French mon
archy did nor haze. and what Prussia
.hen did not have-a free peasantry. Gre
tted by the revolution. cultivating their
avn lands robustly and cheerfully and
or~osperously. 1t was a lesson of the SIM
,lest and most reasonable common sense,
ike all of the main lessons of the revo-
Mtion Napoleon was it's messenger boy.
The queen of Prussia described his