Evening star., 1937-02-14
LINK WITH FRANCES PEOPLE
Madame Andre de Laboulaye Returns Her Native Land With
Admiration for Americans, and Appreciation of Com
Possessions of Two Nations

/ his hips" will in the end hold his own
better than the Frenchman, with his
limpid syllogisms.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing
about the French way of thinking is
the breadth OF its perspective. The
French are not specialists. Theirs are
subtle minds which grasp the com.
| plexity Of things and are not content
to bury themselves into one phase of
one subject. Intellectual curiosity is
constantly driving them into voyages
Of mental discovery. Indeed, it is rare
to find a French statesman, or even .
politician, who has not acquitted him.
self brilliantly in at least one or two
intellectual spheres. And any well
educated Frenchman has a broad
range Of interests into which he has
delved penetratingly.
Contrasted with the French com.
prehensive mentality. our American
| specialization may seem tawdry.
There are among us a few catholic
minds. but they are the exception. For
the most part. we are content to fool
ourselves that We know everything
about something, and to say platitudes
about everything else On the other
hand, for the thousands of barren re-
searchers, plying at their ant hills Of
facts with never an idea to light the
way, there have been few painstak-
ing American minds who have, by
superhuman labor. arrived at discover
les which the French, with their i'm
patience for details, could never have
attained.
IN CONTRAST with the French,
American thinking is very prag-
matte. We dislike thinking, and there
fore we think only when the solution
Of practical problems requires US.
And so our inventiveness has been
turned into useful channels. We
should be thankful for this, as we live
not in an age Of metaphysicians but
of very pressing material problems.
The contrast between French and
Americans is nowhere clearer than in
their conception of life. The good life,
for a Frenchman, is a very modest
affair. All he wants is peace; enough
money to maintain little home. books
and, above all, leisure-freedom to do
as he pleases. which means to think as
he pleases. And so we witness in
France the, to us, strange phenom-
enon Of strong men retiring in their
40's and turning to pleasurable pur-
suits in their country seat. It Is not
strange to the French. For, to them,
living is an art; work is only a means
to the achievement Of full life. And
the full life Is not something to be
sought outside themselves. but within
their own family, and within their
own fertile minds.
In almost every respect the Amer
ican conception is the antithesis of
the French. We are energetic, rest
less. Life. for us, Is not contemplating
but doing. We consider leisure not a
boon to be sought, but q void to be
filled with q thousand activities. We
are afraid to be alone with ourselves.
Freedom to think? Think about what?
And since we do not know what to do
with ourselves, we look about for enter
tainment. The spiritual f-suf1iciency
of the French may well be incompre-
hensible to US.
WE AMERICANS want to do things
w with every fiber of our beings.
To us moderation is the counsel Of de-
crepitude. Whatever we do, we must
do by frontal attack. battering toward
the goal. Not only that. We want to
do things on a grand scale. Things
increase in value for us in proportion
to their mass. Little France, with her
circumscribed territory and modest de-
sires. with her love of the perfect form
rather than of the colossal, how un-
like our gigantism. which finds express
sion in mammoth ball fields, 100-piece
orchestras, the amassing Of astrononli-
cal fortunes, etc.
1t is useless to pit one way Of life
against the other, or to Judge one right
and the other wrong. They are diff
ferent, not irreconcilable.
But all Is not contrast between
Americans and Frenchmen. Beneath
differences there are profund like.
nesses which bind us closely. Ameri-
cans. no less than Frenchmen, are
thoroughgoing irdividualists. We are
at one in our hatred of any one or any.
thing which impinges on the free exer.
else Of our potentialities. The French-
man wants to be free to think and
live. The American demands to be
free to do as he pleases. Coercion Is
no more abhorrent to the American
than to the French.
The belief in equality Of opportunity
Is another point Of contact between the
two peoples. There are no other ma
tions with so great fiuidity between
classes, and in which the humblest can
achieve success. This Is the essence
Of true democracy. And, though these
two great democracies have developed
differently, they are, at bottom. striv.
ing for the same ends: Freedom Of the
individual and equality of opportunity
for the whole people. No one under.
stood this better than the Francophile
Jefferson.
GRANTED an understanding on
these basic ideas, do. not other
differences pale? Contrasts no longer
appear as causes of discord. There is
nothing fundamentally antagonistic
between the French and American
The contrasts between
them are complementary. For the
French excel where the Americans
are weak, and vice versa. The French
are q nation of keen thinkerx the