English Pharisees and French Crocodiles Part 9

If you do something new, you make enemies of all the red tapeists; if you do something intelligent, you make enemies of all the fools; if you are successful, you make enemies of all the army of failures, the misunderstood, the crabbed, and the jealous; but these little outbursts of hatred, one as diverting as the other, are really so many testimonials in your favor.

If you send in your application for some vacant post, and you succeed in obtaining it, you may be sure that there will be but one candidate who will consider that the election was made according to merit; yourself.

The rest will cry out in chorus that your luck is something wonderful.

Luck! What a drudge this poor word is made of! The privations you have imposed upon yourself, and the long nights that you have devoted to work, are _luck_. _Luck_, as a great English moralist puts it, means rising at six in the morning; _luck_ means spending tenpence when you earn a shilling; _luck_ means minding your own business and not meddling with other people's.

The Englishman knows that it falls to everyone's lot to be criticised, and he makes up his mind to endure it. He even has a certain admiration for those who criticise and rally him, if the operation is performed with a little dexterity. Violent criticism is the only kind he has a contempt for. "The fellow loses his temper," says he; "he is a fool, who proves that his cause is a bad one;" and he goes on his way unconcerned.

So, while, in Paris, a Republican and a Bonapartist, who meet on the Boulevards, will look daggers at each other; a Liberal and a Conservative, who meet in Pall Mall, will shake hands and go and dine together amicably. They both know that it is all humbug. After dinner, they repair to the House of Commons; one takes his seat on the left, the other on the right of the Speaker, who ought rather to be called the _Spoken to_, since everyone addresses his remarks to him, but he very rarely opens his lips.

Never any insults in this Parliament. You will never hear any such phrase as "the honorable member has lied," but rather, "the honorable member has just made a remark which is scarcely in accordance with strict truth." These euphemisms are the soul of the English language, the outcome of the cool British temperament. Violent language has not the least power to move an Englishman to wrath--it rather excites his pity. In an English club, two members who had called each other "liars,"

would find their names promptly struck off the roll, and there would be an end of the matter. In France they would fight a duel.

The following anecdote shows how ready the English are to acknowledge their little _failings_.

I was speaking of the English spirit of colonization one day at a lecture, and in the course of my remarks on the subject, I took the liberty of saying, not without a slight touch of satire:

"When John Bull makes colonies, it is for the good of the natives."

"For their goods!" cried a jolly Briton from the gallery.

He evidently thought me too indulgent. By the manner in which my interrupter was applauded, I judged that he had properly seized and expressed the general feeling of the audience.

It is in adversity that the Englishman is to be admired. If he is defeated, he puts a good face upon it; he accepts his defeat, and makes the best of it. "I have proved that I can fight," he says; "why should I fight a hopeless battle?" If the door must give way to the burglars, he does not wait for them to break it open, he opens it himself; if he cannot save his furniture, he saves his door; it is so much gained.

It is thanks to this practical philosophy that, on the day after an election, you see all the newspapers express their satisfaction at the result. The winning side has always gained a more brilliant, more decisive, victory than ever, in spite of the enormous difficulties that had to be overcome. The losing side invariably gains a moral victory, and this is proved by _a + b_.

When, after the defeat at Majuba Hill, England abandoned the conquest of the Transvaal, a feat which would have been mere child's play to her, but which would probably have aroused some indignation in Europe, Mr.

Gladstone announced that, after all, the Boers were only fighting for their independence, and it was not seemly for generous England to annex by force a country that wished to be free, and had given such proof of valor.

A little masterpiece in its way, this speech!

What a strange, ungrateful animal is man! What respect he has for his conquerors! What contempt for those he can conquer! When he speaks of the lion that devours him, or the eagle that tears his flesh, he is ready to take off his hat to them; when he speaks of the donkey that renders him great service, or of the goose that furnishes him a good dinner, a pen to write with, and a bed to lie on, he cannot sufficiently express his contempt.

Do you remember, dear American friends, how, some four years ago, a certain Lord Sackville, British minister in Washington, was given twenty-four hours to leave the country? Never had John Bull been administered a better kick before. Did he go to war with America? Oh, no. The prime minister of England declared that you could not expect "gentlemanly manners from American politicians," and John Bull was satisfied, and he set about bullying little Portugal about some South African bit of territory.

When the Englishman meets with his superior, he is ready to admit it. If he be jealous of him, he will not expose himself to ridicule by showing it. He does not shun the prosperous man, he cultivates his acquaintance.

He is not necessarily a schemer for that; where there is no meanness there is no scheming. He acknowledges all the aristocracies; the aristocracy of birth, the aristocracy of money, and the aristocracy of talent; and I only blame him for one thing, which is that he has much less admiration for the third of these than for the other two. At a public dinner, in England, you may see in the places of honor, on either side of the chairman, one or two lordlings, then the wealthy guests ...

then, but much farther down, the literary men, artists, and other small fry.

We French people have not the b.u.mp of veneration very much developed, it is true; but we have an admiration, approaching veneration, for talent and science, and the same Frenchman who takes no notice of a duke, will turn to get a second look at a great literary man or a savant. The commonplace Englishman, who humbles himself before a village squire, or a big banker, takes his revenge when he meets the schoolmaster who, in France, would be a _professeur_, but who, in England, were he a double first of Oxford, an ex-scholar of Balliol College, goes through life by the name of _schoolmaster_; rinse your mouth quickly.

In England, social disparity excites no jealousy. On the contrary, the n.o.ble and the wealthy are popular.

In France, we have given up admitting superiority since our walls have been ornamented with the announcement that _all_ Frenchmen are brethren, free men, and equals. This rage for equality degenerates into jealousy of all superiority. In fact, the French are all equal to their superiors, and most of them superior to their equals. As soon as superiority clearly manifests itself, in political life, in literature, in the fine arts, anywhere, it is ostracized.

I was talking one day with a Frenchman, who still ma.s.sacres the English language, although he has lived in this country more than twenty years.

In the course of conversation I named a compatriot of ours. "Now, _there_ is a man," said I, "who speaks English admirably."

"Admirably?" cried he, "well, yes, he does ... like the rest of us."

This is a truly French retort.

Jealousy is the commonest and most characteristic failing of the French.

With us, jealousy is not only the stamp of mediocrity, as it is everywhere else; it is a malady that our greatest men have been tainted with. The acrimonious and contemptible polemic that Bossuet and Fenelon engaged in, the implacable hatred of Voltaire toward Rousseau, are but two instances of it; the history of French literature abounds with others. Our Parisian newspapers are daily filled with polemics and personalities.

In England, everyone minds his own business, and does not trouble himself about what his neighbor says or does.

May I be allowed to make another comparison here?

If the Englishman is less jealous than the Frenchman of the success of his fellow-creature, it is because he often does not attribute it to the same causes.

The Englishman maintains, rightly or wrongly, that a man owes his successes far more to his character than to his talent. If I am not mistaken, it was Thomas Carlyle who laid down this rule of British philosophy.

This philosophical proposition is very comforting to the misunderstood; to hint to a man that he is less talented than another, is to vex him; on the contrary, to tell him that he has less shrewdness, is almost to pay him a compliment.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE FRENCH Sn.o.b.

It would be imprudent, not to say impudent, to attack the subject of English sn.o.bs. There are themes which seem marked "Dangerous ground." If the French want to know all about English sn.o.bs, they must turn to Thackeray, who has completely exhausted the subject.

The sn.o.b is the man who is utterly dest.i.tute of n.o.bility. I should like to explain the word etymologically thus: _Sn.o.b_ from _S. n.o.b_. (_Sine n.o.bilitate_).

The sn.o.b is the man who is ashamed of his origin, and wishes to occupy a better place in society than he is ent.i.tled to; who hires a couple of flunkeys by the evening, to make folks believe he keeps a grand establishment; or who lowers his blinds from the middle of July to the middle of September, to make it appear that he is out of town, _en villegiature_, at the seaside, or at his place in the country.