English Pharisees and French Crocodiles Part 1

English Pharisees and French Crocodiles.

by Max O'Rell.

TO JONATHAN.

You have been kind enough to receive favorably two volumes of unpretentious impressions of your great and most hospitable country, published in 1889 and 1891.

You are a dear friend and a delightful fellow. You are on the road that will safely lead you to the discovery of everything that can insure the prosperity of the land of which you are so justly proud.

Yet the Old World can teach you something; not how to work, but how to live.

I have drawn a few sketches for you. Perhaps they will show you that people can be happy without rolling in wealth, or living in a furnace.

Take up this little book and, lighting a cigar, lie down quietly on the gra.s.s and read it under the shade of a tree.

ENGLISH PHARISEES AND FRENCH CROCODILES.

CHAPTER I.

FOREIGNERS.

People very often speak ill of their neighbors, not out of wickedness, but merely out of laziness; it is so much easier to do so than to study their qualities and all the circ.u.mstances that might oblige you to change your opinion.

For instance, some fifty years ago, a great English wit, Sydney Smith, said that it required a surgical operation to make a Scotchman understand a joke.

Well, an English joke, he probably meant.

However, the satire was neatly expressed. When the English get hold of a good joke, and see it, it lasts them a long time.

The Scotch are a hundred times more witty and humorous than the English; but John Bull still goes on affirming that "it requires a surgical operation to make a Scotchman understand a joke."

If such misunderstanding can exist between the English and the Scotch, just imagine what feelings the natives of a land can inspire in foreigners.

Oh! that word _foreigner_!

In some ears it sounds like b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. In some people's minds, it is the synonym of bad. The English greengrocer, for instance, divides his asparagus into large and small heads. The fine large ones he binds together and sells at high prices under the name of English asparagus.

The bundles of threads at one s.h.i.+lling figure in his shop window as _foreign_.

In England, the adjective _English_ is synonymous with _excellent_. In France, we have an adjective that signifies _excellent_, too, and that is the adjective _French_. Do but make an observation to a French shopkeeper upon the price of his goods, and he will promptly answer: "I keep a cheaper article, but it is naturally of greatly inferior quality.

Would _Monsieur_ like to see my English stock?" In French commerce, _English_ is synonymous with _worthless_.

Now, what is a foreigner?

No man was born a foreigner.

Once an American said to me, on board a steamer, sailing from Liverpool to New York: "You are a foreigner, I guess."

"Well," I replied, "not yet. I shall be, when I get to your country."

What is a foreigner?

As a rule, a foreigner is a good fellow, brought up by worthy parents, and belonging to a country quite as good as yours.

Nations may be well or badly governed. They may possess hot or cold climates, indifferent or beautiful scenery. The manners and customs of their inhabitants may be utterly different. But the most stupid statement that can possibly be made is that some nations are better or worse than others.

We French people ought not to be a closed letter to the foreigner, for Heaven knows we make no attempt to hide our defects, and I might even add that if we did study to hide them, instead of boasting of them, we might cut quite as good and moral a figure as the most proper inhabitant of the British Isles or of the State of Maine.

We offer ourselves to criticism so unreservedly, owning our shortcomings with such frankness, such _abandon_, that it ill becomes our neighbors to find fault with us. Indeed, we are a nation that confesses with a gay candor that should disarm unkind criticism.

Yes, the foreigner ought to be able to read, as in an open book, that good, warm-hearted, France that he hardly looks at. For him, France is Paris; Paris that supplies him with pleasures for a fortnight, and that he despises when he is satiated. The real France, peaceful and laborious, he knows nothing about beyond what he has seen of it from the windows of a railroad car.

On arriving at home again, he writes to his friends:

"I have just returned from France. What a country it is! Ah! I have seen pretty sights, I can a.s.sure you! I will tell you all about it in private, when we meet. All I can say now is, that I thank G.o.d that I was born an Englishman."

Here is a good fellow who has undoubtedly visited the wrong places.

The Frenchman is no better. He comes to London for a week on business.

(I say "on business," because n.o.body would think of coming to London on pleasure), and profits by his visit to go and see Madame Tussaud's Exhibition. Then he returns home, and exclaims, parodying Victor Hugo's celebrated lines: "How proud a man is to call himself a Frenchman when he has looked at England."

He has looked at England, it is true, but he has not seen it.

To _look_ is an action of the body. To _see_ is an action of the mind.

When people travel in foreign lands, they often make two kinds of mistakes.

Firstly, they are liable to visit the wrong places, like the Englishman who returned home "thanking G.o.d he was born an Englishman."