Page:French life in town and country (1917).djvu/46

 journalists of both countries, between two races made to sympathise with and admire each other. English and French, we complete one another, and as friends would hold the world." And how true this is! There are faults on both sides, as there always are in a misunderstanding. The English are admirable, the French are lovable, and both have the defects of these qualities.

Even now, as I write these lines, feeling runs high in both countries, one against the other; higher and more aggressive in France, I admit, than in England, and yet I should fill a volume were I to attempt to repeat the splendid and noble things I have lately heard said of England in France, the proofs of regret for this lamentable and, I trust, fugitive state of affairs which I have received from various sources, beginning with cultured men of letters and science, then from Catholic women of the world, who see no reason to hate England because their newspapers tell them to do so; and lastly from workmen, women of the people, from my washerwoman, who once wisely said to me, "If we listen to the newspapers, French or English, we shall all become as stupid and degraded as the Boxers of China."

What one first remarks about the French peasantry is the clean and comfortable aspect they present: tidy blue blouses, sabots, strong shoes, neatly patched trousers, and their air of