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CHAPTER III

SOCIAL DIVERSIONS AND DISTINCTIONS

With a race that has so thoroughly mastered the art of living, and not merely working or vegetating, the question of diversion is of paramount interest. In the fashionable world, sport monopolises the better part of man's hours. This is an overseas passion, adopted with frenzy and fervour. M. Rémy de Saint Maurice has given us the odyssey of the record cyclist in an amusing and humorous book, Le Recordman, where we see the wealthy idlers of France in awed adoration before the prowess of the racing-wheel. The champion cyclist raises storms of emotion wherever he runs, be it in Paris or in the provinces. When he returns to his native town, all the authorities come to meet him and do him honour.

The French race is essentially a conversational and not a sporting one. It has a natural predilection for the amenities of life, and we feel how inappropriate is this present craze for rude and unsocial games. You need only watch a French