Page:The grand tour in the eighteenth century by Mead, William Edward.djvu/159

 and embrace like old friends, even though they have never heard of one another till that moment; whereas two Englishmen in the same situation, maintain a mutual reserve and diffidence, and keep without the sphere of each other's attraction, like two bodies endowed with a repulsive power."

Hazlitt remarks upon the icy reserve of an English gentleman with whom he traveled for a time in France, and adds: "I know few things more delightful than for two Englishmen to loll in a post-chaise in this manner, taking no notice of each other, preserving an obstinate silence, and determined to send their country to Coventry. We pretended not to recognise each other, and yet our saying nothing proved every instant that we were not French. At length, about half way, my companion opened his lips, and asked in thick, broken French, 'How far it was to Evreux?' I looked at him and said in English, 'I did not know.' Not another word passed." Naturally, tourists of this type baffled even the most determined attempts of foreigners to make their acquaintance.

In varying degrees this excessive reserve was the accepted national trait. Dr. Moore tells a very good story of Lord M. and a French marquis at Paris, who "was uncommonly lively." The genial Frenchman "addressed much of his conversation to his Lordship; tried him upon every subject, wine, women, horses, politics, and religion. He then sung Chansons à boire, and endeavoured in vain to get my Lord to join in the chorus. Nothing would do. — He admired his clothes, praised his dog, and said a thousand obliging things of the English nation. To no purpose; his Lordship kept up his silence and reserve to the last, and then drove away to the opera. 'Ma foi,' said the Marquis, as soon as he went out of the room, 'il a de grands talen(t)s pour le silence, ce Milord là.'"

The English attitude was, indeed, peculiarly exasperating. Dr. Moore cites another instance: "Though B understands French, and speaks it better than most Englishmen, he had no relish for the conversation, soon left