Marvelous! Shall we bring back the style? John On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 9:16 AM, David Ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>wrote: > Into this quiet moment allow me to inject excerpts from a recent find, a > book once owned by A.E. Scott of Rugby School. "Once" in this instance > refers to purchase in 1860. The title is "History of France," the author, > Rev James White. > > We come in on a moment when White has described France's rise from > barbarism, "If we do not go quite so far as to grant [the French] the > position they arrogate, and agree with their own historians, that they are > at the head of modern civilisation in all its branches, we shall not be > blind or disingenuous enough to deny that, in all the departments of > intellectual exertion, they hold a foremost place..." > > The Rev. is generous, you say. Maybe not, "...if they have no Newton, no > Locke, nor Shakespeare, they have many philosophers and many poets..." > > He continues, "Some years ago it would have been an unexampled stretch of > liberality to have confessed that France had any good qualities at all. We > were in the habit of wrapping ourselves up very comfortably in the folds of > our own conceit, and looking down on the rest of mankind as a very inferior > race of mortals. We took the additional precaution of maintaining our own > superiority by calling our neighbours by the most insulting names. We > pictured them as the most ludicrous imitations of humanity, as if one of > Nature's journeymen had made the Frenchman, and not made him well. He was > a lean, half-starved, lanky-legged creature, looking in hopeless despair, > with watery mouth and bleared eyes, at a round of English beef." > > Or, one might add if knows one's Burns, "at a haggis." > > "His attitudes were grotesque, his language even became immensely amusing, > because he did not speak our tongue with the slang of a hackney-coachman > and the pronunciation of a Cockney. We called him Jack Frog, because we > believed he fed on those unsubstantial animals, which we also fancied the > exact image of himself in hoppiness of motion and yellowness of skin. His > cowardice was unvarying. One Englishman was always equal to half-a-dozen > of the 'mounseers;' and, in short, we were a most unjust, narrow-minded, > pudding-headed set of self-glorifiers, adding to the isolation that belongs > to the whole nation in right of its four seas the more separating > insularity of our own individual opinions. We were islands altogether, > nowhere connected with the rest of mankind. Our country was an island, we > despised the rest of Europe; our county was an island, we despised the > other shires..." > > (Apparently county is a Norman French term, shire an Anglo-Saxon one.) > > "...our parish was an island, with peculiar habits, modes and > institutions; our households were islands; and, to complete the whole, each > stubborn, broad-shouldered, strong-backed Englishman was an island himself, > surrounded by a misty and tumultuous sea of prejudices and hatreds, > generally unapproachable, and at times utterly repudiative of a permanent > bridge. We are better now." > > How is that? (I'll skip and snip.) > > "We can believe...that a Dutchman does not wear seven pairs of trousers; > that an Italian sometimes succeeds in *not* murdering his mother; and that, > granted the same conditions, the conduct of a Swede, of an Austrian, of a > Prussian, and even of a Muscovite, would be very much the same. It is > lucky that this change of opinion and widening of our sympathies has taken > place..." > > Why? > > "...if all our inquiries in these historic sketches were to end in the > production of the cringing, grinning, trembling mountebank and imposter it > was anciently the fashion to consider the Frenchman, the labour would be > greatly misapplied." > > What a way to begin a book! > > David Ritchie, > not in France. > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, > digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html > -- John McCreery The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN Tel. +81-45-314-9324 jlm@xxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.wordworks.jp/