No race has shown more collective magnanimity on great occasions, more pettiness and hardness in small dealings between individuaIs.
we have so many corresponding windows, supernumerary doors, "and passages that lead to nothing," that all our English ingenuity in comfortable arrangement is baffled
we may perhaps learn, from the example of France, not to venerate principles which we do not admire in practice
an instance of the pedantry I have often remarked as so peculiar to the French
the spirit of legal disputation, for which the French are so remarkable
.. taking their habits of frugality, their disposition to be satisfied, and their climate into the account, the situation of the French perhaps was preferable
the most important and irretrievable mischief of the revolution is, doubtless, the corruption of manners introduced among the middle and lower classes of the people
hough a Frenchman may suppose the merit of his countrymen to be collectively superior to that of the whole world, he seldom allows any individual of them to have so large a portion as himself
I leave understanding the pedantry of a French newspaper out of the question
I have frequently observed how little taste the French have for the country
The people here all dance much better than those of the same rank in England
The French are volatile and material; they are not very capable of attachment to principles.
The French are in general but indifferent equestrians
in their public offices, their shops, and in any transaction of business, no people on earth can be more tedious--they are slow, irregular, and loquacious
Almost every woman, however numerous her family, has a nursery of birds, an angola, and two or three lap-dogs, who share her cares with her husband and children.
The Spaniards, and even the Italians, might abolish their crosses and images, and yet preserve their Christianity; but if the French ceased to be bigots, they would become atheists.
All travellers agree in describing great indelicacy to the French women; yet I have seen no accounts which exaggerate it
The hands of English women are more delicate than those of the French
the benevolence of the French is not often active, nor extensive; it is more frequently a religious duty than a sentiment
a French house is generally more showy than convenient, and seldom conveys that idea of domestic comfort which constitutes the luxury of an Englishman.
Much has been said of the gallantry of the French ladies, and not entirely without reason; yet, though sometimes inconstant wives, they are, for the most part, faithful friends--they sacrifice the husband without forsaking him
The French never refuse to rejoice when they are ordered; but as these festivities are not spontaneous effusions, but official ordinances, and regulated with the same method as a tax or recruitment they are of course languid and uninteresting.
The French are habituated to subordination--they naturally look up to something superior
the gallantry of an Englishman is a sentiment--that of a Frenchman a system.
They not only bear the calamities of their friends with great philosophy, but are nearly as reasonable under the pressure of their own .. Or tell them you are ruined, and a commiserating tone confesses, _"C'est bien mal heureux--Mais enfin que voulez vous?"
in England, is so highly respectable: there gentlemen of merely independent circumstances are not often distinguishable in their manners from those of superior fortune or rank. But, in France, it is different: the inferior noblesse are stiff, ceremonious, and ostentatious ..
The French composers seem to excel in marches, in lively airs that abound in striking passages calculated for the popular taste, and yet more particularly in those simple melodies they call romances
The French, indeed, had never, in my remembrance, any pretensions to delicacy, or even decency, and they are certainly not improved in these respects by the revolution.
A French man or woman, with no other apology than _"permettez moi,"_ ["Give me leave."] will take a book out of your hand, look over any thing you are reading, and ask you a thousand questions relative to your most private concerns ..
So little are these people susceptible of delicacy, propriety, and decency, that they do not even use the words in the sense we do..
I do not, however, pretend to say that the latter are all gross and brutal, but I am myself convinced that, generally speaking, they are an unfeeling people.
Mercier, in his Tableau de Paris, notices, on several occasions, the little public spirit existing among his countrymen--it is also observable, that many of the laws and customs presume on this deficiency
In England, at any alarm of the sort, all distinction of ranks is forgotten, and every one is solicitous to contribute as much as he is able to the safety of his fellow-citizens
the municipalities here violate your tranquillity in this manner under any pretext they choose, and that too with an armed cortege sufficient to undertake the siege of your house in form.
A day passed in this manner is, as you may imagine, susceptible of much ennui, and the French are accordingly more subject to it than to any other complaint, and hold it in greatest dread than either sickness or misfortune
a Frenchman must have his country and his mistress admired, though he does not often care much for either one or the other.
the convention never seemed capable of any thing great or uniform, and that all their proceedings took a tinge from that frivolity and meanness which I am almost tempted to believe inherent in the French character
Amidst so many efforts* to provoke the destruction of the English, it is wonderful .. that we are yet safe, and it is in effect only to be accounted for by their disinclination to take any part in the animosities of their government.
A degree of parsimony, which an Englishman could not acquire without many self-combats, appears in a Frenchman a matter of preference and convenience ..
.. even the most liberal examination must end by concluding, that the oeconomy of the French too nearly approaches to meanness, and that their civility is ostentatious, perhaps often either interested, or even verbal.
It is not the oeconomy of the French that I am censuring, but their vanity,
The French farmer exhibits the same acuteness in all that regards his own interest, and the same stupidity on most other occasions, as the mere English one
A Frenchman may be an unkind husband, a severe parent, or an arrogant master, yet never contract his features, or asperate his voice, and for this reason is, in the national sense, "un homme bien doux."
ontradiction sours, and passion ruffles him--and, in short, an Englishman displeased, from whatever cause, is neither "un homme bien doux," nor "un homme bien aimable; but such as nature has made him, subject to infirmities and sorrows ..
The liberty of the press, and the great interest taken by all ranks of people in public affairs, have occasioned a more numerous circulation of periodical prints of every kind in England, than in any other country in Europe.
it is not only Barrere and his colleagues who suppose the whole country bribeable--the notion is common to the French in general ..
Every man you meet, politely pulls off his hat _en passant
one sees what England does not even pretend to exhibit, which is gaiety without noise, and a crowd without a riot.
The French are really a contented race of mortals;--precluded almost from possibility of adventure, the low Parisian leads a gentle humble life, nor envies that greatness he never can obtain;
the sight of splendours which seldom fail to excite serious envy in an Englishman, and sometimes occasion even suicide, from disappointed hopes,
the order and decorum of us who remained on firm ground, struck me more than even the very strange sight of human creatures floating in the wind
the squallid scenes of wretchedness and dirt in which he is obliged to pass the night, will prove more than equivalent to the pleasures he has enjoyed in the day-time
Content, the bane of industry, as Mandeville calls it, renders them happy with what Heaven has unsolicited shaken into their lap
there seems to be much more family fondness on the Continent than in our island; more attention to parents, more care for uncles, and nephews, and sisters, and aunts,
.. in a commercial country like ours .. for the most part, each one makes his own way separate; and having received little assistance at the beginning of life, considers himself as little indebted at the close of it ..
the families are not, in either nation, disposed according to British notions of propriety; all stuffed together into little towns and large houses, _entessees_, as the French call it; one upon another
Italians, by what I can observe, suffer their minds to be much under the dominion of the sky
Candour, and a good humoured willingness to receive and reciprocate pleasure, seems indeed one of the standing virtues of Italy; I have as yet seen no fastidious contempt, or affected rejection of any thing for being what we call _low_
I have as yet seen no fastidious contempt, or affected rejection of any thing for being what we call _low_; and I have a notion there is much less of those distinctions at Milan than at London,
Nothing, to speak truth, can exceed the agreeableness of a well-bred Italian's address when speaking to a lady, whom they alone know how to flatter, so as to retain her dignity, and not lose their own;
The strange familiarity this class of people think proper to assume, half joining in the conversation, and crying _oibo_[Footnote: Oh dear!], when the master affirms something they do not quite assent to, is apt to shock one at beginning
I never in my whole life heard so much of birth and family as since I came to this town; where blood enjoys a thousand exclusive privileges,
The prejudices in favour of nobility are too strong to be shaken here: the very servants would rather starve in the house of a man of family, than eat after a person of inferior quality
they possess the art of pleasing in an eminent degree, the constancy with which they are mutually beloved by each other is the best proof.
A woman here in every stage of life has really a degree of attention shewn her that is surprising
.. their amiable carriage towards inferiors, calling their own and their friends servants by tender names, and speaking to all below themselves with a graciousness not often used by English men or women even to their equals.
.. calling their own and their friends servants by tender names, and speaking to all below themselves with a graciousness not often used by English men or women even to their equals.
I know not why our English people have such a notion of Italian effeminacy
the Ducal palace is made so very offensive by the resort of human creatures for every purpose most unworthy of so charming a place
They accompanied their voices with the forte-piano, and sung a thousand buffo songs, with all that gay voluptuousness for which their country is renowned
their delight in bringing forward the eminent qualities of every other nation; never insolently vaunting or bragging of their own.
the national spirit and confined ideas of perfection inherent in a Gallic mind, whose sole politeness is an applique 'stuck upon the coat', but never 'embroidered into it'.
or than in Italy, where nobody dreams of cultivating conversation at all--_as an art_; or studies for any other than the natural reason, of informing or diverting themselves, without the most distant idea of gaining admiration
their hearts feel no hope beat higher in them, than the humble one of escaping without being ridiculed
the Venetian ladies are amorously inclined: the truth is, no check being put upon inclination, each acts according to immediate impulse .. there are more women there who _do their own way_, and follow unrestrained where passion, appetite, or imagination lead them.
nothing conveys to a British observer a stronger notion of loose living and licentious dissoluteness, than the sight of one's servants, gondoliers, and other attendants, on the scenes and circles of pleasure
Ladies in particular are so soft-mouthed, so tender in replying to those who have their lot cast far below them, that one feels one's own harsher disposition corrected by their sweetness
some or other of them seem constantly in motion; and there is really no hour of the four and twenty in which the town seems perfectly still and quiet;
The Venetians are not quite so strenuously bent on the unattainable felicity of finding every man in the same mind, as others of the Italians are
Logic is a science they love not, and I think steadily refuse to cultivate; nor is argument a style of conversation they naturally affect
any reply serves any common Italian, who is little disposed to investigate matters
I have already asserted that the Italians are not a laughing nation: were ridicule to step in among them, many innocent pleasures would soon be lost
For who would risque the making impromptu poems at Paris? .. A man must have good courage in England, before he ventures at diverting a little company by such devices
who would risque the making impromptu poems at Paris? .. To draw upon one's self the ridicule of every polite assembly?
and here are beans and bacon in a climate where it is impossible that bacon should be either wholesome or agreeable; and one eats infinitely worse than one did at Milan, Venice, or Bologna
In Italy .. there is no impertinent desire of appearing what one is _not: no searching for talk, and torturing expression to vary its phrases with something new and something fine
We are affected in the house, but natural in the gardens.
that sort of old-fashioned paternal authority that fathers used to exercise over their families in England before commerce had run her levelling plough over all ranks
The clatter made here in the Piazza del Duomo, where you sit in your carriage at a coffee-house door, and chat with your friends according to Italian custom, while _one_ eats ice, and _another_ calls for lemonade .. the noise .. is beyond endurance
What strikes me as most observable, is the uniformity of style in all the great towns. .. Here nobody laughs, nor nobody stares, nor wonders that their valet speaks just as good language, or utters as well-turned sentences as themselves.
Though night is the true season of Italian felicity, they place not their happiness in brutal frolics, any more than in malicious titterings; they are idle and they are merry
There is not nor ever will be anything like English humour.
Is there not institution after institution to decide on, so lacking a complete fitness to its end, larger in a way than the end it is to serve, and having, as it were, a life of its own which proceeds apart from its effect?
They make a great noise: one would say that every thing was going to destruction; but .. these countries of discussion are also countries of compromise
Foreigners in general have a great passion for flowers. .. The English seem to _cultivate_ the most flowers, while the French and the Italians, and (lately?) the Germans, _wear most_ upon their persons.
American and English tourists are alike shocked and provoked at the sight of the innumerable nude statues and paintings
How social and hospitable these Germans are--and, I must add, Europeans in general.
It is a solemn truth, that nine tenths of all the ladies of Turin and Milan are perfect beauties; and I need not say less for the full round forms of the gentlemen.
I did not expect to find the Egyptians a black inferior race, that would fight with each other on the pavements in the largest cities in broad daylight