That universal circulation of intelligence, which in England transmits the least vibration of feeling or alarm, with electric sensibility, from one end of the kingdom to another .. has no existence in France.
The variety given by their cooks, to the same thing, is astonishing .. all sorts of vegetables have a savouriness and flavour, from rich sauces, that are absolutely wanted to our greens boiled in water.
In table-linen, they are, I think, cleaner and wiser than the English .. In point of cleanliness, I think the merit of the two nations is divided; the French are cleaner in their persons, and the English in their houses
an Englishman, however small his fortune may be, will not be seen in a carriage of the fashion of forty years past; if he cannot have another, he will walk on foot.
Nothing but good humour can render such a jumble of families agreeable, or even tolerable.
Fashions change with ten times more rapidity in England, in form, colour, and assemblage; the vicissitudes of every part of dress are phantastic with us: I see little of this in France
Fashions change with ten times more rapidity in England, in form, colour, and assemblage; the vicissitudes of every part of dress are phantastic with us:
Nothing contributes more to make them a happy people, than the chearful and facile pliancy of disposition with which they adapt themselves to the circumstances of life
cutting the lawn by too many gravel walks, an error to be seen in almost every garden I have met with in France
This is certainly a feature of that good temper which appears to me so visible every where in France.
These three Messieurs lead the dance here in a very French style. .. When inscriptions are fixed to public works, no names ought to be permitted but those of the king and the engineer. As to a mob of intendants, directors, and inspectors, let them go to the devil!
The nobility in France have no more idea of practising agriculture, and making it an object of conversation, except on the mere theory, than of any other object the most remote from their habits and pursuits.
The politeness of the French is proverbial, but it never could arise from the manners of the classes that frequent these tables.
the garden, which with us is an object of pleasure, is here one of œconomy and income, circumstances that are incompatible. It is like a well furnished room in a man's house, which he lets to a lodger.
The British are not dependant on anybody. Its the others, as you will have deduced, who need the English. Great Britain is an island by a geological accident and by the will of its inhabitants
The British nation could from now on cultivate its insularity to the point of making it a way of life.
We heard from the French lecturer a line I'm sure we'd never hear from Sir Patrick: "Viewing a partial eclipse is like a kiss; a total eclipse is like a night of passion"
If one had to describe in one word the fundamental attitude of the English, "decency" would be the best fit. A people which imagines itself on an island where everyone will one day meet everyone else.
The forming of the mind begins naturally at school, with a rule which always dominates the teaching: "Conform to the norm". The first task of English schools was thus for a long time to crush the rabid individualism which exists in each of us ..
the class system remains one of the most retrograde of the western world. .. Yet all the participants live happily, each in his universe, each according to "his" rules, and without the smallest revolt.
the mass of the old electors did not analyze very much: they liked to have one of their "betters" to represent them; if he was rich, they respected him much; and if he was a lord, they liked him the better.
I do not mean that our statesmen should assume a pedantic and doctrinaire tone with the English people; if there is any thing which English people thoroughly detest, it is that tone exactly.
the curious influence of rank .. is an influence which most men - at least most Englishmen - feel very much, but of which most Englishmen are somewhat ashamed.
English statesmen and English parties have really a great patriotism.
in France each party, almost every section of a party, begins not to clamour but to scream, and to scream as only Frenchmen can, as soon as it hears anything which it particularly dislikes.
People wonder that so literary a people as the Americans - a people who read more than any people who ever lived, who read so many newspapers should have such bad newspapers
it was very hard for the English people, with their plain sense and slow imagination, to keep up a strong sentiment of veneration for a foreign adventurer.
we are remarkable for having a great deal of the lower sort of ambition and envy. The House of Commons is thronged with people who get there merely for "social purposes," that is, that they and their families may go to parties else impossible.
Our Court is but the head of an unequal, competing, aristocratic society ..
minor place is of no social use. A big grocer despises the exciseman; and what in many countries would be thought impossible, the exciseman envies the grocer.
It is to no purpose that you prove that the pay of petty officials is smaller than mercantile pay; that their work is more monotonous than mercantile work; .. They are still thought to be greater and better.
A great part of the "best" English people keep their mind in a state of decorous dullness. They maintain their dignity .. But they have no notion of play of mind; no conception that the charm of society depends upon it. They think cleverness an antic
This is the obvious and natural idol of the Anglo-Saxon. He is always trying to make money; he reckons every thing in coin; he bows down before a great heap, and sneers as he passes a little heap.
There is no country where a "poor devil of a millionnaire is so ill off as in England." The experiment is tried every day, and every day it is proved that money alone - money pur et simple - will not buy "London Society."
Few Englishmen can bury themselves in science or literature;
A free people is indeed mostly fair, liberty practises men in a give-and-take, which is the rough essence of justice. The English people, possibly even above other free nations, is fair.
They are common Englishmen, and, as Father Newman complains, "hard to be worked up to the dogmatic level." They are not eager to press the tenets of their party to impossible conclusions.
We do not respect a stamp-office clerk, or an exciseman's assistant. A pursy grocer considers he is much above either.
But if they had not a genius for politics; if they had not a moderation in action singularly curious where superficial speech is so violent; if they had not a regard for law, such as no great people have yet evinced, and infinitely surpassing ours
In the American mind and in the colonial mind there is, as contrasted with the old English mind, a literalness, a tendency to say, "The facts are so-and-so, whatever may be thought or fancied about them."
In fact, the mass of the English people yield a deference rather to something else than to their rulers. They defer to what we may call the theatrical show of society.
the solid clay of the English apathetic nature.
One of the most curious peculiarities of the English people is its dislike of the executive government. We look on State action, not as our own action, but as alien action; as an imposed tyranny from without ..
.. our tolerance of those "local authorities" which so puzzle many foreigners .. in a country like England, where we can organize a vigilance committee on every abuse, we need not care how much power is delegated to outlying bodies
in France, where there is scarcely any power of self-organization in the people, where the préfet must be asked upon every subject, and take the initiative in every movement ..
The French, giving more importance to appearances, enjoy evaluating someone by his look, his clothes, or his gestures .. an exercise which is inapplicable to the British, for whom appearances are a very secondary preoccupation.
The French, giving more importance to appearances, enjoy evaluating someone by his look, his clothes, or his gestures ..
Reading this book one understood that England was divided into two categories, the U (Upper Class) and the Non U (Non Upper Class), who, although living on the same island, didn't speak the same language.
There are a few reference texts, such as the Great Charter (Magna Carta) of political rights, the Habeas Corpus, etc. - but there are none of the interminable and unavoidable codes so appreciated by the continentals
British democracy is more an affair of mentalities than of documents, but it nevertheless obeys certain rules. Its mores are just not the same as ours. It is simultaneously more formal and less uncompromising.
This mixture of formalism and refusal of written rules gives life to a keyword of English political life: pragmatism
The British allow more easily that one does not share their ideas, even if nothing would make them change them. .. here everyone publicly defends his beliefs, fearlessly and without complex.
The English have an astonishing fondness for information. .. everyone here is looking for information
The popular press represents no doubt the worst that can be read in Shelley's tongue. In general it is xenophobic, biased, and makes its living from competitions and scandals.
The British press is patriotic, but it is also cruel. To French journalists, who have other natural defects, the attacks on people seem horribly cruel. No "personal" scandal is left unturned.
The television has a strong reputation for objectivity, too. Yet this independence has more to do with mentalities than with structures.
The Queen and the royal family symbolise devotion to the country; they embody generosity, abnegation, and sense of duty. It is in values such as these that British society feels it has buried its roots.
they get on our nerves, these English, with their own special way of doing things, their disturbing reactions that we don't understand and which we can't anticipate. For us, "English" is a synonym of "eccentric"
The British are passionate about nature .. with the arrival of the first hot days the normally reserved city-dwellers take the green spaces by assault, spreading themselves lazily upon it in their thousands
This is the famous "understatement", neither a lessening of meaning nor ambiguity, just an art of living which is a form of the proverbial English phlegm.
the whole population .. assert the principle of "fair play", make controlling their emotions a point of honour, scold their children without raising their voices, and pack the churches.
The British don't really like one another, one could say that they put up with each other with a certain elegance. On the other hand they overflow with love for their domestic animals and never eat horsemeat.
One might be tempted to conclude that the English eat badly but discuss food very well. But this would be unjust, as, here also, they are capable of the best and the worst.
The partaking of tea is a national ceremony, as in Japan, which leaves us feeling a little lost because whereas we think of tea as a beverage the English see it as a meal, a standpoint, and a way of life.
the pub is an essential part of British social life. .. all these pubs have something in common: this is a man's world.
For us, the clubs are at the same time fascinating, fantasy-creating, and the most irritating image we have of England, because to us they appear profoundly unjust.
The British invented the word ("sex" means in English much more than a bit of our anatomy) and yet do it with the greatest detachment. .. this people really lacks one thing: eroticism. .. the two sexes seem to pass by without seeing each other.
The mind cleared of these frivolous thoughts, .. the British are in the right frame of mind to concentrate on an essential subject: inventing something.
The British, better than anyone else, were able to impose their way of life on those they colonised .. they installed their ideas, tastes and beliefs on subjugated peoples.
In Britain, gardening is more than just a pastime - it is devotion. And like all important matters, it calls for customs and rituals ..
what the French call the "jardin anglais": neither too gaudy nor too severe, this garden mixes the natural and the wild, favours the unexpected but without losing sight of method
the cemeteries which dot the English countryside .. clearly show the relations between the British and nature, because .. the English prefer to surround those passed away with the softness of a world that they have left.
The English are powerful in the field, like making noise, and are chauvinistic
les pays nordiques présentent un taux de tués par million d’habitants beaucoup plus faible que celui des pays situés plus au sud.
la pruderie anglaise. "I would never hesitate to tell a French woman to take off her clothes on her first appointment, even if she had just come with a cold," he said. "But you have to be very careful about that sort of thing with English women."
Les équipes néerlandaises sont en recherche constante de simplicité.
an Englishman's home really is his castle. .. English families .. want to have their own front doors, opening on to the street or on a bit of front garden, doors which they can open or close as they will, to keep out the world;
Comedy tickles the peculiar national funny-bone in its two main aspects: surrealist language and surrealist situations. ..
the typically long English nostalgic memory .. the sentimental attachment to ancestry in all its forms, especially the bucolic .. nervous about the arts, sensible and shrewd rather than intellectual, so tolerant as to verge on the endlessly and relativistically wide-open
Back now to the more everyday saws, aphorisms, tags to live by. They fall into three main clusters: putting up with things; tolerance, belonging and charity; the value of honesty and the hatred of cheats
..The British do not live in a 'real' world in the sense that many other countries, on mainland Europe and elsewhere, have come to know reality; the British live in a well-cushioned world.
Neighbourliness .. is the single most sustaining communal practice in English society, in both admirable and pettifogging ways. The window-watching, curtain-twitching neighbour lives on
the sense of duty to do voluntary work for 'the community'.. is a long tradition.
the general demeanour in English life, the general assumption about how one should behave towards others outside, is that cheerfulness should insist on breaking in
a remarkable moral decency, at all social levels.
Not stressed at all, the English… And polite, too!
But why do the British all have, unashamedly, a quietly superior air?
It's not fear of the police that makes the British so docile, but a simple civic sense and respect for others which are far stronger here than in France.
In general, every person has his place in society, independently of his social origins or the colour of his skin, as long as he does not encroach on the living space of his neighbour.
the ideal is to live far from all perturbation. So they invest in red bricks, which will garantee a cosy nest and a relative feeling of independence for the whole family
The extent to which these people - who happily describe themselves as individualists - are sensitive about gossip and how others see them, is insane. It is important to be normal, with just a whiff of originality
Dust is unimportant as long as the atmosphere is cosy - comfortable and warm .. despite the heating usually being set at the minimum to save money!
it's not at all important to have the latest equipment, which is always looked upon as vulgar and slightly suspicious.
the British lead the Germans at the top of the hit-parade of European literary production
Our neighbours go for an overloaded - one might even say old-fashioned -style (have you seen the queen's hats?), or even "flashy destroy has-been", that's to say hyper-fashion which is already out-of-date
you won't find authoritarian lessons in which the students religiously swallow the teacher's every word, but rather an exchange of ideas which allows everyone to express himself freely. It's enough to make a young Frenchy think he's dreaming!
beneath this apparent freedom lies a strict discipline that nobody can escape: transgressing the rules of speech or clothing is severely punished.. You'll be surprised to find that the great majority of adolescents scrupulously respect the rules of living together.
a very special sense of humour, mixing self-derision (the English easily laugh at themselves but don't appreciate when others ridiculise them), black humour in which one never knows if one should be laughing or crying, and really heavy jokes..
Football, rugby, tennis, golf, aviron, squash, show-jumping, not to mention cricket, were all born on the other side of the Channel. The British must have betting in the blood, because no less than 90% of them confess to placing bets regularly.