He will hardly admit that
other countries can have an art and literature of their own,
especially should neither of them conform to French standards.
This is easily understood, for the average Frenchman knows no
language but his own, has never travelled, and has no curiosity
whatever about countries outside France. When, in addition, it is
remembered how paramount French literary and artistic influence
was during the greater portion of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, and how universal the use of the French language was in
Northern Continental Europe amongst educated people, the point of
view becomes quite intelligible.
In spite of this, I enjoyed my excursions with these delightful
French lawyers quite enormously. The other pupils never
accompanied us, for they found it difficult to keep up a
conversation in French.
The average intellectual level is unquestionably far higher in
France than in England, nor is it necessary to give, to a people
accustomed for generations to understand a demi-mot, the elaborate
explanations usually necessary in England when the conversation
has got beyond the mental standards of a child six years old.
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