It is of an evening, however, when concealment is no longer possible, that the native taste bursts forth, the Anglo-Saxon standing declared in all her plainness.Strong is the contrast here, where they are placed side by side with all that Europe holds of elegant, and well-dressed Frenchwomen, whether of the "world" or the "half-world," are invariably marvels of fitness and freshness, the simplest materials being converted by their skilful touch into toilettes, so artfully adapted to the wearer's figure and complexion, as to raise such "creations" to the level of a fine art.
An artist feels, he must fix on canvas that particular combination of colors or that wonderful line of bust and hip.It is with a shudder that he turns to the British matron, for she has probably, for this occasion, draped herself in an "art material," -principally "Liberty" silks of dirty greens and blues (aesthetic shades!).He is tempted to cry out in his disgust: "Oh, Liberty!
Liberty! How many crimes are committed in thy name!" It is one of the oddest things in the world that the English should have elected to live so much in France, for there are probably nowhere two peoples so diametrically opposed on every point, or who so persistently and wilfully misunderstand each other, as the English and the French.
It has been my fate to live a good deal on both sides of the Channel, and nothing is more amusing than to hear the absurdities that are gravely asserted by each of their neighbors.To a Briton, a Frenchman will always be "either tiger or monkey" according to Voltaire; while to the French mind English gravity is only hypocrisy to cover every vice.Nothing pleases him so much as a great scandal in England; he will gleefully bring you a paper containing the account of it, to prove how true is his opinion.It is quite useless to explain to the British mind, as I have often tried to do, that all Frenchmen do not pass their lives drinking absinthe on the boulevards; and as Englishmen seem to leave their morals in a valise at Dover when off for a visit to Paris, to be picked up on their return, it is time lost to try to make a Gaul understand what good husbands and fathers the sons of Albion are.