I.

INTRODUCTORY.

Ir may be taken as typical of the present writer's intentions in these papers that he has felt uncertain which of the two nationalities he would put first in the title, and that the question has been settled by a mere consideration of euphony. If the reader cares to try the experiment of saying "English and French," and then "French and English" afterwards, he will find that the latter glides the more glibly from the tongue. There is a tonic accent at the beginning of the word "English" and a dying away at the end of it which are very convenient in the last word of a title. "French," on the other hand, comes to a dead stop, in a manner too abrupt to be agreeable.

The supercilious critic will say that I am making over-much of a small matter, but he may allow me to explain why I put the Frenchmen first, lest I be accused of a lack of patriotism. These chapters are not, however, to be written from what is usually considered a patriotic point of view; they are not to be simply an exposition of the follies and sins of another nation for the comparative glorification of my own; nor are they to be examples of what Herbert Spencer has aptly called "anti-patriotism," which is the systematic settingdown of one's own countrymen by a comparison with the superior qualities VOL. LVIII. NO. 345.

2

of the foreigner. I should like to write with complete impartiality, if it were possible. It is at least possible to write with the desire to be impartial.

Not even the most impartial writer can ever succeed in seeing all things quite from a cosmopolitan point of view. We cannot divest ourselves of our personality, and impersonality includes the hereditary national instincts and feelings. It would not be desirable, if it were possible, to divest ourselves of these. Every Englishman who writes with any force is sure to write not only English words, but English opinions also.

Still, there is an inevitable difference between the Englishman who has always been surrounded by English things and the Englishman who has been surrounded for a long time by foreign things. The first is apt to fall into the common delusion of supposing that all around him is not only right according to English custom, but absolutely right, so that it could not rightly be otherwise; the second has at least had a chance of disengaging, in English customs, what is national from what is universally and inevitably human.

To know two nations intimately is a valuable experience, because it supplies a term of comparison for everything. Whatever the English do is either left undone by the French, or done differently by them. If it is left undone, we may observe the consequences of the omission, and so ascertain whether the thing

has only a national or a more general utility. If the thing is done differently in France, then we have a valuable opportunity for comparing two ways of doing it when we knew of only one before.

These opportunities are especially frequent in England and France, because the two countries are so extremely unlike each other. Except in some minor matters, English usage has not been derived from France, nor French usage from England. Each nation has formed its own customs by a national growth and development, determined for it by its own character and circumstances.

This independence in the formation of usage has probably been one of the strongest reasons for the intense and jealous hatred with which the two nations regarded each other in times past, as we all know that there is nothing that human beings (especially when in a low state of culture) are so little disposed to tolerate as divergences of custom.

In the present day, the English and French can scarcely be said to hate each other, with the exception of some old-fashioned people on both sides the Channel, who understand patriotism in the old way, as an injunction to hate your neighbor and never to forgive his trespasses; but although hatred of the fiercer sort has died away, there remains a fund of quiet malevolence and much jealousy which unscrupulous rulers might easily provoke into hostility.

Every attempt, however humble, to make different nations understand each other better is, in its degree, an impediment to future war; and so perhaps these pages may have a feeble influence in preserving, at any rate, the sort of illnatured peace which at present subsists between the two great Western powers. A more cordial peace might be desirable, were it not that anything like warm friendship between nations is a condition of things that makes each of them so ready to take offense that a cooler state

is the less dangerous of the two. By a most extraordinary persistence of good luck, the peace between France and England has been unbroken for more than seventy years, and the preservation of it has been certainly due to the influence of a small class of people, who know both nations well enough to counteract in some degree the malevolence natural to rivals.

The reader will observe that I use the pronoun "they" equally for both nations, that I do not say "we" for the English and "they" for the French, as most English writers would do. This is in consequence of a decision deliberately arrived at. The use of the same pronoun in both cases is a great help to impartiality; and as I happen to be addressing an American audience, there is this additional reason, that my reader will think of the English as they," though they are nearer to him by blood and language than the French.

II.

66

THAT TRUE PATRIOTISM DOES NOT CONSIST IN BEING UNJUST TO OTHER NATIONS.

I have been lectured sometimes on my lack of patriotism, and fully expect that the accusation will be repeated with reference to these papers. There is a kind of patriotism which appears to me only suitable to the most crude and ignorant minds, the patriotism which accepts with credulous avidity whatever can be discovered or invented to the disparagement of the rival state. This patriotism is the delight of the ignorant, and it keeps them permanently in the condition of ignorance which they prefer. To me it seems entirely unsatisfying, for if I have not ascertained to my own satisfaction the truth of the accusation against the foreigner, it must be a hollow semblance of satisfaction at the best. But beyond this, if it were really

proved that the foreigner were abominable, how and in what should I be the better for it? It would be a saddening fact, if it were a fact, that English people were the only decent people on the planet. My patriotism feels hurt when English people fall below a certain standard, but there is nothing to hurt it when I learn that a foreign state is advancing in civilization.

To prevent misunderstanding, let me declare frankly that there is a kind of patriotism which no Englishman can possess to a greater degree than I claim to do, the patriotism which desires the real good of our country as distinguished from the hollow gratification of her vanity. It is not really a good thing to domineer over subject races. The common Englishman can get little good out of the consciousness that, in his name, somebody is lording it over ten Hindoos, or slaying a Soudan Arab, or burning a Zulu's hut; but it would be much for the common Englishman to feel that he was living in a country where his chances of decent existence were as good, at least, as they could be anywhere else. My patriotism desires that for him, and the desire includes of necessity a position of such military and naval strength as to insure the most complete security and independence. This for the common Englishman; but there are also many rich Englishmen, and for these something more than simply decent existence may reasonably be desired. For them shall we ask more horses, more servants, more extensive shootings? Nay, they have enough of these and to spare, so let us wish them "neither riches for themselves nor the life of their enemies," but "understanding to discern judgment," that they may meet the difficulties of the future.

It is with nations as with individuals. The best of gifts, the best thing we can desire for them, is wisdom, provided only that they have power enough, liberty enough, to carry their wisdom into

practice. But I began by wishing for England complete security, with sufficient wealth for the well-being of her population. Wisdom and well-being, then, are the two blessings I desire for my country, and to desire these for her is the beginning and end of my patriotism.

After that comes a sentiment of a larger patriotism, felt already by a few, and which is destined to take year by year a larger place in the feelings of educated men.

Looking beyond our own frontiers, we may come to desire sincerely, by human sympathy only, that other nations should enjoy prosperity and happiness. In this way it was a satisfaction to the English that Italy was able to constitute herself. This sympathetic feeling has now become very general with regard to those foreign countries that we are not jealous of; but when jealousy interferes, the kindly desire for the prosperity of others is not yet strong enough to overcome it. There is, however, a reasonable and an unreasonable jealousy. For example, it is a reasonable wish on the part of the French that England should never become a great military power; and it is, I think, a reasonable jealousy that makes some Englishmen displeased at the increasing strength of the French navy. The two nations may be reasonably jealous of each other's power, but such jealousy would never lead rational men in either country to accept untrue, depreciatory statements with regard to the army or navy of the other. Unreasonable jealousy, on the other hand, does not simply take the form of desiring that a rival power should remain in a condition of military inferiority; it enters into a thousand details of ordinary civil existence, and incessantly depreciates what the people in the other country do in the common affairs of life. More than this, it receives and circulates with eagerness innumerable falsehoods concerning the rival people and their ways of life. Or it does what is even

worse than receiving a falsehood that can be simply and easily refuted: it gets hold of some evil thing which is partly true of the rival nation, and affects to believe that it is generally applicable. In this way every Englishwoman drinks, and every married Frenchwoman is an adulteress.

Now, in my view, this kind of feeling is not necessary to true patriotism, but there are numbers of people in England and France who are convinced that there is a staunch patriotic virtue in believing all evil of one's neighbor. In this way the most uncharitable sentiments are kept up, and ideas which are as destitute of truth as they are of charity take root and flourish in both countries.

III.

HOW TO WRITE BRILLIANTLY ABOUT A FOREIGN COUNTRY.

The art consists simply in flattering the patriotic jealousy of your readers. by a remorseless satire on the foreigner. As there is always much that is ridiculous in every country, and a fearful amount of most real and undeniable evil besides, you have only to show up one or the other in the pitiless glare of day. A fine contrast may be produced by hiding your own faults and exhibiting those of your neighbor.

The foreigner may be effectively dealt with in two ways. He may be made to appear either ridiculous or wicked. The satire may be humorous, or it may be bitter and severe. The French, with their lighter temperament, take pleasure in making the Englishman absurd. The English, on their part, though by no means refusing themselves the satisfaction of laughing at their neighbors, are not disinclined to assume a loftier tone. It is not so much what is obviously ridiculous in French people that repels as that which cannot be described without a graver reprobation.

A writer cannot acquire experience in his profession without discovering that the spirit of justice is the greatest of all hindrances to effect. Just writing does not amuse, but malevolence can easily be made entertaining. What is less obvious is that Justice often puts her veto on those fine effects of simulated indignation which the literary advocate knows to be of such great professional utility. It is a fine thing to have an opportunity for condemning a whole nation in one terribly comprehensive sentence. The literary moralist puts on his most dignified manner when he can deplore the wickedness of thirty million human beings. It is ennobling to feel yourself better and greater than thirty millions, and the reader too has a fine sense of superiority in being encouraged to look down upon such a multitude. Justice comes in and says, "But there are exceptions, and they are too numerous to be passed over." "That may be," replies the Genius of Brilliant Literature, "but if I stop to consider these I shall lose all breadth of effect. Lights will creep into my black shadows, and I shall no longer appall with gloom. I want the most telling oppositions. The interests of art take precedence over commonplace veracity."

And there is such tempting safety in effective untruth about foreigners! A clever Frenchman who sets to work to compose a caustic, superficial book about the English or the Germans is well aware that his readers will never study any answer to his statements. He knows that the secret of success is to make the foreigner either odious or ridic ulous. It is not long since a Frenchman wrote two silly little books about the English, treating them in that lively style which is always sure of popularity. Nearly at the same time, another Frenchman, more careful and more serious, published a volume on the same subject, which, though it contained a few unintentional errors, was on the whole likely to

be instructive and useful to his countrymen. The flippant little books had an enormous sale; the instructive book had but a moderate circulation. The rule holds good for a paragraph or a sentence as well as for a volume. An unjust brief paragraph, with a sting in it, has a far better chance of being remembered than a duller but more accurate statement of the truth.

And yet, delightful as may be the pleasures of malice and uncharitableness, there is a far deeper and more delicate satisfaction in knowing the exact truth. The pleasures of uncharitableness must always be alloyed by the secret misgiving that the foreigner may possibly, in reality, not be quite so faulty as we describe him and as we wish him to be. But the pleasure of knowing the truth for its own sake is a satisfaction, without any other alloy than the feeling of regret that the truth should often be no better than it is. This regret has its compensations. The truth sometimes turns out to be an enjoyable surprise.

IV.

MUTUAL FEELING BETWEEN FRENCH AND ENGLISH.

It has already been observed that there is a reasonable and an unreasonable international jealousy. That which exists between France and England is both reasonable and unreasonable, according to the natures of the people who entertain it. In all cases it is very strong.

I cannot think it unreasonable in either country to look with some frank and honest jealousy on the general greatness of the other. Here we see two great nations, two nations which before the rise of Russia and the United States were unquestionably the greatest in the world, so near to each other that on a clear day their shores are visible at the

same time; and even now, after centuries of rivalry, they are so nearly matched in strength that it would take a long war to determine the superiority of either. Try to imagine a French general surrounding London with his troops: the idea is inconceivable; one cannot see how he is to get them there. And now try to imagine an English army, without Continental allies, surrounding Paris with a ring of iron, as the Germans did: the idea is as inconceivable as the other; one cannot see how the English army is to reach Paris. Could it land? And if it landed, could it get as far as Amiens?

In the arts of peace and in the wealth that sustains them, the two countries are comparable to each other in this way that the superiority on one side in some specialty is generally compensated by an equivalent superiority on the other side in some different specialty. Reasonable jealousy on each side is extremely anxious to prevent the other nation from taking the lead, but unreasonable jealousy utterly denies that the rival has any rank whatever in those arts where her superiority is not so manifest as to be absolutely unassailable.

As an example I may mention the way in which the jealousy of vulgar French patriotism treats English endeavor in the fine arts. The vulgar Frenchman confounds artists of the most opposite kinds, attributes to them principles which they do not themselves either profess or act upon, and then condemns them without mercy as ignorant sciolists in art. "The English,"