But this work is of a peculiar and even paradoxical kind.
It is too practical to be prominent, and so universal that
it is unnoticed.
The French view of the Rights of Man is called visionary;
but in practice it is very solid and even prosaic.
The French have a unique and successful trick by which French
things are not accepted as French. They are accepted as human.
However many foreigners played football, they would still consider
football an English thing. But they do not consider fencing
a French thing, though all the terms of it are still French.
If a Frenchman were to label his hostelry an inn or a public house
(probably written publicouse) we should think him a victim of rather
advanced Anglomania. But when an Englishman calls it an hotel,
we feel no special dread of him either as a dangerous foreigner
or a dangerous lunatic. We need not recognise less readily
the value of this because our own distinction is different;
especially as our own distinction is being more distinguished.
The spirit of the English is adventure; and it is the essence of adventure
that the adventurer does remain different from the strange tribes
or strange cities, which he studies because of their strangeness.
Pages:
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42