French

“ A little tedious they may be; all the writings of this age, French, or imitated from French, are born of too prodigal minds; but how they glide along! A winding stream, which flows smoothly on level sand, and sparkles now and again in the sun, is the only image we can compare it to. ”

“ How enviable is the culture of a nation that can figure out so many shades of meaning by a single word! French is exactly the language of the world,—worthy to become the universal language, that all may have it in their power to cheat and cozen and betray each other! ”

“ There is something pathetic in his frankly envious admiration of the French, who can and do convey their thoughts to one another in a language wrought up to be "the perfect medium of wit and wisdom,—the wisdom of the serpent,—the incisive medium of the practical intelligence." ”

“ French refined and systematic intelligence, the most exact in seizing on the subordination of ideas, the most ready in separating ideas from matter, the most fond of clear and tangible ideas, find in him its nourishment and its echo. ”

“ The logical bent of the French mind, its love of rule, the elaborateness of its conventions in literature, its ceremonial observances dating from by-gone times, the custom of giving account of everything, of letting no nuance pass unchallenged or uncommented, have given it a power of expression and definiteness which holds together as a complete code of written and unwritten laws, and makes a perfect instrument of its kind. ”

“ The French, to do them justice, attend very minutely to the purity, the correctness, and the elegance of their style in conversation and in their letters. ‘Bien narrer’ is an object of their study; and though they sometimes carry it to affectation, they never sink into inelegance, which is much the worst extreme of the two. Observe them, and form your French style upon theirs: for elegance in one language will reproduce itself in all. ”

“ Where will you find, on the face of the globe, a more polished or more civilized nation than the French, or one more punctiliously alive to any rudeness, coarseness or indecorum? You will find none. The French are scrupulous on these points, to a proverb. ”

“ Every part of it pleased me, till you came to Paris, and your philosophical indolence or indifference stung me. You cannot stir from your rooms till you know the language! What the devil! are men nothing but word-trumpets? Are men all tongue and ear? Have these creatures, that you and I profess to know something about, no faces, gestures, gabble; no folly, no absurdity, no induction of French education upon the abstract idea of men and women; no similitude nor dissimilitude to English? ”

“ Connect yourself, while you are in France, entirely with the French; improve yourself with the old, divert yourself with the young; conform cheerfully to their customs, even to their little follies, but not to their vices. ”

“ What, then, is the place they give to the disturbing element? They treat it—the answer might be—as the poetry of life. For the French, simply because they are the most realistic people in the world, are also the most romantic. ”

“ Nothing can present a stronger contrast between the French and English character, and nothing evinces more clearly the superiority of the French in conversation, and the art of amusement, than the scenes which take place in the interior of a French diligence. ”

“ Among the peculiarities that most strike one in French people, are the good-breeding with which they listen, without even a smile, to the almost incomprehensible attempts at speaking French made by many strangers, and the quickness of apprehension with which they seize their meaning, and assist them in rendering the sense complete. ”

“ A running fire of conversation accompanies the fitting. They show the usual French interest in ourselves and our country; we enlarge their views considerably on the latter score, though heroically refraining from romancing. ”

“ The French are not commonly very much alive to the sufferings of others, and it is some mortification to my vanity that I cannot, but at the expence of a reproaching conscience, ascribe the civilities I have experienced on this occasion to my personal merit. ”

“ There is a certain language of conversation, a fashionable diction, of which every gentleman ought to be perfectly master, in whatever language he speaks. The French attend to it carefully, and with great reason; and their language, which is a language of phrases, helps them out exceedingly. That delicacy of diction is characteristical of a man of fashion and good company. ”

“ I cannot take a fitter opportunity to observe, once for all, that tant pis and tant mieux, being two of the great hinges in French conversation, a stranger would do well to set himself right in the use of them, before he gets to Paris. ”

“ The English have a scornful insular way Of calling the French light. ”

“ Form for yourself a style which shall be the expression of yourself. Study our French language by attentive reading, making it your care to mark constructions, turns of expression, delicacies of style, but without ever adopting the manner of any master. ”

“ As years went on, and as men more and more aped their betters, the French words would drive out the Old En­glish words; and the latter class would linger only in the mouths of upland folk, where a keen antiquary may find some of them still. So mighty was the spell at work, that in the Fourteenth Century French words found their way into even the Lord's Prayer and the Belief; the last strongholds, it might be thought, of pure En­glish. ”

“ The French of course like more of it than I give—having by their own genius such a hand for it; and indeed one must give all one can. As for the origin of one’s wind-blown germs themselves, who shall say, as you ask, where they come from? We have to go too far back, too far behind, to say. Isn’t it all we can say that they come from every quarter of heaven, that they are there at almost any turn of the road? ”

“ It has been of a kind that French people, rather than English, understand; because for French people literature and conversation are serious matters, not trifles that don't count, as they are with us. ”

“ With all their quickness, enthusiasm, and activity, the mass of French people want that admirable quality which I unfeignedly think is the particular characteristic of ourselves:--I mean, common sense. ”

“ The French, who plan their lives and their children’s lives with a minuteness Englishmen and Americans can never understand, see nothing romantic in a high road wanderer without a definite place in life or a definite goal. ”

“ French is the classic spirit personified among us; born so, not made so; and what he creates is illumined by his understanding of the dignity of the human soul, and by his belief that beauty and truth are acceptable78 to the human mind. ”

“ Say'st thou me so? is that a Tonne of Moyes?
Come hither boy, aske me this slaue in French what is his Name.
Boy.
Escoute comment estes vous appelle?
French.
Mounsieur le Fer.
Boy.
He sayes his Name is M. Fer.
Pist.
M. Fer: Ile fer him, and firke him, and ferret him:
discusse the same in French vnto him.
Boy.
I doe not know the French for fer, and ferret, and firke. ”

“ The French are, namely, accustomed to regard knowledge of human nature founded upon observation as the substance, the essence of poetry—such knowledge as is displayed in Molière's Tartuffe and Misanthrope. ”

“ The English, like ancient medals, kept more apart, and passing but few people’s hands, preserve the first sharpnesses which the fine hand of Nature has given them;—they are not so pleasant to feel,—but in return the legend is so visible, that at the first look you see whose image and superscription they bear.—But the French, Monsieur le Count, added I (wishing to soften what I had said) , have so many excellences, they can the better spare this;—they are a loyal, a gallant, a generous, an ingenious, and good temper’d people as is under heaven;—if they have a fault—they are too serious. ”

“ In the eyes of the vulgar, the French are starved wigmakers, papists, and serfs, an inferior kind of creatures, who can neither call their bodies nor their souls their own, puppets and tools in the hands of a master and a priest. ”

“ In another column, an American, desirous of learning French, expresses himself thus:
"An American desires to take French lessons of a French lady, young, well-bred, good-looking, and of a lively disposition." ”

“ Well, I like my own country, and I cannot help thinking that the proper and right way is the French. Ladies, you know all our shortcomings. Our hearts are exposed ever since the rib which covered them was taken off. ”

“ and the French, for these last fifty years, has been polishing as much as it will bear, and appears to be declining by the natural inconstancy of that people, and the affectation of some late authors to introduce and multiply cant words, which is the most ruinous corruption, in any language. ”

“ Are not these vulgar great men, after all? Is man ever sublime but when he renounces?
It is in this point that the French stand in opposition to the critical, no less than the religious, spirit of modern times. ”

“ If, understanding but a little French, you were to converse every day a little among some Frenchmen in your neighbourhood, and suppose those Frenchmen, you thus kept company with, were every one of them fools, mere ignorant, empty, foolish fellows, there might be nothing learnt from their sense, but you would still learn French from them, if it was no more than the tone and accent, and the ordinary words usual in conversation. ”

“ It is a quaint comment on the notion that the English are practical and the French merely visionary, that we were rebels in arts while they were rebels in arms. ”

“ There is the world of ideas and there is the world of practice; the French are often for suppressing the one and the English the other; but neither is to be suppressed. ”

“ The French have a verb,—se dépayser,—to uncountry one's self, to get out of the groove, to drop undesirable companions and forsake haunts that are too alluring, by going away for a while, and, in returning, not resuming the old friends and habits. ”

“ The more one knows of France and the French at first hand, and the more one reads the ideas and opinions of other people concerning this great people, so does one feel less and less able to write down any definite statements about the country or its inhabitants. Whatever conviction one possesses on any aspect of their characteristics is sure to be shaken by the latest writer, be he a native or a foreigner. Every fresh sojourn in the country upsets all one's previous ideas in the most baffling fashion. ”

“ When one thinks of the view of the life of his country, of the vast French community and its constituent creatures, offered in these productions, one declines to believe it could make up the whole vision of a man of his quality. ”

“ The genius of the French language, descended from its single Latin stock, has triumphed most in the contrary direction—in simplicity, in unity, in clarity, and in restraint. ”

“ "Talk English to me, Tommy."
"Parlez français avec moi, Nicole."
"But the meanings are different--in French you can be heroic and gallant with dignity, and you know it. But in English you can't be heroic and gallant without being a little absurd, and you know that too. ”

“ Couple with these peculiarities of the language the circumstance that the French term spirituel means simply witty, with a certain quickness, delicacy, and versatility of mind, and have you not a real insight into the national character?
It is said that the word oftenest on a Frenchman’s lips is la gloire, and next to that, perhaps, is brillant, “brilliant.” The utility of a feat or achievement in literature or science, in war or politics, surgery or mechanics, is of little moment in his eyes unless it also dazzles and excites surprise. ”

“ Authors of every nation—French, Italian, English, German—have devoted long and patient research to this subject. Every word has been weighed, every act commented on; and they have striven to assign to each person his due share of responsibility. ”

“ I MAKE you my compliments on your perfection in the French language. It is necessary to know you long, in order to know all your accomplishments: by perpetually seeing and hearing you, new ones appear, which before were concealed. ”

“ if but a dozen French Were there in arms, they would be as a can To train ten thousand English to their side; ”

“ Indeed, I must send you some articles of mine in which I have said much the same thing,—les beaux, esprits se rencontrent. The fault of us French is impatience, desire of change; but then it is that desire which keeps the world going and retains our place at the head of it. ”

“ But I wish calmly to consider the stage of civilization in which I find the French, and, giving a sketch of their character, and unfolding the circumstances which have produced its identity, I shall endeavour to throw some light on the history of man, and on the present important subjects of discussion. ”