I wish I could forget a certain
luncheon in the course of which Mme. Chose (that brilliant woman)
leaned suddenly across the table to me, and, with great animation,
amidst a general hush, launched at me a particularly swift flight of
winged words. With pensively narrowed eyes, I uttered my formula when
she ceased. This formula she repeated, in a tone even more pensive
than mine. `Mais je ne le connais pas,' she then loudly exclaimed. `Je
ne connais pas me^me le nom. Dites-moi de ce jeune homme.' She had, as
it presently turned out, been asking me which of the younger French
novelists was most highly thought of by English critics; so that her
surprise at never having heard of the gifted young Se'vre' was natural
enough.
We all--but no, I must not say that we all have painful memories of
this kind. Some of us can understand every word that flies from the
lips of Mme. Chose or from the mouth of M. Tel. Some of us can also
talk quickly and well to either of these pilgrims; and others can do
the trick passably. But the duffers are in a great grim majority; and
the mischief that French causes among us is mainly manifest, not (I
would say) by weaker brethren hating the stronger, but by weak ones
hating the less weak.
As French is a subject on which we all feel so keenly, a point of
honour on which we are all so sensitive, how comes it that our general
achievement is so slight? There was no lack of hopes, of plans, that
we should excel.
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