Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Female Literature In France In The Seventeenth Century.
of man ' s industry ; splinters of rock , rent ancl shivered as though separated from their native mass by the arm of a Titan . There is no room for doubt . This is startling enough ; and as the eye measxu * es the narrow strait between the two shores , while the mind , or perhaps I
ought rather to say , the imagination , plunges clown "full fathom five " under the labouring waters , this glimpse into the far-off past is bewildering ; and yet the moral severance of the two once-identical shores , is infinitely more so . France and England—the antipodes of principle , of feeling , and of habit—¦ are both almost within the grasp of the spectatorand yet how
, little are they united in fact ; how ignorant are they of each other . It is true that there exists a species of social and superficial familiarity ; that upon the surface there would seem to be a certain community of thought , idea , and motive ; but such is far from being the case in fact . Our Gallic neighbours clo not , ancl cannot understand us ; and Ave are equally far from
understanding them . They profess to have fathomed our laws , oxu * history , and our literature , Ai'hile we pretend to an equal knowledge of theirs ; ancl yet IIOAV stands the truth ? I will not search into the cause ; my business is only AA'ith the effect of that cause ; and it is certain that while oxu * researches have wandered " from Indus to the Pole , " and haA e revealed to us
many a hidden mystery ivhich might Avell have evaded the scrutiny alike of the physiologist and the philosopher , France , moral and social France , is still comparatively a sealed book to most of us . Woxdd that it were not so ; for more perfect knowledge would , in all probability , lead to more perfect mutual regard and indulgence ; petty jealousies might be laid to
rest ; and pexuile prejudices silenced . At present , fundamentally speaking , the tAvo countries know little or nothing of each other ; they are not conversant Avith the inner life of each other ; they severally take too much for granted ; and majestically wrapped in the close and impenetrable mantle of selfish nationality , refuse to see and to sympathise Avith Avhat lies beyond . Thus it seems to me—ancl I say it Avith all humility—that every hand
Avhich seeks to lift e \* en a corner of that exclusive and excluding mantle does honest service to truth and to universal good-Avill . What , after all , is the world but one vast family , differing indeed in language , but bound together by a myriad ties ? Enough , hoAvever , of these theories . Mental specxdations , unaided by moral exertions , can effect no diminution of the
estrangement HOAV existing betAveen France and England . It is only by endeavoxu * ing to study and to comprehend the genius of the nation ; by familiarising oxu * minds with theirs ; by making
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Female Literature In France In The Seventeenth Century.
of man ' s industry ; splinters of rock , rent ancl shivered as though separated from their native mass by the arm of a Titan . There is no room for doubt . This is startling enough ; and as the eye measxu * es the narrow strait between the two shores , while the mind , or perhaps I
ought rather to say , the imagination , plunges clown "full fathom five " under the labouring waters , this glimpse into the far-off past is bewildering ; and yet the moral severance of the two once-identical shores , is infinitely more so . France and England—the antipodes of principle , of feeling , and of habit—¦ are both almost within the grasp of the spectatorand yet how
, little are they united in fact ; how ignorant are they of each other . It is true that there exists a species of social and superficial familiarity ; that upon the surface there would seem to be a certain community of thought , idea , and motive ; but such is far from being the case in fact . Our Gallic neighbours clo not , ancl cannot understand us ; and Ave are equally far from
understanding them . They profess to have fathomed our laws , oxu * history , and our literature , Ai'hile we pretend to an equal knowledge of theirs ; ancl yet IIOAV stands the truth ? I will not search into the cause ; my business is only AA'ith the effect of that cause ; and it is certain that while oxu * researches have wandered " from Indus to the Pole , " and haA e revealed to us
many a hidden mystery ivhich might Avell have evaded the scrutiny alike of the physiologist and the philosopher , France , moral and social France , is still comparatively a sealed book to most of us . Woxdd that it were not so ; for more perfect knowledge would , in all probability , lead to more perfect mutual regard and indulgence ; petty jealousies might be laid to
rest ; and pexuile prejudices silenced . At present , fundamentally speaking , the tAvo countries know little or nothing of each other ; they are not conversant Avith the inner life of each other ; they severally take too much for granted ; and majestically wrapped in the close and impenetrable mantle of selfish nationality , refuse to see and to sympathise Avith Avhat lies beyond . Thus it seems to me—ancl I say it Avith all humility—that every hand
Avhich seeks to lift e \* en a corner of that exclusive and excluding mantle does honest service to truth and to universal good-Avill . What , after all , is the world but one vast family , differing indeed in language , but bound together by a myriad ties ? Enough , hoAvever , of these theories . Mental specxdations , unaided by moral exertions , can effect no diminution of the
estrangement HOAV existing betAveen France and England . It is only by endeavoxu * ing to study and to comprehend the genius of the nation ; by familiarising oxu * minds with theirs ; by making