much tyranny in the hopes of final success. This created a curious accentuation of the value of individual character, and an absence of any sense of its limitations, which was undoubtedly fitted to produce picturesqueness, but had serious drawbacks in practice.
In the same way, the historical circumstances of the consolidation of the provinces of France under the Monarchy developed a high appreciation of individual character; and the keenly lexical intelligence of the French mind gave it a permanent place in literature.
England, on the other hand, became in early times an organised community, and there was no violent break in the pursuit of this organisation. I cannot now trace in detail the results of the different course of English and French history as reflected in the characters of the people. But this at least is obvious: the average Frenchman conceives of himself as having a right to gratify his individual desires, without thought of others, to a degree unknown to the average Englishman. French civilisation is concerned with the arrangement of the externals of life in the most comfortable way. English civilisation is concerned primarily with political institutions and with the organisation of the activities of life. The Frenchman conceives himself as an individual, the Englishman conceives himself as part of a community. The Frenchman, though wedded to his own country, and having no desire to leave it, still considers himself as a citizen of the world. The Englishman, though a rambler and an adventurer, ready to make his home anywhere, still considers himself an Englishman wherever he goes. France took for the motto of its
