THB 



JOURNAL OF RURAL ART AND RURAL TASTE. 



Vol. IIL 



APRIL, 1849. 



No. 10. 



What a very little fact sometimes betrays 

 the national character ; and what an odd 

 thing this national character is. Look at 

 a Frenchman. He eats, talks, lives in 

 public. He is only happy when he has 

 spectators. In town, on the boulevards, in 

 the C'/./J'', at places of public amusement, he 

 is all enjoyment. But in the country — ah, 

 there he never goes willingly ; or else, he 

 only goes to sentimentalize, or to entertain 

 his town friends. Even the natural born 

 country people seem to find nature and 

 solitude enniiyanl, and so collect in little 

 villages to keep each other in spirits ! The 

 Frenchman eats and sleeps almost any- 

 where ; but he is never " at home but 

 when he is abroad." 



Look, on the other hand, at John Bull. 

 He only lives what he feels to be a rational 

 life, when he lives in the country. His 

 country place is to him a little Juan Fer- 

 nandez island ; it contains his own family, 

 his own castle, everythin^hat belongs to 

 him. He hates the smoke of town ; he 

 takes root in the soil. His horses, his dogs, 

 his trees, are not separate existences ; they 

 are parts of himself. He is social with a 

 reservation. Nature is nearer akin to him 

 than strange men. His dogs are truly at- 

 tached to him ; he doubts if his fellows 



Vol. III. 29 



are. People often play the hypocrite ; but 

 the trees in his park never deceive him. 

 Home is to him the next best place to 

 heaven. 



And only a little narrow strait of water 

 divides these two nations ! 



Shall we ever have a distinct national 

 character ? Will a country, which is set- 

 tled by every people of the old world, — a 

 dozen nations, all as distinct as the French 

 and the English, — ever crystallize into a 

 symmetrical form — something distinct and 

 homogeneous ? And what will that national 

 character be ? 



Certainly ; no one who looks at our compa- 

 rative isolation — at the broad ocean that 

 separates us from such external influences — 

 at the mighty internal forces of new govern- 

 ment and new circumstances, which con- 

 tinually act upon us, — and, above all, at 

 the mighty vital force of the Yankee con- 

 stitution, which every year swallows hun- 

 dreds of thousands of foreigners, and di- 

 gests them all ; no one can look reflect- 

 ingly on all this, and not see that there is 

 a national type, which will prevail over all 

 the complexity, which various origin, foreign 

 manners, and diflferent religions bring to 

 our shores. 



The English are, perhaps, the most dis- 



