HOMEWARD BOUND 45 



habitually conversing in the higher ranks of society, 

 and which is the diametrical opposite of that protracted 

 style of disquisition "which squires call potter and 

 which men call prose." ' ] 



Guizot places France at the head of European 

 civilisation, because it is superior to Germany in social 

 civilisation, and to England in producing more enlarged 

 and advanced individual minds. Dr. Arnold considers 

 this to a certain degree well founded. Foreigners say 

 our insular position cramps and narrows our minds; 

 1 and this is not nonsense either,' says Arnold, who, 

 however, justly places a Christian, manly, and enlight- 

 ened English gentleman as a finer specimen of human 

 nature than any other country can furnish, or even con- 

 ceive. Gibbon says : ' We may say what we please of 

 the frivolity of the French ; but I do assure you that, in 

 a fortnight passed at Paris, I have heard more conversa- 

 tion worth remembering, and seen more men of letters 

 among the people of fashion, than I had done in two 

 or three winters in London.' It so much depends upon 

 what one considers to be frivolity. Voltaire classed the 

 collection of butterflies among the other * bizarreries de 

 1'esprit humain.' We are not used to classify naturalists 

 among the frivolous people. We place Voltaire himself 

 at the head of the frivolous people, who trifle with all 

 truths until they consider truth itself to be a trifle. 

 * The philosophy of Voltaire and his tribe exhilarates 

 and fills us with glorifying for a season the comfort of 

 1 Scott. 



