THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



349 



OVER THE COFFEE CUPS IN NORTHERN FRANCE 



"It was the French woman's faith in small savings that rescued her country after the 

 war of 1870, when vast horded wealth was willingly brought forth to pay the enormous 

 national debt, and the same faith made it possible for France to preserve herself and the 

 world during the world war." 



joy themselves more thoroughly while 

 they are about it." 



Frugal, almost parsimonious, in their 

 spending of a sou, how do they obtain all 

 this pleasure ? Our American conception 

 of a good time, I fear, too often consists 

 in spending a huge amount of money, in 

 rushing madly hither and thither from 

 this theater to that, from roof garden to 

 summer resort, from ball to masquerade. 



Your Frenchman, however, has a to- 

 tally different conception of a good time. 

 To him the society of his fellow-men is 

 a source of exquisite and eternal pleasure. 



Belonging to a people of infinite social 

 capacity, a people in whom the social in- 

 stinct is inherent and ancient, he has 

 made fellowship an art of which he alone 

 is the master. "Since there has been a 

 France at all," says Brownell in his 

 French Traits, "France has embodied the 

 social instinct." 



To neglect the art of making friends, 

 of making oneself agreeable to those one 



meets, of making oneself nothing short 

 of charming as a conversationalist, is to 

 a Frenchman nothing short of domestic, 

 commercial, and political suicide. 



In short, the French have long since 

 learned, what we Americans are simply 

 beginning to learn, that social accomplish- 

 ments should be purposely and purpose- 

 fully exercised, and are a valuable part of 

 life's equipment for the truly successful 

 man. 



LENDING GRACE TO THE HARDSHIPS OF 

 LIFE 



How adaptable is this social quality of 

 the French ! How it makes pleasant the 

 rough road of life ! It lends a personal 

 grace not only to the necessities, but even 

 to the very hardships, of life. 



During this war I have taken dinner 

 in French families where the bread was 

 distressingly scarce and pitiably poor, the 

 sugar limited to one cube per individual, 

 butter entirely absent, and the quantity 



