358 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



A GROUP OF ARTISTS IN A P.OIIEMIAN CAPE 



Photograph by H. C. Ellis 

 PARIS 



The poet, Paul Fort (front row, second from the right), has just finished reciting one of 

 his own compositions and seems well satisfied with himself ' 



This worship of reason, this desire for 

 precision and clearness, this regard for 

 method and established procedure, has 

 caused in business and governmental ac- 

 tivities a curiously encumbering effect. 



The profound faith prevalent in France 

 in ticketing, labeling, and filing has led to 

 what a British observer,, Barker, has 

 called ''the plague of petits papicrs." In- 

 deed, he continued, "one is administered 

 in France from the cradle to the grave, 

 and sometime afterwards." 



The mass of administrative machinery 

 in many fields is astounding, even to an 

 American, and the French themselves 

 grin sarcastically, but patiently, over the 

 amount of sheets, tickets, tags, and gen- 

 eral red tape connected with the most 

 ordinary activities of governmental life. 



thsir reverence for conventions 



Nor is this profound regard for method 

 and established procedure limited to af- 

 fairs of government ; it permeates all so- 



ciety and may be seen in the reverent at- 

 titude toward conventions and in a sort 

 of social slavery toward petty observances 

 handed down from the remote past. To 

 an American, scornful of traditions, it 

 is almost beyond understanding — this do- 

 ing a thing generation after generation 

 simply because it has long been the cus- 

 tom to do the thing. . 



Naturally this close attention to method 

 in daily life causes a reflex action upon 

 all the mental processes of the French. 

 Their constant regard for form and clear- 

 ness has fostered a genuine passion for 

 arranging, modifying, and combining all 

 things symmetrically. 



Revealed in their formal gardens, the 

 exact balance found in their architecture 

 and sculpture, their careful attention to 

 exactness in musical counterpoint, and 

 their orderliness in writing, this idea of 

 form impresses itself upon the visitor 

 wherever he turns. The explicitness, the 

 certainty, the conformity to established 



