Preface
up to the Medusa and the Sphinx with a cool
eye and a penetrating question.
It is an immense advantage to have the
primaeval forest as far behind one as these
clear-headed children of the Roman forum
and the Greek amphitheatre; and even if they
have lost something of the sensation "felt in
the blood and felt along the heart" with which
our obscurer past enriches us, it is assuredly
more useful for them to note the deficiency
than for us to criticise it.
The French are the most human of the hu-
man race, the most completely detached from
the lingering spell of the ancient shadowy
world in which trees and animals talked to
each other, and began the education of the
fumbling beast that was to deviate into Man.
They have used their longer experience and
their keener senses for the joy and enlighten-
ment of the races still agrope for self-expres-
sion. The faults of France are the faults in-
herent in an old and excessively self-contained
civilisation; her qualities are its qualities; and