Page:French life in town and country (1917).djvu/209

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CHAPTER VII

HOME-LIFE IN FRANCE


There is no race on the face of the earth whose home-life is so enviable as that of the French. Both men and women bring the best of their qualities to the making and maintaining of this admirable domestic institution. It is, perhaps, too perfect, too wadded, for any people which may hold the theory that domestic happiness is an inferior ideal. It explains to us why the French are bad colonists, why initiative and enterprise are less developed here than in the regions of rougher interiors. The atmosphere of a French home is the most delightful I know. I cannot see why men and women should be expected willingly to tear themselves away from it in search of dubious prosperity and happiness among barbarians. After all, it seems to me that human happiness is as high an ideal as any of us can justly lay claim to; and if we want our own happiness we are pretty certain to want that of others, for the few who find their happiness in the misery of those

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