You see I understand."
"I don't think I am unsympathetic, and the Arabs don't think it.
Perhaps there is no man in Africa who can travel as securely as I
can--even in the Soudan I should be well received--and what other
European could say as much? There must be something of the Arab in
me, otherwise I shouldn't have lived amongst them so long, nor
should I speak Arabic as easily as I do, nor should I look--remember,
you thought I was an Arab."
"Yes, at first sight."
The admission was given somewhat unwillingly, not because Owen saw
Beclere differently, he still saw an Arab exterior, but he had begun
to recognise him as a Frenchman. Race characteristics are generally
imaginary; there are, shall we say, twenty millions of Frenchmen in
France, and every one is different; how therefore is it possible to
speak of race characteristics? Still, if one may differentiate at
all between the French and English races (but is there a French and
English race?) we know there is a negro race because it is black--
however, if there be any difference between England and France, the
difference is that France is more inclined to pedantry than England.
If one admits any race difference, one may admit this one; and, with
such thoughts in his mind, Owen began to perceive Beclere as the
typical French pedagogue, a clever man, one who if he had remained
in Paris would have become _un membre de l'Institut_.
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