A gentleman of our acquaintances dined at a table d'Hote, where the
company were annoyed by a very uncommon and offensive smell. On cutting
up a fowl, they discovered the smell to have been occasioned by its being
dressed with out any other preparation than that of depluming. They
immediately sent for the host, and told him, that the fowl had been
dressed without having been drawn: but, far from appearing disconcerted,
as one might expect, he only replied, _"Cela se pourroit bien,
Monsieur."_ ["'Tis very possible, Sir."] Now an English Boniface, even
though he had already made his fortune, would have been mortified at such
an incident, and all his eloquence would scarcely have produced an
unfaultering apology.
Whether this national indifference originate in a physical or a moral
cause, from an obtuseness in their corporeal formation or a perfection in
their intellectual one, I do not pretend to decide; but whatever be the
cause, the effect is enjoyed with great modesty. So little do the French
pique themselves on this valuable stoicism, that they acknowledge being
more subject to that human weakness called feeling, than any other people
in the world. All their writers abound in pathetic exclamations,
sentimental phrases, and allusions to "la sensibilite Francaise," as
though they imagined it proverbial. You can scarcely hold a conversation
with a Frenchman without hearing him detail, with an expression of
feature not always analogous, many very affecting sentences.
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