Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/144

travelling that nothing of the sort existed. Roughly, one might sum the difference up in a phrase by saying that France presents a peasant's landscape, England a landlord's. In England you see twenty good country houses for every one you pass in France—excepting only the district of the Loire; and outdoor life as we know it, on the road and on the river, doesn't seem to exist over here. Somehow I was never so much struck with this contrast before, though I know this country almost as well as I know my hat. Think of the English roads and lanes, of the pretty girls and decent men one meets on horseback or in smart dogcarts, the dowagers in victorias, the crowds of cyclists, the occasional fine motor-car, knickerbockered men walking for the pleasure of exercise! Here, though one knows there are more motors than at home, one rarely comes across them out of towns; and as for ladies and gentlemen, or, indeed, any sort of people out solely for enjoyment, they're as rare as black opals. I look in vain for pretty field paths and rural lanes, where workmen and their sweethearts wander when the day is done. I suppose they prefer to do their love-making indoors or in front of a café, or perhaps they sandwich it in with their long hours of work, and that is the reason why the whole of France seems so much more cultivated than country England—the reason why every acre is turned to account, not a square yard of earth left untilled. It's only the magnificent roads which aren't enough appreciated, apparently, by the "nobility and gentry," as the tradesmen's circulars have it. And what roads the Routes Nationales are