They neither dress well, act well, speak well, nor
write well. They want style--they want elegance. What they have
to do they do in a straightforward manner, but without grace.
This was strikingly exhibited at an International Cattle
Exhibition held at Paris a few years ago. At the close of the
Exhibition, the competitors came up with the prize animals to
receive the prizes. First came a gay and gallant Spaniard, a
magnificent man, beautifully dressed, who received a prize of the
lowest class with an air and attitude that would have become a
grandee of the highest order. Then came Frenchmen and Italians,
full of grace, politeness, and CHIC--themselves elegantly
dressed, and their animals decorated to the horns with flowers and
coloured ribbons harmoniously blended. And last of all came the
exhibitor who was to receive the first prize--a slouching man,
plainly dressed, with a pair of farmer's gaiters on, and without
even a flower in his buttonhole. "Who is he?" asked the
spectators. "Why, he is the Englishman," was the reply. "The
Englishman!--that the representative of a great country!" was the
general exclamation. But it was the Englishman all over. He was
sent there, not to exhibit himself, but to show "the best beast,"
and he did it, carrying away the first prize. Yet he would have
been nothing the worse for the flower in his buttonhole.
To remedy this admitted defect of grace and want of artistic taste
in the English people, a school has sprung up amongst us for the
more general diffusion of fine art.
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