"Admirably?" cried he, "well, yes, he does ... like the rest of us."
This is a truly French retort.
⁂
Jealousy is the commonest and most characteristic failing of the French.
With us, jealousy is not only the stamp of mediocrity, as it is everywhere else; it is a malady that our greatest men have been tainted with. The acrimonious and contemptible polemic that Bossuet and Fénelon engaged in, the implacable hatred of Voltaire toward Rousseau, are but two instances of it; the history of French literature abounds with others. Our Parisian newspapers are daily filled with polemics and personalities.
In England, everyone minds his own business, and does not trouble himself about what his neighbor says or does.
⁂
May I be allowed to make another comparison here?
If the Englishman is less jealous than the Frenchman of the success of his fellow-creature, it is because he often does not attribute it to the same causes.
The Englishman maintains, rightly or wrongly, that a man owes his successes far more to his character than to his talent. If I am not mistaken, it was Thomas Carlyle who laid down this rule of British philosophy.