French Bedding.
The French are very careful about the cleanliness of their bedding. I have often in my travels slept in very poor country inns, but was always sure of clean, if coarse, sheets, as well as a clean table-cloth and napkin.
English and French Water-closets.
French Neglect.
The English are incomparably superior to the French in their care and cleanliness about water-closets and everything of that kind. French incompetence, stupidity, and neglect of this matter are indefensible. The only possible explanation is that when people have once got into the habit of neglecting any particular thing the habit of neglect becomes fixed, even when it is attended by great inconvenience. To borrow an illustration from a pleasanter subject, I may observe that many French farmers, and, I believe, more Irish, have a fixed habit of neglecting the repair of harness except with bits of string. Certainly, in the better class of French houses, an attempt is made to keep the water-closet in order; but as it has always been badly organised at the beginning this is very difficult. The French might learn all about these inventions from the English, who thoroughly understand them.
Comfort of Moderate Dirtiness.
The Poor Man’s Under-Shirt.
In conclusion, France and England may be ranked amongst the tolerably clean nations, England taking the lead; but real cleanliness is not general in either. What there is of it is confined to limited classes, and anything like an ideal perfection of cleanliness is the peculiarity of individuals who have a natural genius for it and find a pleasure in it. The majority prefer a moderate degree of dirtiness as being more conducive to their true comfort. A certain English poet used to wear a dirty shirt for comfort, and a clean one over it for show. That exactly represents the feelings of ordinary mankind, who have no objection to a little cleanliness in deference to custom, provided that it is only external, and that they may have the satisfactions of dirt beneath, like a cherished secret sin under a mantle of piety. As for the really poor, who are miserably clad, it has been pointed out by Mr. Galton that dirt is a necessity for them in cold weather; it is the poor man’s under-shirt.
CHAPTER VII
COURAGE
Seeming Decline in National Courage.