It is difficult to admonish Frenchmen. Their habit of mind is unfavorable to preachment.
It is impossible to withhold education from the receptive mind, as it is impossible to force it upon the unreasoning.
When the contemplative mind is a French mind, it is content, for the most part, to contemplate France. When the contemplative mind is an English mind, it is liable to be seized at any moment by an importunate desire to contemplate Morocco or Labrador.
The essence of humor is that it should be unexpected, that it should embody an element of surprise, that it should startle us out of that reasonable gravity which, after all, must be our habitual frame of mind.