Pelham (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781481860079)

Excerpt: ...not fail to go there as often as possible. Pay your court in particular to Lady-She is a charming person, universally popular, and one of the very few English people to whom one may safely be civil. Apropos, of English civility, you have, I hope, by this time discovered, that you have to assume a very different manner with French people than with our own countrymen: with us, the least appearance of feeling or enthusiasm is certain to be ridiculed every where; but in France, you may venture to seem not quite devoid of all natural sentiments: indeed, if you affect enthusiasm, they will give you credit for genius, and they will place all the qualities of the heart to the account of the head. You know that in England, if you seem desirous of a person's acquaintance you are sure to lose it; they imagine you have some design upon their wives or their dinners; but in France you can never lose by politeness: nobody will call your civility forwardness and pushing. If the Princess De T-, and the Duchesse de D-, ask you to their houses (which indeed they will, directly you have left your letters), go there two or three times a week, if only for a few minutes in the evening. It is very hard to be acquainted with great French people, but when you are, it is your own fault if you are not intimate with them. "Most English people have a kind of diffidence and scruple at calling in the evening-this is perfectly misplaced: the French are never ashamed of themselves, like us, whose persons, families, and houses are never fit to be seen, unless they are dressed out for a party. "Don't imagine that the ease of French manners is at all like what we call ease: you must not lounge on your chair-nor put your feet upon a stool-nor forget yourself for one single moment when you are talking with women. "You have heard a great deal about the gallantries of the French ladies; but remember that they demand infinitely greater attention than English women do; and that...

Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton
ISBN-10: 1481860070
ISBN-13: 9781481860079
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Language: English
Published: 12/28/2012
Pages: 408
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.31lbs
Size: 9.02h x 5.98w x 0.91d