Home Life in France (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from Home Life in France The first turning of a French door-handle is symbolic. Just as we lower the knob to the left, our neighbours raise it to the right, so we may safely take it for granted that everything done across the water is performed after a fashion directly contrary to our own. Domestic arrangements, social usages, rules of etiquette are pleasantly criss-cross, divertingly unfamiliar, neither more nor less than antipodal. Twenty-four hours spent under a French roof may be described as a perpetual process of dishabituation. The merest bagatelle is invested with novelty. Unaccustomed ways and surroundings make it difficult to believe that French and English are separated by an hour's sea journey only, that in clear weather France and England contemplate each other face to face. Nor on further acquaintance does this impression vanish. Many of our countrymen, like the late Mr. Hamerton, have made France their home. But in their case it is dissimilarity that fascinates. In the very least like the home left behind, a French fireside can never be. Let us begin with the guest-chamber of a well-appointed house. Our first notion is that a bed has just been put into a boudoir or drawing-room for our accommodation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.