AS OTHERS SEE US

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 57, 30 May 1927, Page 7

AS OTHERS SEE US

FRENCHMAN’S VIEW OF BRITISH A WITTY ARTICLE M. Andre Marcis served through the Great War as a lieutenant in the French Army. Being well acquainted with English, he was attached as liaison officer to a British regiment. He afterwards wrote a perfectly delightful book about his experiences, and in it gave clever sketches of the British Army men with whom he was associated. The book is called “Les Silences du Colonel Bramble,” and is so much valued that it was proposed for introduction as a French reading book into New Zealand schools. M. Marois has just contributed an article to “Le Figaro,” in wnich he offers to the young Frenchman about to visit England the benefit of his experiences of “that difficult and mysterious country.” M. Maurois’s advice is on the whole similar to that which others of his countrymen have given before him. It is to persevere in seeking the Englishman’s friendship, for, once gained, it lasts; to dress like the Englishman, but not like the Englishman travelling on the Continent: to be modest in one's conduct and opinions. “HOLD YOUR TONGUE AND THEY’LL LIKE YOU” “When you have held your tongue for three years,” he says, “they wiU say of you that you are “a nice quiet chap,’ If you have crossed the Atlantic single-handed in an open boat, you may admit that you row a bit, but if you have written books, say nothing about them.” M. Maurois, like other Frenchmen, insists that intellectual attainments go for nothing in England, and warns his countrymen to beware of trusting to logic in order to convince an Englishman. “They rather distrust sound arguments; what they like is a policy which has stood the test of time, old maxims, ancient customs. If you want them to do something new, convince them that they have been dojng it for years.”