THE FRENCH PEOPLE
A STURDY SPIRIT. My business is to give my testimony to the magnificent spirit of the French people in this extraordinary upheaval of all their customs and ways of living. They are far graver than in 1914, says Mr Sisley Huddleston, an American journalist long resident in France, writing in the Contemporary Review. They remember what war means—its hideous toll of human life, of human liberty, of human decency, of human civilisation. And they have no illusions about the future. It seems highly probable that we must not expect ever again to return to the conditions we have known. Everything is in the melting-pot and what will come out of it can hardly be guessed. But this is sure: That the French people who, from time to time, seem to incur the reproach of frivolity and irresponsibility, are in reality the most sober and the most courageous people in Europe. Nowhere do I hear complaints or vain repinings. Everywhere there is a determination to adapt themselves to the new conditions, and to do whatever is conceived to be their duty. Such a people, with such a spirit, cannot disappoint the hopes we try to retain in the destiny of mankind.
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 December 1939, Page 3
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203THE FRENCH PEOPLE Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 December 1939, Page 3
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