"But you will find the authority of France is greater
than you! There are cells, M'sieur, there are courts, there are
judges for your education!!!"
Matters were apparently growing serious for me. I had evidently
offended them all desperately somehow. "You go out in the morning,"
he continued, furiously, "and you do not slink back here till it is
dark! You are a coward, M'sieur! a coward!"
No Englishman likes hearing himself abused, and my own anger now was
considerably roused. But still, in my way about life, I have found
the inestimable value of conciliation. It saves one such an infinity
of trouble. I suppose I lean naturally towards it. At any rate, I
always feel this--that if you have not the power on your side it is
undignified to assume that which you cannot enforce, and if you have
the power you can then afford to be civil.
A pleasant manner has never once failed me in bringing about an
effect which is highly convenient to oneself, and in the long run it
spares one's vanity considerably. There is hardly any human being,
however aggressive he may be at first, that does not melt into
respect before an imperturbable civility. I felt in this case, too,
that I was probably in the wrong from their point of view. It was
the question of another country's ways, and I have a lenient feeling
towards the epichortyon.
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