We stopped several times on the journey--I remember a puncture,
involving a couple of hours' delay, somewhere north of Beauvais--and
found ourselves talking in small hot rooms with peasant families of all
ages and stages, from the blind old grandmother, like a brooding Fate in
the background, to the last toddling baby. How friendly they were, in
their own self-respecting way!--the grave-faced elder women, the young
wives, the children. The strength of the _family_ in France seems to me
still overwhelming--would we had more of it left in England! The
prevailing effect was of women everywhere _carrying on_--making no
parade of it, being indeed accustomed to work, and familiar with every
detail of the land; having merely added the tasks of their husbands and
sons to their own, and asking no praise for it. The dignity, the
essential refinement and intelligence--for all their homely speech--of
these solidly built, strong-faced women, in the central districts of
France, is still what it was when George Sand drew her Berri peasants,
nearly a hundred years ago.
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