My collection of Englishmen would be utterly incomplete without a picture of my own personal specimen, my prize example, to whom alone I owe the pleasure of having met all these charming and delightful people : my husband who brought me to England five years ago.

He tells me he does not like the glint he can sometimes see in my eyes, and I fear he does not have an easy life with me. Here is the conclusion I have come to after long years of marriage :

He combines all the good qualities of the English – I would not have married him otherwise – with one or two not quite as pleasing features picked up, of course, during a spell of fourteen years on the continent.

This sentence, submitted to him for his approval, received the good English comment “it is probably true”.