Note 118a — LETTERS OF EDWARD FITZGERALD (continued 2)

Ten years before, Nov. 2, 1860, FitzGerald wrote to his old friend, the late Mr. W. E. Crowfoot of Beccles: ‘I have been reading with interest some French Memoirs towards the end of the last century: when the French were a cheerful, ingenious, witty, trifling people; they had not yet tasted of the Blood of the Revolution, which really seems to me to have altered their character. The modern French Novels exhibit Vengeance as a moving Virtue: even toward one another: can we suppose they think less well of it towards us? In this respect they are really the most barbarous People of Europe.