In the French-Flemish Country
'It is neither a bold nor a diversified country,' said I to myself, 'this country which is
three-quarters Flemish, and a quarter French; yet it has its attractions too. Though great
lines of railway traverse it, the trains leave it behind, and go puffing off to Paris and the
South, to Belgium and Germany, to the Northern Sea-Coast of France, and to England,
and merely smoke it a little in passing. Then I don't know it, and that is a good reason for
being here; and I can't pronounce half the long queer names I see inscribed over the
shops, and that is another good reason for being here, since I surely ought to learn how.'
In short, I was 'here,' and I wanted an excuse for not going away from here, and I made it
to my satisfaction, and stayed here.
What part in my decision was borne by Monsieur P. Salcy, is of no moment, though I
own to encountering that gentleman's name on a red bill on the wall, before I made up my
mind. Monsieur P. Salcy, 'par permission de M. le Maire,' had established his theatre in
the whitewashed Hotel de Ville, on the steps of which illustrious edifice I stood. And
Monsieur P. Salcy, privileged director of such theatre, situate in 'the first theatrical
arrondissement of the department of the North,' invited French-Flemish mankind to come
and partake of the intellectual banquet provided by his family of dramatic artists, fifteen
subjects in number. 'La Famille P. SALCY, composee d'artistes dramatiques, au nombre
de 15 sujets.'
Neither a bold nor a diversified country, I say again, and withal an untidy country, but
pleasant enough to ride in, when the paved roads over the flats and through the hollows,
are not too deep in black mud. A country so sparely inhabited, that I wonder where the
peasants who till and sow and reap the ground, can possibly dwell, and also by what
invisible balloons they are conveyed from their distant homes into the fields at sunrise
and back again at sunset. The occasional few poor cottages and farms in this region,
surely cannot afford shelter to the numbers necessary to the cultivation, albeit the work is
done so very deliberately, that on one long harvest day I have seen, in twelve miles, about
twice as many men and women (all told) reaping and binding. Yet have I seen more
cattle, more sheep, more pigs, and all in better case, than where there is purer French
spoken, and also better ricks - round swelling peg-top ricks, well thatched; not a
shapeless brown heap, like the toast of a Giant's toast-and-water, pinned to the earth with
one of the skewers out of his kitchen. A good custom they have about here, likewise, of
prolonging the sloping tiled roof of farm or cottage, so that it overhangs three or four feet,
carrying off the wet, and making a good drying-place wherein to hang up herbs, or
implements, or what not. A better custom than the popular one of keeping the refuse-heap
and puddle close before the house door: which, although I paint my dwelling never so
brightly blue (and it cannot be too blue for me, hereabouts), will bring fever inside my
door. Wonderful poultry of the French-Flemish country, why take the trouble to BE
poultry? Why not stop short at eggs in the rising generation, and die out and have done
with it? Parents of chickens have I seen this day, followed by their wretched young
families, scratching nothing out of the mud with an air - tottering about on legs so
scraggy and weak, that the valiant word drumsticks becomes a mockery when applied to
