The Argosy — page 156: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Fair Normandy. 139 thing is in keeping. The houses are old and dirty and very quaint; so are the buyers and sellers. Many of them look like ancient Jews, and probably are so. ‘The whole scene in its con- stant movement, animation, shouting and gesticulation is bewil- dering, but full of interest. It is good to watch it from a little distance; from outside the charmed circle as it were. An old Jew that might be Fagin, and an old crone that might have been Charlotte in her younger days, are bargaining over a stale fish. On both sides nose and chin meet, and the hands pointing to the object of dispute are bony and long and claw-like, like those of a miser. At length matters are adjusted, and Fagin departs with his coveted prize. It is all quite as entertaining as aplay or a pantomime; and it is full of human interest, though the humanity is of the lowest order. Even the artistic element 1s not wanting. Every house bears its charmed impression ; what the French would call its cachet, both in face and outline. These have not been altered or destroyed. The ruthless march of progress has not yet come so far. But it will do so one day, and sweep away all this wealth and treasure without a moment’s pause, without regret. Modern civilization has no love for the antique or the artistic. Everything must give place to the thirst for gold. The people are not quaint in the way of costume. Very little of this is seen in any part of Rouen. It is unfortunately dying out very much all through Normandy. And as the costumes of a country always form one of its most interesting and distinguishing features: so that we can never separate the impression they make upon us from our recollection of its hills and valleys and streams, its highways and byways: this is infinitely to be regretted. It is wonderful how much costume adds to the attractiveness of a people. A face that will look pretty, almost beautiful, under a quaint Nor- mandy head-dress, appears quite commonplace, loses all its charm, when exposed to the trying ordeal of the wonderful and fearful con- structions of the latter day milliners. Let anyone come straight back to England from one of the remote Normandy or Brittany villages, where costume may still be found—such as Ploermel, for instance— and how tame and commonplace and unpoetical and unromantic (we might multiply adjectives) will the English seem in comparison. The effect is in no slight degree depressing. But the inheritors of ancient costume are not aware of their privileges; or they are in- different to them; or else the love of change is stronger in the human heart even than vanity itself. And so here again the admirable traces of the middle ages are fast dying out. I lately spoke of Rouen Cathedral, its beauties internal and external; but there is a second church that contests the palm of superiority with her: the Church of St. Quen. I shall not easily forget it as we first saw it. Walking up the modern, and, therefore COnniclooolkks (SO) im