"Many gentlemen," says an old English author, "coming to their lands
sooner than to their wits, adventure themselves to see the fashion of
other countries; whence they see the world, as Adam had knowledge of
good and evil, with the loss or lessening of their estate in this
English Paradise; and bring home a few smattering terms, flattering
garbs, apish carriages, foppish fancies, foolish guises and disguises,
the vanities of neighbour nations."
* * * * *
The Spaniards are infinitely more careful than the French, and other
nations, in planting trees, and in taking care of them; for it rarely
happens, when a Spaniard eats fruit in a wood or in the open country,
that he does not set the stones or the pips; and thus in the whole of
their country an infinite number of fruit-trees of all kinds are found;
whereas, in the French quarters you meet with none--_Labat._
* * * * *