Pleased for Punch

Thursday, February 25th., Rue de Calais, Paris.

I worked nearly all day yesterday, till 11 p.m. This singular industry is becoming monotonous.

Reading "Notes sur Angleterre" last night - a wonderful book - I was amused by Taine's noting young Englishmen sleeping with open windows in winter as a sign of primitivism, a sort of healthy reversion to original type. I think myself it is more talked of than done, though it may feature in public schools where masochism is part of the curriculum. I went to a school which aped public schools in many ways - fagging, prefects, latin school song, that sort of thing - but shied away from those so-called 'character forming' aspects of public school life. Taine's remarks on Punch are extremely clever and ingenious, in the way of finding the very roots of our national character in that periodical. Punch will always be able to say that Taine gave three pages to praising it.