Read "With the French in France and Salonika" by Richard Harding Davis online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
AMIENS, October, 1915.
In England it is "business as usual"; in France it is "war as usual. " The English tradesman can assure his customers that with such an "old-established" firm as his not even war can interfere; but France, with war actually on her soil, has gone further and has accepted war as part of her daily life. She has not merely swallowed, but digested it. It is like the line in Pinero's play, where one woman says she cannot go to the opera because of her neuralgia. Her friend replies: "You can have neuralgia in my box as well as anywhere else. " In that spirit France has accepted the war. The neuralgia may hurt, but she does not take to her bed and groan. Instead, she smiles cheerfully and goes about her duties -- even sits in her box at the opera.