"L'Histoire d'un Crime," of Victor Hugo, has so many of these touches as
to be, by a kind of reflex action, a very school of English. The whole
incident of the omnibus in that grave work has unconscious international
comedy. The Deputies seated in the interior of the omnibus had been, it
will be remembered, shut out of their Chamber by the perpetrator of the
Coup d'Etat, but each had his official scarf. Scarf--pish!--"l'echarpe!"
"Ceindre l'echarpe"--there is no real English equivalent. Civic
responsibility never was otherwise adequately expressed. An indignant
deputy passed his scarf through the window of the omnibus, as an appeal
to the public, "et l'agita." It is a pity that the French reader, having
no simpler word, is not in a position to understand the slight burlesque.
Nay, the mere word "public," spoken with this peculiar French good faith,
has for us I know not what untransferable gravity.

There is, in short, a general international counterchange. It is
altogether in accordance with our actual state of civilization, with its
extremely "specialized" manner of industry, that one people should make a
phrase, and another should have and enjoy it. And, in fact, there are
certain French authors to whom should be secured the use of the literary
German whereof Germans, and German women in particular, ought with all
severity to be deprived. For Germans often tell you of words in their
own tongue that are untranslatable; and accordingly they should not be
translated, but given over in their own conditions, unaltered, into safer
hands. There would be a clearing of the outlines of German ideas, a
better order in the phrase; the possessors of an alien word, with the
thought it secures, would find also their advantage.

So with French humour. It is expressly and signally for English ears. It
is so even in the commonest farce. The unfortunate householder, for
example, who is persuaded to keep walking in the conservatory "pour