this world who never had such a thing as an abstract idea, let us say
even of an apple, plumped suddenly at them--not once in all their
lives--and, when it came, the unphilosophical mind could no more grasp
it, than the gentleman mentioned by G. H. Lewes (History of Philosophy),
could grasp the idea of substance without attribute as presented by
Berkeley. The real Gipsy could talk about apples all day, but the sudden
demand for the unconnected word, staggers him--at least, until he has had
some practice in this, to him, new process. And it is so with other
races. Professor Max Muller once told me in conversation, as nearly as I
can recollect, that the Mohawk Indian language is extremely rich in
declension, every noun having some sixteen or seventeen inflexions of
case, but no nominative. One can express one's relations to a father to
a most extraordinary extent, among the dilapidated descendants of that
once powerful tribe. But such a thing as the abstract idea of _a_
father, or of 'father' _pur et simple_, never entered the Mohawk mind,
and this is very like the Gipsies.

When a rather wild Gipsy once gives you a word, it must be promptly
recorded, for a demand for its repetition at once confuses him. _On doit
saisir le mot echappe au Nomade, et ne pas l'obliger a le repeter, car il
le changera selon so, facon_, says Paspati. Unused to abstract efforts
of memory, all that he can retain is the sense of his last remark, and
very often this is changed with the fleeting second by some associated
thought, which materially modifies it. It is always difficult, in
consequence, to take down a story in the exact terms which a philologist
desires. There are two words for "bad" in English Gipsy, _wafro_ and
_vessavo_; and I think it must have taken me ten minutes one day to
learn, from a by no means dull gipsy, whether the latter word was known
to him, or if it were used at all. He got himself into a hopeless tangle
in trying to explain the difference between _wafro_ and _naflo_, or ill,