namely, that the business of life is mainly carried on by
means of this difficult art of literature, and according to a
man's proficiency in that art shall be the freedom and the
fulness of his intercourse with other men. Anybody, it is
supposed, can say what he means; and, in spite of their
notorious experience to the contrary, people so continue to
suppose. Now, I simply open the last book I have been reading
- Mr. Leland's captivating ENGLISH GIPSIES. "It is said," I
find on p. 7, "that those who can converse with Irish peasants
in their own native tongue form far higher opinions of their
appreciation of the beautiful, and of THE ELEMENTS OF HUMOUR
AND PATHOS IN THEIR HEARTS, than do those who know their
thoughts only through the medium of English. I know from my
own observations that this is quite the case with the Indians
of North America, and it is unquestionably so with the gipsy."
In short, where a man has not a full possession of the
language, the most important, because the most amiable,
qualities of his nature have to lie buried and fallow; for the
pleasure of comradeship, and the intellectual part of love,
rest upon these very "elements of humour and pathos." Here is
a man opulent in both, and for lack of a medium he can put
none of it out to interest in the market of affection! But
what is thus made plain to our apprehensions in the case of a
foreign language is partially true even with the tongue we
learned in childhood. Indeed, we all speak different
dialects; one shall be copious and exact, another loose and
meagre; but the speech of the ideal talker shall correspond
and fit upon the truth of fact - not clumsily, obscuring
lineaments, like a mantle, but cleanly adhering, like an
athlete's skin. And what is the result? That the one can