Maysville weekly bulletin. [volume] (Maysville, Ky.) 1864-1866, 1864-08-11
VOLUME 9 NUMBER 8
Men Who Talk Several Languages
In Blackwood's Magazine we find the

| Men Who Talk Several Languages
In BIackwood's Magazine we find the
following readable extract:
There are two classes of people not 1ittls
thought of and even caressed in society,
and for whom have ever felt a very hum =
bic estimate-the men who play all man
ner of games and the men who speak sew
eral languages. I begin with the latter
and declare that after a somewhat varied
experience of life, never met linguist
that was above a third rate man; and I go
further, and aver that I never chanced up
on really able man who had the talent for
languages. am well aware that 1t sounds
something little sh ort of q hersesy to make
this declaration. It is enough to make the
blood of Civil Service Comm issioners run
cold to hear it. It sound illibsral, aud
worse, it seems illogical. Why should any
intellectual development imply deicienoy9
Why should an requirement argue dsfectF
answer, I don't know, any more than 1
know why sangaineous people are hot
tempered and leuco- -phlegmatic ones mor6
broodiug In their wrath. If-for do not
ask to be anything niger than empirical-if
find that psrsimonious people have gener-
ally thin noses, and that the snub is associ-
ated with the spendthrift, I never trouble
myself with the demonstration, but I hug
the fact and endeavor to apply it.
In the same spirit, If hear man in q
salon change from French to German, and
thence diverge into italian and Spauisbs
with possibly brief excursion into sonne-
thing scandinavian, or Scalv at home in
each and ALL would no more think of as
sociating him in my mind with any thing
responsible in station or commanding re-
sponsible ia station or commanding in INTEL
l.. Al. IL ip6~ of Ntfp
servant that announced me with the last
brilliant paper in the Quarterly. No man
with strongly marked identify-and no
able man ever existed without such-can
subordinate that identity SO far as as to put
on the foreigner; and without this he never
can attain that mastery of foreign Lam
guage that makes thelinguist. To be able
to repeat conventionalities- them
in at the telling nom ent, adjusting phrases
to en- mergeucies, as joiner adapts the pieces
of wood to his carpentry-may be, and is, .
very neat and very dexterous performance,
but it is scarcely the exercise to which q
large capacity will address itself.
Imitation must be, in one sense or othefs
the stronghold of the linguist-imtation of
expression, of style, of accent, or cadence,
of tone. The linguist must not merely
master grammer. but he must manage gut-
sim ulating expression 1t must affect the SEM
timent. You are not merely borrowing the
clothes, but you are pretending to put on
the feelings, the thoughts, the prejudices of
the wearer Now, what man, with alstrong
! nature, can merge himself SO entirely in his
fictitious being as not to. burst the seams and
tear the lining of a garment that only i'm
pedes the free action of his respiration?-
1t is not merely by their greater adaptive
ness that women are better linguists than
men; it is by their more delicate organiza-
ton, their more subdued identity, and their
less obstreperous temperaments, which are,
consequently. less redoleut of the one in
dividual self. And what is it that makes
the men of mark or note, the cognate signs
of human algebra, but these same characters
istics; not always good, not always genial,
but always associated with something that
declares pre-eminence, and pronounces
their owner to be representative man?
When Lord Ward replied to Primes
Schwartzenberg's fippant remark on the
bad French of English diplomatists by the
| advantage of having our capital cities so
often occupied by French troops as some of
our neighbors,' he uttered not merely a
smart epigram but great philosophical truth
| 1t was not alone that we had not possessed
the opportunity to pick up an accent, but
hat we had not subordinated our minds and
habits to French modes and ways of
thought, and that the tone and temper Of
the French people had not bean beaten In
to use by the roll of French drum. One
may buy au accomplishment too dearly. It
is possible to pay too much even for Par
isian pronunciation. Not only have new
er found linguist mau of eminence, out
ave never seen linguist who talked well.
Fluent they are, OF course. Like the
Stecknadel gun of the Prussians, they can
fire without cessation; but like the same
weapon, they are comparatively aimless--
| 1t is a fsu roulant, with plenty of noise and
some smoke, but very few casualties' an.
nounced the success.
The greatest linguist of modern Europe,
Mezzofanti, was q most inferior man. OF
the countries whose dialect he spoke to per.
feciion he knew nothing An old dictionS
ary would have been to the full az com :
panionable. l find it very hard not to be
| personal just now, and give list--it would
be long ons-of all the tiresome people
know, who talk four, Eve, some of them six.
modern languages perfectly. It IL only
with an effort abstain from mentioning
the Dame of some we'll known men, who
are the charming people at Rome and Vi
emma every Winter, aud each Summer are
the delight of Ems, Of Berlin, and OF Ischi.
What tyrants the fellows are too, over the
men who have not got their gift of tonguesl
How;they out-talk them and overbsar them!
With What an insoleut confidence they fall
back upon the pretty superioritp of their in.
huency, and lord it ever those who are im<
measurably their mastersI Just as Bloudin
light run along the rigging of thres-
decker, and pretend that his agility entitled
/ him to command q squadron.