Middletown transcript., 1881-06-24
USE SHORT WORDS AND ENGLISH
ONES.
Prepared and read by William E.
Wright, Esq. before the irving Lyeeum
of Middletown, Del.
lCoNCLrDEn.l

OF MIddlet0Wn, Del.
CONCLUDED.
That there are delicate uses Of Ian
guage, happy expressions of sentiments
and passions in other idioms, superior
to similar ones in our own, cannot be
denied. And upon befitting occasions,
a judicious employment of these is
profitable.
All languages have points of superb
ority in these respects, each in its own
Characteristic way
Thus might not our expressive word
home be with much advantage intro
duced into those Latin tongues in
which it is strangely wanting, and for
lack of which, it may be, their ciyiliza-
tion has suffered Home, that has
been defined the "refuge of our life, =
that is indeed the nearer Heaven, and
dearer because more near. Can the
sentiment that intends nothing more
than the structure which mans own
art has builded for the body's ease and
safety, can this poor thing Of lath and
brick supply the use of that diviner
temple unseen, sacred home, that shell
ters mans soul. and saves his better
part from destruction ? And vet in
italian, Spanish and French they seem
to lack this noble conception, since they
render our word home by house, =
though the Spanish at least, use poetic
word approaching the idea, hogar,
hearth.
Princes in their own right i'll the
culinary realm, though they be, the
French, have nevertheless, borrowed
the English ''beef steak, = as also have
the Spanish and Italian cooks, as the
writer has found by experience. 1t
may be comforting to the American
traveller to know that if in almost any
strange land, he utter the cosmopolitan
word ''beef steak he can, at least,
stave off starvation till he learn enough
of the idiom to request more extended
diet. What English equivalent have
we to express that larger sort of home
sickness that one feels when wandering
in foreign lands that impels us to well
come the sight of even the cur, that
bit us in America ! and prompts us
extend a forgiving palm to its owner
whom at home, we hated, if possible,
more than his internal dog ! A passion
so deep that, as is well known, in India,
the Scotch pipers were forbidden to
play the plaintiye airs of old Scotland,
lest the soldiers should fill the hospitals
and desert in platoons for home.
Wait until you have felt it, and then
you will realize what the father-land
Spaniardsmean, by nostalgia,
which Webster nostalgia Or,
what word of ours 50 briefly tells the
several qualities that make up the
ehatty, yet little vulgar fellow, who
with coat as sleek as his own tongue.
when you have feed him, drones at
your elbow in the galleries of the
Louvre, of the Escurial or in the Sistine
useful cicerone ? What so
plainly points out that mixture of van
ty and art, as the borrowed dilettdnte,
he would be scientist who parts his
scented locks just in the middle of his
empty head, and sets out in full dress
% climb rugged Parnassus, on mule,
With six guides and Il basket Of cham
)agne
What a half page Of definition goes
o complete the diagnosis of that dis
Ease of the rich and lazy, ennui, that
of lassitude, WEAKNESS, and
lisgust, yet with something of bodily
disorder, that follows undue indulgence
n cloying sweets What would some
# the boudoir ladies do, who become
tired Of holding on to their
,wn arms (the waiting maid can't well
larry them if this handy little verbal
French grisette was not at hand to
liter their malady !? What short Of a
ecture will explain the phrase now
'ound i'll our books, en- rapport, that, |
more than hints at one of the latest as
,ertained, though not understood
agents, the psychic force Therefore,
hese words have long since become
laturalized American citizens. Some
lines, it may be warranted to quote a
,roverb in its own words, adding al
Ways translation-thus from the
spanish. The keys at the girdle and
he cat in the pantry g Las Uares en- Ia
inta q el cato en- Ia cocind. .
tits indeed sometimes necessary to cite
foreign author thus, especially in
works of a learned cast, but this fur
fishes no excuse whatever, for the silly
dSlllt'll ludlly WIll6IS VI CliNtl nave VI
eferring to the commonest objects and
ustoms of the country, in a strange
ongue.
Thus one of these fellows in doing
europe, dictionary and guide-book in
Iand, steps ashore at Calais and shortly
through the magazines the
announcement that he has
Mounted his cheval and "done" the
by moonlight.
Rushing into Spain, he is next heard
f bestriding his cdballo bri0S0 to climb
he Pyrenees come into Italy, his
questrian tastes lead him up Vesuvius,
lounted on his cdrdllo piccolo, this
ime, as per guide-book he goes next to
wallow Baden, and here, being a bit
lded from his literary labors, he takes
cool air on his crosses gferd-and the
leaning of it all is simply horse, horse
nd still horse, unless, indeed, is in
luded broad suggestion, in the tray-
ler himself of the long-eared quadru-
ed. Now all this is very cheap these
lriters are no linguists and wear their
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