A person who has not studied German can form no idea of what a perplexing language it is.
Surely there is not another language that is so slipshod and system less, and so slippery and elusive to grasp. One is washed about in it, hither and thither, in the most helpless way; and when at last he thinks he has captured a rule which offers firm ground to take a rest on amid the general rage and turmoil of the ten parts of speech, he turns over the page and reads, "Let the pupil make careful note of the following exceptions."
For instance, my book inquires after a certain bird (it is always inquiring after things which are of no sort of consequence to anybody): "Where is the bird?" Now the answer to this question, according to the book is that the bird is waiting in the blacksmith shop on account of the rain. Of course no bird would do that, but then you must stick by the book. Very well, I begin to cipher out the German for the answer.
I begin at the wrong end, necessarily, for that is the German idea. I say to myself, "Regen (rain) is masculine, or maybe it is feminine, or possibly neuter-is is too much trouble to look now. There for, it is either der (the) Regen, or die (the) Regen, or das Regen, according to which gender it may turn out to be when I look. In the interest of science, I will cipher it out on the hypothesis that it is masculine.
Very well, then the rain is der Regen, if it is simply in the quiescent state of being mentioned, without enlargement or discussion- Nominitive case; but if this rain is lying around, in a general way on the ground, it is the definitely located, it is doing something, that is, resting (which is one of the German grammar's ideas of doing something), and this throws the rain into the Dative case, and makes it dem Regen.
However, this rain is not resting, but is doing something actively, it is falling, to interfere with the bird, likely, and this indicates movement, which has the effect of sliding it into Accusitive case and changing dem Regen into den Regen.
Having completed the grammatical horoscope of this matter, I answer up confidently and state in German that the bird is stating in the blacksmith shop "wegen (on account of) den Regen."
Then the teacher lets me softly down with the remark that whenever the word "wegen" drops into a sentence, it always throws the subject into the Genitive case, regardless of consequences, and that therefore the bird stays in the blacksmith shop "wegen des Regens."
N.B.-I was informed later, by a higher authority, that there was an "exception" which permitted one to say "wegen den Regen" in certain peculiar and complex circumstances, but that this exception is not extended to anything but rain.
The average sentence, in a german newspaper, is a sublime and impressive curiosity; it occupies a quarter of a column; it contains all ten parts of speech, not in regular order, but mixed; it is built mainly of compound words constructed by the writer on the spot, and not to be found in any dictionary-six or seven words compacted into one, without joint or seam, that is without hyphens; it treats of fourteen or fifteen different subjects, each inclosed in a parenthesis of its own, with here and there extra parentheses which rein close three or four of the minor parenthese, making pens within pens.
I suppose that this closing hurrah is in the nature of of the flourish to a man's signature, not necessary, but pretty.
German books are easy enough to read when you hold them before the looking-glass or stand on your heads so as to reverse the construction, but I think that to learn to read and understand a German newspaper is a thing which must always remain an impossibility to a foreigner.
Yet even the German books are not entirely free from the attacks of the parenthesis distemper, though they are usually so mild as to cover only a few lines, and therefore when you at lst get down to the verb if carries some meaning to your mind because you are able to remember a good deal of what has gone before.
Now here is a sentence from a popular and excellent German novel, with a slight parenthesis in it. I will make a perfectly literal translation, and throw in the parenthesis marks and some hyphens for the assistance of the reader, though in the original there are no parenthesis, marks or hyphens, and the reader is left to flounder through to the remote verb the best way he can:
"But when he, upon the street, the (in-satin-and-silk- covered-now- very-unconstrainably-after-the-newest-fashion- dressed) government counselor's wife met," etc., etc. (1)
That is from The Old Mamselle's Secret, by Mrs Marlitt. And that sentence is constructed upon the most approved German model. You observe how far that verb is from the reader's base of operations; well, in a German newspaper they put their verb away over on the next page; and I have heard that sometimes after stringing along on exciting preliminaries and parentheses for a column or two, they get in a hurry and have to go to press without getting to the verb at all.
Of course, then, the reader is left in a very exhausted and ignorant state.
The Germans have another kind of parenthesis, which they make by splitting a verb in two and putting half of it at the beginning of an exciting chapter and the other half at the end of it. Can any one conceive of anything more confusing than that? These things are called "separable verbs." The German grammar is blistered all over with seperable verbs; and the wider the two portions of one of them are spread apart, the better the author of the crime is pleased with his performance. A favorite one is "reiste ab-" which means departed.
Here is an example which I culled from a novel and reduced to English:
"the trunks being now ready, he DE-after kissing his mother and sisters, and once more pressing to his bosom his adored Gretchen, who, dressed in simple white muslim, with a single tuberose in the ample folds of her rich brown hair, had tottered feebly down the stairs, still pale from the terror and excitement of the past evening, but longing to lay her poor aching head yet once again upon the breast of him whom she loved more dearly than life itself, PARTED."
However, it is not well to dwell too much on separable verbs.
One is sure to lose his temper early; and if he sticks to the subject, and will not be warned, it will at last either soften his brain or petrify it. Personal pronouns and adjectives are a fruitful nuisance in this language, and should have been left out. For instance, the same sound, sie, means you, and it means she, and it means her, and it means it, and it means they, and it means them.
Think of the ragged poverty of a language which has to make one word do the work of six, and a poor little weak thing of only three letters at that. But mainly, think of the exasperation of never knowing which of these meanings the speaker is trying to convey. This explains why, whenever a person says sie to me, I generally try to kill him, if a stranger.
Now observe the Adjective. Here is a case where simplicity would have been an advantage; therefore, for no other reason, the inventor of this language complicated it all he could. When we wish to speak of our "good friend or friends," in our enlightened tongue, we stick to one form and have no trouble or hard feelings about it; but with the German tongue it is different. When a german gets his hands on an adjective, he declines it, and keeps on declining it until the common sense is all declined out of it. It is as bad as Latin. He says, for instance:
SINGULAR : Nominative: Mein guter Freund, my good friend. Genitive: Meines guten Freundes, of my good friend. Dative: Meinem guten Freund, to my good friend. Accusative: Meinem guten Freund, my good friend.
PLURAL: N.- Meine guten Freunde, my good friends. G.- Meiner guten Freunde, of my good friends. D.- Meinen guten Freunden, to my good friends. A.- Meine guten Freunde, my good friends.
Now let the candidate for the asylum try to memorize those variations, and see how soon he will be elected. One might better go without friends in Germany than take all this trouble about them.
I have shown what a bother it is to decline a good (male) friend; well this is only a third of the work, for there is a variety of new distortions of the adjective to be learned when the object is feminine, and still another when the object is neuter. Now there are more adjectives in this language than there are black cats in switzerland, and they must all be elaborately declined as the examples above suggested. Difficult?-Troublesome?- these words cannot describe it.
The inventor of the German language seems to have taken pleasure in complicating it in every way he could think of.
For instance, if one is casually referring to a house, Haus or a horse, Pferd or a dog, Hund, he spells these words as I have indicated; but if he is referring to them in the Dative case, he sticks on a foolish and unnecessary e and spells them Hause, Pferde, Hunde.
So, as an added 'e' often signifies the plural, as the s does with us, the new student is likely to go on for a month making twins out of a Dative dog before he discovers his mistake; and on the other hand, many a new student who could ill afford the loss, has bought and payed for two dogs and only got one of them, because he ignorantly bought that dog in the Dative singular when he really supposed he was talking in the plural-which left the law on the seller's side, of course, by the strict rules of grammar, and therfore a suit for recovery could not lie.
In German, all nouns begin wth a capital letter. Now that is a good idea; and a good idea, in this language, is necessarily conspicuous because of its lonesomeness. I consider this capitalization of nouns a good idea, because by reason of it you are almost always able to tell a noun the minute you see it.
You fall into error occasionally, because you mistake the name of a person for the name of a thing, and waste a good deal of time trying to dig a meaning our of it.
German names almost always mean something, and this helps to deceive the student. I translated a passage one day, which said that "the infuriated tigress broke loose and utterly ate up the unfortunate fir forest" (Tannenwald). When I was girding up my loins to doubt this, I found out that Tannenwald in this instance was a man's name.
Every noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system in the distribution; so the gender of each must be learned seperately and by heart.
There is no other way. To do this one has to have a memory like a memorandum book. In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has.
Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what callous disrespect for the girl. See how it looks in print-I translate this from a conversation in one of the best of the German Sunday-school books:
"Gretchen.-Wilhelm, where is the turnip? "Wilhelm.-She has gone to the kitchen. "Gretchen.-Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden? "Wilhelm.-It has gone to the opera."
To continue with the German genders: a tree is male, its buds are female, its leaves are neuter; horses are sexles, dogs are male, cats are female-tomcats included, of course; a persons mouth, neck, bosom, elbows, fingers, nails, feet, and body are of the male sex, and his head is male or neuter according to the word selected to signify it, and not according to the sex of the individual who wears it-for in German all women wear either male heads or sexless ones, a person's nose, lips, sholders, breast, hands and toes are of the female sex; and his hair, ears, eyes, chin, legs, knees, heart and conscience haven't any sex at all.
In Germany it is true that by some oversight of the inventor of the language, a Woman is female; but a Wife (Weib) is not-which is unfortunate.
A Wive, here, has no sex; she is neuter; so, according to the grammar, a fish is a he, his scales are she, but a fishwife is neither. To describe a wife as sexless may be called under- description; that is bad enough, but over-description is surely worse.
A German speaks of an Englishman as an Engla(e)nder; to change the sex, he adds inn, and that stands for Englishwoman- Engla(e)nderinn.
That seems descriptive enough, but still it is not exact enough for a German; so he precedes the word with that article which indicates that the creature to follow is feminine, and writes it down thus: "die Engla(e)nderinn,"-which means "the she-Englishwoman." I consider that that person is over-described.
Well, after the student has learned the sex of a great number of nouns, he is still in a difficulty, because he finds it impossible to persuade his tongue to refer to things as "he" and "she", and "him" and "her", which it has been always accustomed to refer to as "it."
When he even frames a German sentence in his mind, with the hims and hers in the right places, and then works up the courage to the utterance- point, it is no use-the moment he begins to speak his tongue flies the track and all those labored males and females come out as "its."
And even when he is reading German to himself, he always calls those things "it," whereas he ought to read in this way:
TALE OF THE FISHWIFE AND ITS SAD FATE (2)
It is a bleak Day. Hear the Rain, how he pours, and the Hail, how he rattles; and see the Snow, how he drifts along, and oh the Mud, how deep he is!
Ah the poor Fishwife, it is stuck fast in the Mire; it has dropped its Basket of Fishes; and its Hands have been cut by the Scales as it seized some of the falling Creatures; and one Scale has even got in its Eye, and it cannot get her out.
It opens its Mouth to cry for Help; but if any Sound comes out of him, alas he is drowned by the raging of the Storm. And now a Tomcat had got one the Fishes and she will surely escape with him. No, she bites off a Fin, she holds her in her Mouth-will she swallow her? No, the Fishwife's brave Mother-dog deserts his P puppies and rescues the Fin-which he eats, himself, as his Reward.
O, horror, the Lightening had struck the Fish- basket; he sets him on Fire; see the Flame, how she licks the doomed utensil with her red and angry Tongue; now she attacks the helpless Fishwife's Foot-she burns him all up, all but the big Toe, and even she is partly consumed; and still she spreads, still she waves her fiery Tongues; she attacks the Fishwife's Leg and destroys it; she attacks the Hand and destroys her; she attacks its poor worn Garment and destroys her also; she attacks its Body and consumes him; she wreathes herself about its Heart and it is consumed; next about its Breast, and in a Moment she is a cinder; now she reaches its Neck-he goes; now its Chin-it goes; now its Nose-she goes.
There, now, the reader can see for himself that this pronoun business is a very awkward thing for the unaccustomed tongue.
There are some exceedingly useful words in this language. Schlag, for example; and Zug. There are three quarters of a column of Schlags in the dictionary, and a column and a half of Zugs.
The word Schlag means Blow, Stroke, Dash, Hit, Shock, Clap, Slap, Time, Bar, Coin, Stamp, Kind, Sort, Manner, Way, Apoplexy, Wood-cutting, Inclosure, Field, Forest-clearing. This is simple and exact meaning- that is to say, its restricted, its fettered meaning; but there are ways by which you can set it free, so that it can soar away, as on the wings of the morning and never be at rest.
You can hang any word you please to its tail, and make it mean anything you want to. You can begin with Shlag-ader, which means artery, and you can hang on the whole dictionary, word by word, clear through the alphabet to Schlag- wasser, which means bilge=water - and including Schlag-mutter, which means mother-in-law.
Just the same with Zug. Strictly speaking, Zug means Pull, Tug, Draught, Procession, March, Progress, Flight, Direction, Expedition, Train, Caravan, Passage, Stroke, Touch, Line, Flourish, Trait of Character, Feature, Lineament, Chess-move, Organ-stop, Team, Whiff, Bias, Drawer, Propensity, Inhalation, Disposition: but that thing which it does not mean-when all its legitimate pennants have been hung on, has not been discovered yet.
One cannot overestimate the usefulnes of Schlag and Zug. Armed just with these two, and the word Also, what cannot the foreigner on German soil accomplish? The German word Also is the equivalent of the English phrase "you know," and does not mean anything at all-in talk, though it sometimes does in print.
Every time a German opens his mouth an Also falls out; and every time he shuts it he bites one in two that was trying to get out.
Now, the foreigner, equipped with these three noble words, is the master of the situation.
Let him talk right along, fearlessly; let him pour his indifferent German forth, and when he lacks for a word, let him heave a Schlag into the vacuum; all the chances are that it fits it like a plug, but if it doesn't let him promptly heave a Zug after it; the two together can hardly fail to bung the hole; but if, by a miracle, they should fail, let him also simply say Also! and this will give him a moment's chance to think of the needful word. In Germany, when you load your conversational gun it is always best to throw in a Schlag or two and a Zug or two, because it doesn't make any difference how much the rest of the charge may scatter, you are bound to bag something with them. Then you blandly say Also, and load up again.
Nothing gives an air of grace and elegance and unconstraint to a German or an English conversation as to scatter it full of "Also's" or "You-knows."
In my note-book I find the entry:
July 1.-In the hospital yesterday, a word of thirteen syllables was successfully removed from a patient-a North German from near Hamburg; but as most unfortunately the surgeon had opened him in the wrong place, under the impression that he contained a panorama, he died. The sad event had cast a gloom over the whole community.
That paragraph furnishes a text for a few remarks about one of the most curious and notable features of my subject- the length of German words. Some German words are so long that they have a perspective.
Observe these examples:
Freundschaftbezeigungen. Dilettantenaufdringlichkeiten. Stadtverordnetenversammlungen.
These thinhgs are not words, they are alphabetical processions.
And they are not rare; one can open a German newspaper any time and see them marching majestically across the page-and if he has any imagination he can see the banners and heat the music, too. They impart a martial thrill to the meekest subject. I take a great interest in these curiosities.
Whenever I come across a good on, I stuff it and put it in my museum. In this way I have made quite a valuable collection.
When I get duplicates, I exchange with other collectors, and thus increase the variety of my stock. Here are some specimens which I lately bought at an auction sale of the effect of a bankrupt bric-a- brac hunter:
GENERALSTAATSVERORDNETENVERSAMMLUNGEN. ALTERTHUMSWISSENSCHAFTEN. KINDERBEWAHRUNGSANSTALTEN. UNABHAENGIGKEITSERKLAERUNGEN. WIEDERERSTELLUNGSBESTREBUNGEN. WAFFENSTILLSTANDSUNTERHANDLUNGEN.
Of course when one of these grand mountain ranges goes stretching across te printed page, it adorns and ennobles that literary landscape-but at the same time it is a great distress to the new student, for it blocks uphis way; he cannot crawl under it, or climb over it, or tunnel through it.
So he resorts to the dictionary for help, but there is no help there. The dictionary must draw the line somewhere- so it leaves this sort of word out. And it is right, because these long things are hardly legitimate words, but are rather combinations of words, and the inventor of them ought to have been killed.
They are compound words with the hyphen left out. The various words used in building them are in the dictionary, but in a very scattered condition, so you can hunt the materials out, one by one, and get at the meaning at last, but it is a tedious and harassing business.
I have tried this process upon some of the above examples.
"Freundschaftsbezeigungen" seems to be "friendship demonstrations," which is only a foolish and clumsy way of saying "demonstrations of friendship." "Unabhaengigkeitserklaerungen" seems to be "independencedeclarations," which is no improvement upon "Decalarations of independence," so far as I can see. "Generalstaatsverordnetenvsammlungen" seems to be "Generalstatesrepresentativesmeeting," as nearly as I can get at it-a mere rhythmical, gushy euphuism for "meetings of the legislature," I judge.
We used to have a good deal of this sort of crime in our literature, but it has gone out now. We used to speak of a thing as a "never-to-be-forgotten" circumstance, instead of cramping it into the simple and sufficient word "memorable" and then going calmly about our business as if nothing had happened.
In those days we were not content to embalm the thing and bury it decently, we wanted to build a monument over it.
I wish to submit the following local item, from a Mannheim journal, by way of illustration:
"In the daybeforeyesterdatshortlyaftereleveno'clock Night, the inthistownstandingtavern called "The Wagoner" was downburnt. When the fire to the onthedownburninghouseresting Stork's nest reached, flew the parent Storks away. But when the bytheraging, firesurrounded Nest itself caught Fire, straightaway plunged the quickreturning Motherstork into the flames and died, her wings over her young ones outspread."
Even the cumbersome German construction is not able to take the pathos out of the picture-indeed, it somehow seems to strengthen it. This item is dated away back yonder months ago.
I could have used it sooner, but I was waiting to hear from the Father-stork. I am still waiting.
"Also!" If I have not shown that the German is a difficult language, I have at least intended to do it. I have heard of an American student who was asked how he was getting along with his German, and who answered promptly: "I am not getting along at all. I have worked at it hard for three level months, and all I have got to show for it is one solitary German phrase-'Zwei glas'" (two glasses of beer). He paused a moment, reflectively; then added with feeling: "But I've got that solid!"
Having pointed out, in detail, the several vices of this language, I now come to the brief and pleasant task of pointing out its virtues.
The capitalizing of nouns I have already mentioned. But far before this virtue stands another-that of spelling a word according to the sound of it.
After one short lesson in the alphabet, the student can tell how any German word is pronounced without having to ask; whereas in our language if a student should enquire of us, "What does B, O, W, spell?" we should be obliged to reply, "Nobody can tell what it spells when you set it off by itself; you can only tell by referring to the context and finding out what it signifies-whether it is a thing to shoot arrows with, or a nod of one's head, or the forward end of a boat."
There are some German words which are singularly and powerfully effective. For instance, those which describe lowly, peaceful, and affectionate home life; those which deal with love, in any and all forms, from mere kindly feeling and honest good will toward the passing stranger, clear up to courtship; those which deal with outdoor Nature, in its softest and loveliest aspects-with meadows and forest, and birds and flowers, the fragrance and sunshine of summer, and the moonlight of peaceful winter nights; in a word, those which deal any and all forms of rest, repose and peace; those also which deal with the creatures and marvels of fairyland; and lastly and chiefly, in those words which express pathos, is the language surpassingly rich and effective.
There are German songs which can make a stranger to the language cry. That shows that the sound of the words is correct- it interprets the meaning with truth and with exactness; and so the ear is informed, and through the ear, the heart.
The Germans do not seem to be afraid to repeat a word when it is the right one. They repeat it several times, if they choose. That is wise.
But in English, when we have used a word a couple of times in a paragraph, we imagine we are growing tautological, and so we are weak enough to exchange it for some other word which only approximates exactness, to escape what we wrongly fancy is a greater blemish. Repetition may be bad, but surely inexactness is worse.
There are people in the world who will take a great deal of trouble to point out the faults in a religion or a language, and then go blandly about there business without suggesting any remedy.
I am not that kind of a person. I have shown that the German language needs reforming. Very well, I am ready to reform it, At least I am ready to make the proper suggestions. Such a course as this might be immodest in another; but I have devoted upward of nine full weeks, first and last, to a careful and critical study of this tongue, and thus have acquired a confidence in my ability to reform it when no mere superficial culture could have conferred upon me.
In the first place, I would leave out the Dative case. It confuses the plurals; and, besides, nobody ever knows when he is in the Dative case, except he discovers it by accident- and then he does not know when or where it was that he got into it, or how long he has been in it, or how ever going to get out of it again. The Dative case is but an ornamental folly-it is better to discard it.
In the next place, I would move the Verb further up to the front. You may load up with ever so good a Verb, but I notice that you never really bring down a subject with it at the present German range-you only cripple it.
So I insist that this important part of speech should be brought forward to a position where it may be easily seen with the naked eye.
Thirdly, I would import some strong words from the English tongue-to swear with, and also to use in describing all sorts of vigorous things in a vigorous way.(4)
Fourthly, I would reorganize the sexes, and distribute them according to the will of the creator. This as a tribute of respect, if nothing else.
Fifthly, I would do away with those great long compounded words; or require the speaker to deliver them in sections, with intermissions for refreshments.
Sixthly, I would require a speaker to stop when he is done, and not hang a string of those useless "haben sind gewesan gehabt haben geworden seins" to the end of his oration. This sort of gewgaws undignify a speech, instead of adding a grace. They are, therefore, and offense, and should be discarded.
Seventhly, I would discard the parenthesis. Also the reparenthesis, the re-reparenthesis and the re-re-re-re-re- reparenthesis, and likewise the final wide-reaching all- inclosing king-parenthesis. I would require every individual, be he high or low, to unfold a plain straightforward tale, or else coil it and sit on it and hold his peace. Infractions of this law should be punishable by death.
And eighthly, and last, I would retain Zug and Schlag, with their pendants, and discard the rest of the vocabulary. This would simplify the language.
I have now named what I regard as the most necessary and important changes. These are perhaps all I could be expected to name for nothing; but there are other suggestions which I can and will make in case mu proposed application whallresult in my being formally employed by the government ion the work of reforming the language.
My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to leatn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years. It seems manifest, then, that the latter tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is to remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it.
A FOURTH OF JULY ORATION IN THE GERMAN TONGUE, DELIVERED AT A BANQUET OF THE ANGLO-AMERICAN CLUB OF STUDENTS BY THE AUTHOR OF THIS BOOK
GENTLEMEN: Since I arrived, amonth ago, in this old wonderland, in this vast garden of Germany, my English tongue has so often proved a useless piece of baggage to me, and so troublesome to carry around, in a country where they haven't the checking system for luggage, that I finally set to work, last week, and learned the German language.
Also! Es freut mich dass dies so ist, denn es muss, in ein hauptsa(e)chlich degree, ho(e)flich sein, dass man auf ein occasion like this, sein Rede in die sprache des Landes worin he boards, aussprechen soll.
Dafu(e)r habe ich, aus reinische Verlegenheit-no, Vergangenheit-no I mean Ho(e)flichkeit-aus reinische Ho(e)flichkeit habe ich resolved to tackle this business in the German language, um Gottes willen! Also! Sie mussen so freundlich sein, und verzeih mich die interlarding von ein oder zwei Englischer Worte, hie und da, denn ich finde dass die deutsche is not a very copious language , and so when you've really got anything to say, you've got to draw on a language that can stand the strain.
Wenn aber man kann nicht meinem Rede verstehen, so werde ich ihm spa(e)ter dasselbe u(e)bersetz, wenn er solche Dienst verlangen wollen haben werden sollen sein ha(e)tte. (I don't know what wollen haben werden sollen sein ha(e)tte means, but I notice they always put it at the end of a German sentence- merely for general literary gorgeousness, I suppose.)
This is a great and justly honored day-a day which is worthy of the veneration in which it is held by the true patriots of all climes and nationalities-a day which offers a fruitful theme for thought and speech; und meinem Freunde-no, meinem Freunden-meines Freundes-well, take your choice, they're all the same price; I don't know which one is right- Also! ich habe gehabt haben worden gewesen sein, as Goethe says in his paradise lost-ich-ich-that is to say-ich-but let us change cars.
Also! Die Anblick so viele Grossbritanischer und Amerikanischer hier zusammengetroffen in Bruderliche concord, ist zwar a welcome and inspiriting spectacle. And what has moved you to it? Can the terse German tongue rise to expression of this impulse? Is it Freundschaftsbezeigungenstadtverordnetenversammlungen- familieneigenthu(e)mlichkeiten? Nein, o nein! This is a crisp and noble word, but it fails to pierce the marrow of the impulse which has gathered this friendly meeting and produces diese Anblick-eine Anblick welche is gut zu sehen- gut fu(e)r die Augen in a foreign land and a far country-eine Anblick solche als in die gewo(e)_hnliche Heidelberger phrase nennt man ein "scho(e)nes Aussicht!" Ja, freilich natu(e)rlich wahrscheinlich ebensowohl!
Also! Die Aussicht auf dem Ko(e)nigsstuhl mehr gro(e)sserer ist, aber geistlische sprechend nicht so scho(e)n, lob' Gott! Because sie sind hier zusammengetroffen, in Bruderlichem concord, ein grossen Tag zu feiern, whose high benefits were not for one land and one locality only, but I have conferred a measure of good upon all lands that know lliberty to-day, and love it.
Hundert Jahre voru(e)ber, waren die Engla(e)nder und die Amerikaner Feinde; aber heute sind sie herzlichen Freunde, gott sei Dank! May this good-fellowship endure; may these banners here blended in amity so remain; may they never more wave over opposing hosts, or be stained with blood which was kindred, is kindred, and always will be kindred, until a line drawn upon a map shall be able to say: "This bars the ancestral blood from flowing in the veins of the descendant!"
(1) Wenn er aber auf der Strasse der in Sammt und Seide gehu(e)llten jetz sehr ungenirt nach der neusten mode gekleideten Regierungsrathin begegnet.
(2) I capitalize the nouns, in the German (and ancient English) fashion.
(3) It merely means, in its general sense, "herewith." (4) "Verdammt," and its variations and enlargements, are words which have plenty of meaning, but the soundsare so mild and ineffectual that German ladies can use them without sin. German ladies who could not be induced to commit a sin by any persuasion or compulsion, promptly rip out one of these harmless little words when they tear their dresses or don't like the soup. It sounds about as wicked as out "My gracious." German ladies are constantly saying, "Ach! Gott!" "Mein Gott!" "Gott in himmel!" "Herr Gott!" "Der Herr Jseus!" etc. They think our ladies have the same custom, perhaps; for I once heard a gentle and lovely old German lady say to a sweet young American girl: "The two languages are so alike-how pleasant that is; we say 'Ach! Gott!" you say 'Goddam.'"