ur intellectual life,
is the foolishness of the too common vanity which first deludes itself
with childish expectations and then tortures itself with late regret for
failure which might have been easily foreseen.

LETTER IX.

TO A STUDENT OF MODERN LANGUAGES.

Cases known to the Author--Opinion of an English linguist--Family
conditions--An Englishman who lived forty years in France--Influence
of children--An Italian in France--Displacement of one language by
another. English lady married to a Frenchman--An Italian in
Garibaldi's army--Corruption of languages by the uneducated when they
learn more than one--Neapolitan servant of an English gentleman--A
Scotch servant-woman--The author's eldest boy--Substitution of one
language for another--In mature life we lose facility--The resisting
power of adults--Seen in international marriages--Case of a retired
English officer--Two Germans in France--Germans in London--The
innocence of the ear--Imperfect attainment of little intellectual
use--Too many languages attempted in education--Polyglot
waiters--Indirect benefits.

My five propositions about learning modern languages appear from your
answer to have rather surprised you, and you ask for some instances in
illustration. I am aware that my last letter was dogmatic, so let me
begin by begging your pardon for its dogmatism. The present
communication may steer clear of that rock of offence, for it shall
confine itself to an account of cases that I have known.

One of the most accomplished of English linguists remarked to me that
after much observation of the labors of others, and a fair estimate of
his own, he had come to the rather discouraging conclusion that it was
not possible to learn a foreign language. He did not take account of the
one exceptional class of cases where the family conditions make the use
of two languages habitual. The most favorable family conditions are not
in themselves sufficient to _ensure_ the acquisition of a language, but
wherever an instance of perfect acquisition is to be found, these family
conditions are always found along with it. My friend W., an English
artist living in Paris, speaks French with quite absolute accuracy as to
grammar and choice of expression, and with accuracy of pronunciation so
nearly absolute that the best French ears can detect nothing wrong but
the pronunciation of the letter "_r_." He has lived in France for the
space of forty years, but