looking-glass, so that she need not show herself at the window, how
much more poetical is she than--But pardon me, Andalusia! I was about
to say something rather hard on you.

Hitherto, some readers may think that I have been pretending to know
the Dutch language. I hasten to say that I do not know it, and to
excuse my ignorance. A people like the Dutch, serious and taciturn,
richer in hidden qualities than in brilliant showy ones--a people who
are, if I may so express myself, self-contained rather than
superficial, who do much and talk little, who do not pass for more
than they are worth--may be studied without a knowledge of their
language. On the other hand, the French language is generally known in
Holland. In the large cities there is scarcely an educated person who
does not speak French correctly, scarcely a shopman who cannot make
himself understood in good or bad French, and there is scarcely a boy
who is not acquainted with ten or twenty words which suffice to help a
stranger out of a dilemma. This diffusion of a language so different
from that of the country is the more to be admired when one reflects
that it is not the only foreign language generally spoken in Holland.
English and German are almost as widely known as French. The study of
these three languages is obligatory in the secondary schools. Cultured
people, like those who in Italy think it a necessity to know French,
in Holland generally read English, German, and French with equal
facility. The Dutch have an especial talent for learning languages,
and an incredible courage in speaking them. We Italians before we
attempt to speak a foreign language require to know enough about it to
avoid making great mistakes; we blush when we do make them; we avoid
the opportunities of speaking until we are sure of speaking well
enough to be complimented, and in this way we continue to lengthen the
period of our philological novitiate. In Holland one often meets
people who speak French with great effort, with a vocabulary of
perhaps a hundred words and twenty sentences; but notwithstanding they
talk, hold long conversations, and do not seem to be at all worried
about what one may think of their blunders and their audacity.
Waiters, porters, and boys, when asked if they know French, answer
with the greatest assurance, "_Oui_" or "_Un peu_," and they try in a
thousand ways to make themselves understood, laughing themselves
sometimes at the eccentric contortion of thei