r speech, and ending
every answer with "_S'il vous plait_" or a "_Pardon, monsieur_;" which
are often said so prettily and yet are so out of place that they make
one laugh even against one's will. It is considered such a common
thing to know French that when any one is obliged to answer that he
doesn't speak French, he hesitates, ashamed, and if he is interrogated
in the street he will pretend to be busy and hurry on.

As for the Dutch language, it is a mystery to those who do not know
German, and even when one knows German and can read Dutch books with a
little study, one cannot understand Dutch when it is spoken. If I were
asked to say what impression it makes on those who do not understand
it, I should say that it seems like German spoken by people with a
hair in their throats. This effect is produced by the frequent
repetition of a guttural aspirate which is like the sound of the
Spanish _jota_. Even the Dutch themselves do not consider their
language euphonious. I was often asked, playfully, "What impression
does it make on you?" as if they understood that the impression could
not be altogether agreeable. Yet some one has written a book proving
that Adam and Eve spoke Dutch in the Garden of Eden. But, although the
Dutch speak so many foreign languages, they hold to their own, and
grow indignant when any ignorant stranger shows that he believes Dutch
to be a German dialect, this being, in truth, a theory held by many
who only know the language by name. It is almost superfluous to repeat
the history of the language.

The first inhabitants of the country spoke Teutonic in its different
dialects. These dialects were blended and formed the ancient speech of
the Netherlands, which in the Middle Ages, like the other European
languages, passed through the different Germanic, Norman, and French
phases, and ended in the present Dutch language, in which there is
still a foundation of the primitive idiom and the evidence of a slight
Latin influence. Certainly, there is a striking similarity between
Dutch and German, and, above all, there are a number of root-words
common to the two; but there is, however, a great difference in the
grammar, that of the Dutch being much simpler in construction, and the
pronunciation also is very different. This very likeness is the reason
that the Dutch generally do not speak German so well as they speak
English or French; perhaps the difficulty may be caused by the
ambiguity of words, or beca