ving, and the
administration of your country. If I went over to England, I should be
no stranger there.

"But, as I said before, your young men do well to come to us and learn
our language; for, not only does our literature merit attention on its
own account, but no one can deny that he who now knows German well can
dispense with many other languages. Of the French, I do not speak; it is
the language of conversation, and is indispensable in traveling,
because everybody understands it, and in all countries we can get on
with it instead of a good interpreter. But as for Greek, Latin, Italian,
and Spanish, we can read the best works of those nations in such
excellent German translations, that, unless we have some particular
object in view, we need not spend much time upon the toilsome study of
those languages. It is in the German nature duly to honor, after its
kind, everything produced by other nations, and to accommodate itself to
foreign peculiarities. This, with the great flexibility of our language,
makes German translations thoroughly faithful and complete. And it is
not to be denied that, in general, you get on very far with a good
translation. Frederick the Great did not know Latin, but he read Cicero
in the French translation with as much profit as we who read him in the
original."

Then, turning the conversation on the theatre, he asked Mr. H. whether
he went frequently thither. "Every evening," he replied, "and find that
I thus gain much towards the understanding of the language."

"It is remarkable," said Goethe, "that the ear, and generally the
understanding, gets the start of speaking; so that a man may very soon
comprehend all he hears, but by no means express it all."

"I experience daily," said Mr. H., "the truth of that remark. I
understand very well whatever I hear or read; I even feel when an
incorrect expression is made use of in German. But when I speak, nothing
will flow, and I cannot express myself as I wish. In light conversation
at court, jests with the ladies, a chat at balls, and the like, I
succeed pretty well. But, if I try to express an opinion on any
important topic, to say anything peculiar or luminous, I cannot get on."

"Be not discouraged by that," said Goethe, "since it is hard enough to
express such uncommon matters in one's own mother tongue."

He then asked what Mr. H. read in German literature. "I have read
_Egmont_," he replied, "and found so much pleasure in the perusal that