A Tramp Abroad

I think that a description of any loud, stirring, tumultuous episode must be tamer in German than in English. Our descriptive words of this character have such a deep, strong, resonant sound, while their German equivalents do seem so thin and mild and energyless. Boom, burst, crash, roar, storm, bellow, blow, thunder, explosion; howl, cry, shout, yell, groan; battle, hell. These are magnificent words; the have a force and magnitude of sound befitting the things which they describe. But their German equivalents would be ever so nice to sing the children to sleep with, or else my awe-inspiring ears were made for display and not for superior usefulness in analyzing sounds. Would any man want to die in a battle which was called by so tame a term as a Schlacht? Or would not a comsumptive feel too much bundled up, who was about to go out, in a shirt-collar and a seal-ring, into a storm which the bird-song word Gewitter was employed to describe? And observe the strongest of the several German equivalents for explosion—Ausbruch. Our word Toothbrush is more powerful than that. It seems to me that the Germans could do worse than import it into their language to describe particularly tremendous explosions with. The German word for hell – Hoelle – sounds more like HELLY than anything else; therefore, how necessarily chipper, frivolous, and unimpressive it is. If a man were told in German to go there, could he really rise to thee dignity of feeling insulted?

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 the 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 inquire of us, “What does B, O, W, spell?” we should be obliged to reply, “Nobody can tell what it spells when you set if 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 forests, and birds and flowers, the fragrance and sunshine of summer, and the moonlight of peaceful winter nights; in a word, those which deal with 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 affective. 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 meanings 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 their business without suggesting any remedy. I am not that kind of 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 which 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 discover 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 he is 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.[21 - “Verdammt,” and its variations and enlargements, are words which have plenty of meaning, but the sounds are 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 our “My gracious.” German ladies are constantly saying, “Ach! Gott!” “Mein Gott!” “Gott in Himmel!” “Herr Gott” “Der Herr Jesus!” 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 ‘Goddamn.’”]

Fourthly, I would reorganizes the sexes, and distribute them accordingly 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. To wholly do away with them would be best, for ideas are more easily received and digested when they come one at a time than when they come in bulk. Intellectual food is like any other; it is pleasanter and more beneficial to take it with a spoon than with a shovel.

Sixthly, I would require a speaker to stop when he is done, and not hang a string of those useless “haven sind gewesen 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, an offense, and should be discarded.

Seventhly, I would discard the Parenthesis. Also the reparenthesis, the re-reparenthesis, and the re-re-re-re-re-reparentheses, and likewise the final wide-reaching all-enclosing 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 with 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 my proposed application shall result in my being formally employed by the government in the work of reforming the language.

My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn 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, a month ago, in this old wonderland, 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, and learned the German language. Also! Es freut mich dass dies so ist, denn es muss, in ein hauptsächlich degree, höflich sein, dass man auf ein occasion like this, sein Rede in die Sprache des Landes worin he boards, aussprechen soll. Dafuer habe ich, aus reinische Verlegenheit – no, Vergangenheit – no, I mean Höflichkeit – aus reinishe Höflichkeit habe ich resolved to tackle this business in the German language, um Gottes willen! Also! Sie muessen 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 háber man kann nicht meinem Rede Verstehen, so werde ich ihm später dasselbe uebersetz, wenn er solche Dienst verlangen wollen haben werden sollen sein hätte. (I don’t know what wollen haben werden sollen sein hätte 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, meinen 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 Anblich so viele Grossbrittanischer 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 the expression of this impulse? Is it Freundschaftsbezeigungenstadtverordnetenversammlungenfamilieneigenthümlichkeiten? 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 produced dièse Anblick—eine Anblich welche ist gut zu sehen – gut fuer die Äugen in a foreign land and a far country – eine Anblick solche als in die gewöhnliche Heidelberger phrase nennt man ein “schönes Aussicht!” Ja, freilich natürlich wahrscheinlich ebensowohl! Also! Die Aussicht auf dem Koenigsstuhl mehr grösser ist, aber geistlische sprechend nicht so schön, lob’ Gott! Because sie sind hier zusammengetroffen, in Bruderlichem concord, ein grossen Tag zu feirn, whose high benefits were not for one land and one locality, but have conferred a measure of good upon all lands that know liberty today, and love it. Hundert Jahre vorueber, waren die Engländer und die Amerikaner Feinde; aber heut sind sie herzlichen Freunde, Gott sei Dank! May this good-fellowship endure; may these banners here blended in amity so remain; may they never any 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!”

Appendix E

Legend of the Castles

Called the “Swallow’s Nest” and “The Brothers,” as Condensed from the Captain’s Tale.

In the neighborhood of three hundred years ago the Swallow’s Nest and the larger castle between it and Neckarsteinach were owned and occupied by two old knights who were twin brothers, and bachelors. They had no relatives. They were very rich. They had fought through the wars and retired to private life – covered with honorable scars. They were honest, honorable men in their dealings, but the people had given them a couple of nicknames which were very suggestive – Herr Givenaught and Herr Heartless. The old knights were so proud of these names that if a burgher called them by their right ones they would correct them.

The most renowned scholar in Europe, at the time, was the Herr Doctor Franz Reikmann, who lived in Heidelberg. All Germany was proud of the venerable scholar, who lived in the simplest way, for great scholars are always poor. He was poor, as to money, but very rich in his sweet young daughter Hildegarde and his library. He had been all his life collecting his library, book and book, and he lived it as a miser loves his hoarded gold. He said the two strings of his heart were rooted, the one in his daughter, the other in his books; and that if either were severed he must die. Now in an evil hour, hoping to win a marriage portion for his child, this simple old man had intrusted his small savings to a sharper to be ventured in a glittering speculation. But that was not the worst of it: he signed a paper – without reading it. That is the way with poets and scholars; they always sign without reading. This cunning paper made him responsible for heaps of things. The rest was that one night he found himself in debt to the sharper eight thousand pieces of gold! – an amount so prodigious that it simply stupefied him to think of it. It was a night of woe in that house.

“I must part with my library – I have nothing else. So perishes one heartstring,” said the old man.

“What will it bring, father?” asked the girl.

“Nothing! It is worth seven hundred pieces of gold; but by auction it will go for little or nothing.”

“Then you will have parted with the half of your heart and the joy of your life to no purpose, since so mighty a burden of debt will remain behind.”

“There is no help for it, my child. Our darlings must pass under the hammer. We must pay what we can.”

“My father, I have a feeling that the dear Virgin will come to our help. Let us not lose heart.”

“She cannot devise a miracle that will turn nothing into eight thousand gold pieces, and lesser help will bring us little peace.”

“She can do even greater things, my father. She will save us, I know she will.”

Toward morning, while the old man sat exhausted and asleep in his chair where he had been sitting before his books as one who watches by his beloved dead and prints the features on his memory for a solace in the aftertime of empty desolation, his daughter sprang into the room and gently woke him, saying—

“My presentiment was true! She will save us. Three times has she appeared to me in my dreams, and said, ’Go to the Herr Givenaught, go to the Herr Heartless, ask them to come and bid.’ There, did I not tell you she would save us, the thrice blessed Virgin!”

Sad as the old man was, he was obliged to laugh.

“Thou mightest as well appeal to the rocks their castles stand upon as to the harder ones that lie in those men’s breasts, my child. They bid on books writ in the learned tongues! – they can scarce read their own.”

But Hildegarde’s faith was in no wise shaken. Bright and early she was on her way up the Neckar road, as joyous as a bird.

Meantime Herr Givenaught and Herr Heartless were having an early breakfast in the former’s castle – the Sparrow’s Nest – and flavoring it with a quarrel; for although these twins bore a love for each other which almost amounted to worship, there was one subject upon which they could not touch without calling each other hard names – and yet it was the subject which they oftenest touched upon.

“I tell you,” said Givenaught, “you will beggar yourself yet with your insane squanderings of money upon what you choose to consider poor and worthy objects. All these years I have implored you to stop this foolish custom and husband your means, but all in vain. You are always lying to me about these secret benevolences, but you never have managed to deceive me yet. Every time a poor devil has been set upon his feet I have detected your hand in it – incorrigible ass!”

“Every time you didn’t set him on his feet yourself, you mean. Where I give one unfortunate a little private lift, you do the same for a dozen. The idea of your swelling around the country and petting yourself with the nickname of Givenaught – intolerable humbug! Before I would be such a fraud as that, I would cut my right hand off. Your life is a continual lie. But go on, I have tried my best to save you from beggaring yourself by your riotous charities – now for the thousandth time I wash my hands of the consequences. A maundering old fool! that’s what you are.”

“And you a blethering old idiot!” roared Givenaught, springing up.

“I won’t stay in the presence of a man who has no more delicacy than to call me such names. Mannerless swine!”

So saying, Herr Heartless sprang up in a passion. But some lucky accident intervened, as usual, to change the subject, and the daily quarrel ended in the customary daily living reconciliation. The gray-headed old eccentrics parted, and Herr Heartless walked off to his own castle.

Half an hour later, Hildegarde was standing in the presence of Herr Givenaught. He heard her story, and said—

“I am sorry for you, my child, but I am very poor, I care nothing for bookish rubbish, I shall not be there.”

He said the hard words kindly, but they nearly broke poor Hildegarde’s heart, nevertheless. When she was gone the old heartbreaker muttered, rubbing his hands—

“It was a good stroke. I have saved my brother’s pocket this time, in spite of him. Nothing else would have prevented his rushing off to rescue the old scholar, the pride of Germany, from his trouble. The poor child won’t venture near him after the rebuff she has received from his brother the Givenaught.”

But he was mistaken. The Virgin had commanded, and Hildegarde would obey. She went to Herr Heartless and told her story. But he said coldly—