partially get his meaning, so Bierstadt translated it to me. And I,
who could read and translate French easily, had never found time to
learn to chat freely in any language but my own. I could have cried
right there; it was so mortifying, and I was losing such a pleasure. I
had the same pathetic experience with a Russian artist, Verestchagin,
whose immense picture, revealing the horrors of war, was then on
exhibition in New York.

Again and again I have felt like a dummy, if not an idiot, in such a
position. I therefore beg all young persons to determine to speak and
write at least one language beside their own.

Tom Hood wrote:

"Never go to France
Unless you know the lingo
If you do, like me,
You'll repent by jingo."

But it's even worse to be unable in your own country to greet and talk
with guests from other countries.

I should like to see the dead languages, as well as Saxon and
Sanscrit, made elective studies every where; also the higher
mathematics, mystic metaphysics, and studies of the conscious and
subconscious, the ego and non-ego, matters of such uncertain study.
When one stops to realize the tragic brevity of life on this earth,
and to learn from statistics what proportion of each generation dies
in infancy, in childhood, in early maturity, and how few reach
the Biblical limit of life, it seems unnecessary to regard a
brain-wearying "curriculum" as essential or even sensible. Taine gives
us in his work on English Literature a Saxon description of life: "A
bird flying from the dark, a moment in the light, then swiftly passing
out into the darkness beyond."

And really why do we study as if we were to rival the ante-diluvians
in age. Then wake up to the facts. I have been assured, by those who
know, that but a small proportion of college graduates are successful
or even heard of. They appear at commencement, sure that they are to
do great things, make big money, at least marry an heiress; they are
turned out like buttons, only to find out how hard it is to get
anything to do for good pay. One multi-millionaire of Boston, whose
first wages he told me were but four dollars a month, said there was
no one he so dreaded to see coming into his office as a college man
who must have help,--seldom able to write a legible hand, or to add
correctly a column of figures. There is solid food for thought.

* * * * *

Lowell said that "gre