t as they are, permanently; but you change the foreign
portions to any language you please, at will. Do you see? You at once
have the same old play in a new tongue. And you can keep changing it
from language to language, until your private theatrical pupils have
become glib and at home in the speech of all nations. Zum Beispiel,
suppose we wish to adjust the play to the French tongue. First, we give
Mrs. Blumenthal and Gretchen French names. Next, we knock the German
Meisterschaft sentences out of the first scene, and replace them with
sentences from the French Meisterschaft--like this, for instance: 'Je
voudrais faire des emplettes ce matin; voulez-vous avoir l'obligeance de
venir avec moi chez le tailleur francais?' And so on. Wherever you find
German, replace it with French, leaving the English parts undisturbed.
When you come to the long conversation in the second act, turn to any
pamphlet of your French Meisterschaft, and shovel in as much French talk
on any subject as will fill up the gaps left by the expunged German.
Example--page 423, French Meisterschaft: On dirait qu'il va faire chaud.
J'ai chaud. J'ai extremement chaud. Ah! qu'il fait chaud! Il fait une
chaleur etouffante! L'air est brulant. Je meurs de chaleur. Il est
presque impossible de supporter la chaleur. Cela vous fait transpirer.
Mettons-nous a l'ombre. Il fait du vent. Il fait un vent froid. Il fait
un tres agreable pour se promener aujourd'hui. And so on, all the way
through. It is very easy to adjust the play to any desired language.
Anybody can do it.

MY BOYHOOD DREAMS

The dreams of my boyhood? No, they have not been realised. For all who
are old, there is something infinitely pathetic about the subject which
you have chosen, for in no greyhead's case can it suggest any but one
thing--disappointment. Disappointment is its own reason for its pain:
the quality or dignity of the hope that failed is a matter aside. The
dreamer's valuation of the thing lost--not another man's--is the only
standard to measure it by, and his grief for it makes it large and
great and fine, and is worthy of our reverence in all cases. We should
carefully remember that. There are sixteen hundred million people in
the world. Of these there is but a trifling number--in fact, only
thirty-eight millions--who can understand why a person should have an
ambition to belong to the French army; and why, belonging to it, he
should be proud of that; and why, having got do