S. (Reflectively.) I think I’ve heard that
before somewhere.
Wirthin. (Aside.) Why, the very cats in Germany
know it!
(Curtain.)
[1] [Explanatory.] I regard the idea of this
play as a valuable invention. I call it the
Patent Universally-Applicable Automatically Adjustable
Language Drama. This indicates that it is adjustable
to any tongue, and performable in any tongue.
The English portions of the play are to remain just
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.
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;
