Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/212

200 it originally meant a sharing of joy, it has degenerated into a far lighter sphere, and has become a mere word of polite language, so that the illiterate will hardly recognize the original meaning from its present use. To use that French word to convey a deep feeling would be like using the word "plaisir" in German to express deep joy. The effect is similar to what it is when Heine, after his protestation of deep feeling, bursts forth with the French "Madeline, ich liebe sie!"

Now, I am inclined to believe that where there is no expression for such a feeling, and where we rarely find such feelings expressed in other ways, such feelings are not so likely to exist, and, in truth, the ideal of "good form," which cripples the nature of many young men at a time when their emotions are still developing, goes to suppress the expression of any such feelings. One may frequently hear young men express their disapproval of others; but I think that I am not making a hasty statement when I maintain that one hears young men expressing their approval of others far less frequently in England than in Germany, though it is not unmanly nor ungainly to express one's liking of a third person, and one's joy with another, and this expression may have good effects, as well upon the sociable character as upon the whole emotional nature of men.

But "good form" and other causes are contributing to impoverish the English language in expressions of original emotions. We notice the avidity with which people grasp at slang, because it has such original life. Were it not for the wide-spread knowledge of Shakespeare, I verily believe that our emotional language would be sorely crippled. There are desirable emotions, and they can be cultivated. Language is a means of cultivating them. There is a great difference in the mental cast of those who know but one language and those who know several, even if they have never left their home. The latter are possessed of broader vision and feeling, they have learned new feelings. When we have learned the true meanings of the French word "chic" and the German word "Gemüthlichkeit," we may have learned something the existence of which was unknown to us before. If we can force people to express "Mitfreude" we may perhaps teach some how