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Rh it is impossible to preserve both these impressions; you must either in a measure sacrifice the environment, the milieu, or else you must convey to the Anglo-Saxon reader some sense of strangeness. It is a matter of compromise, and no general rules can be laid down. Take for example, the whole question of street nomenclature: To the reader with no knowledge of a foreign tongue, rue and strasse and via and calle necessarily strike the eye and ear with a certain degree of queerness,—yet, to call these foreign public ways streets would seem still queerer. One expects the signs in a foreign city to look different, just as one expects to be wet when one goes in swimming. It is not the normal rule of life to be wet, but it would seem considerably queerer to go in swimming and remain dry. It was possible for Thackeray, in light verse, to say whimsically, "Rue Neuve des Petits Champs the Rh