Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 4.djvu/151

Rh no other way of writing and reading. Most willingly, then, would I have gone on along this ancient and, as it seemed to me, easier path; but my worthy declared rather sternly that we must go by the grammar as it had been approved and composed. Heading without these points and strokes, he said, was a very hard undertaking, and could be accomplished only by the learned and those who were well practised. I must, therefore, make up my mind to learn these little characters; but the matter became to me more and more confused. Now, it seemed, some of the first and larger primitive letters had no value in their places, in order that their little after-born kindred might not stand there in vain. Now they indicated a gentle breathing, now a guttural more or less rough, and now served as mere equivalents. But finally, when one fancied that he had well noted everything, some of these personages, both great and small, were rendered inoperative; so that the eyes always had very much, and the lips very little, to do.

As that of which I already knew the contents had now to be stuttered in a strange gibberish, in which a certain snuffle and gargle were not a little commended as something unattainable, I in a certain degree deviated from the matter, and diverted myself, in a childish way, with the singular names of these accumulated signs. There were "emperors," "kings," and "dukes," which, as accents governing here and there, gave me not a little entertainment. But even these shallow jests soon lost their charm. Nevertheless I was indemnified, inasmuch as by reading, translating, repeating, and committing to memory, the substance of the book came out more vividly; and it was this, properly, about which I desired to be enlightened. Even before this time, the contradiction