To the same.
Wayland, 1869.
I wish you joy of your “new Greek grammar.”
I eschew all grammars, because I cannot receive their contents by intuition.
Perhaps if you were to confine your investigation to the Greek article, you would find it more “entertaining,” but still the result might not be satisfactory.
I have read of a German philologist who expended the diligent labor of a long life on the study of the Greek article, and on his deathbed he said to his son, “Take warning by my example.
Do not undertake too much.
I ought to have confined myself to the dative case.”
I cordially agree with the praises of “Unspoken sermons.”
They are the only kind that interest me.
I was amused by the prematureness of Aggy; but of all the children I ever heard of, Susan L--'s eldest daughter has manifested the most precocious forecast.
When she was about six years old, her father, in reading the newspaper aloud, read of a workman in a manufactory whose arm had been shockingly torn by the machinery.
They did not suppose the little one understood it, or took any notice of it, but when she was put to bed she began to cry bitterly.
When
[204]
her mother asked what was the matter, she burst out vehemently, “Oil, what if I should marry a machine man?
What should I do?”
“Don't cry about that, dear,” replied her mother, trying to repress laughter, “Perhaps you won't be married.”
“Oh yes I shall!”
exclaimed the little Mary (who ought to have been named the little Martha); “They will marry me to a machine man; and then, if he tears his arm, I sha'n't know what to do.”
She is now fifteen or sixteen, and is always betraying the same forecasting tendencies.
She has learned to swim, and is very expert in the water.
A little while ago she swam up to a child on the bank of the river and said, “Please get on my back, and let me carry you across.
I want to see if I could save you, if we should be aboard the same ship and get wrecked.”
The child consented, and Mary was exultant to find that she could swim with such a burden. 