= eigners sometimes make grave mistakes in the use of these verbs, e. g., ella es cansada she is tiresome, while ella está cansada = she is tired. Obviously the two expressions are not interchangeable! Unfortunately Spanish is as illogical as French in the matter of gender, all nouns being regarded as either masculine or feminine. Still the task of memorizing is somewhat lightened by the fact that certain final syllables determine grammatical gender. The collocation of objective or governed pronouns is as confusing as in French, and the habitual omission of subjective ones often renders a sentence unintelligible to a foreigner not accustomed to guessing at the subject of verbs. In many respects, however, Spanish exhibits a marked superiority over French: it has no silent letters, and none of varying value; the words are spelled exactly as they sound, and when the learner knows the combinations of letters which are associated with the various sounds, he has mastered Spanish spelling, for it is strictly phonetic. If he knows certain words singly, he can distinguish them in any context, for they are never clipped or slurred over. The predominance of nasal sounds in French makes it seem trivial in comparison with the sonorous Spanish: it is as hard to make a French sentence seem grand as it is to make a Castilian one sound commonplace! In abundance and sweetness of vowel sounds it vies with Italian, while in the richness and variety of diminutive and augmentative suffixes to indicate size, fondness, depreciation, etc., Spanish excels all languages, ancient or modern. The American business man, having resolved to learn a language, should give to it a large part of his leisure, letting the study and practice constitute his chief recreation. He can easily form the acquaintance of cultivated foreigners having kindred pursuits and congenial tastes, and their companionship in walks, drives, bicycle tours, or even on the streetcars, will afford opportunities for conversational practice. He will not be long in raising himself above the mechanical repetition of memorized phrases, and will unconsciously begin to think in the new language. His further progress will possess all the charm which attends in creased proficiency in shooting, yachting, mountain-climbing, etc. Thus he experiences none of the irksomeness of a task, and is pleasantly led on to seek invigorating diversion in fields altogether outside of the domain of dollargetting. It is not true that a man's mental powers are to be gauged by the number of languages he knows; but it is a fact that a linguist is brought into contact with things calculated to push his intellectual horizon far beyond the ordinary limits. It is no small thing to know what other literatures contain, what other nations have accomplished, and such knowledge comes best through language-learning. As the study of Latin and Greek affords the only means of reaching a just appreciation of the civilizations antedating Christianity, so the study of modern languages furnishes the only key to the larger possibilities of the present. W. F. FLEMING. [The most satisfactory small dictionaries of French and German are Heath's (D. C. Heath & pronunciation, but are later and better than Co., Boston, $1.50 each). They do not give the the Adler (German) and Spiers and Surenne (French) dictionaries of three times their size and price (D. Appleton & Co., N. Y., each $5.00). These two, and Velasquez's Spanish dictionary, have undergone no revision for fifty years, and will doubtless continue to be printed from the same old plates till Americans cease buying them. There is no good Spanish-English dictionary of the Heath pattern to take the place of the antiquated Velasquez work. Lopes & Bensley's appears to be little more than a French reprint of Velasquez. Neither indicates the correct use of the graphic accent as authorized by the Spanish Academy. As soon as one is able to read fairly, Sanders' German dictionary and Littré's French dictionary, for the use of Germans and Frenchmen, respectively, will be the best works on which to found a thorough knowledge of those languages. Less than half as large as the showy and pretentious "Century Dictionary," which Englishspeaking students have in the main to depend upon for their own language, they furnish more and better illustrative passages. The best grammars for reference are Whitney's for French and German, and Ramsey's for Spanish (all by Henry Holt & Co., N. Ý). The last named is the latest grammar of Spanish, and the only considerable one in accord with the rulings of the Spanish Academy on the use of the graphic accent. Tolhausen's Spanish-German dictionary conforms to the last edition of the Spanish Academy's dictionary, but is marred by omissions, bad typography, poor definitions, and misspelled words - German as well as Spanish.] WHO WERE THEY—THE "FOILS" OF HISTORIC STORY-TELLING? W HILE we have to thank the old chroniclers and historians for much, it must be confessed that, at times, they were very careless. Incidents of interest we have in plenty, and the names of the great ones who figured in them are preserved, but the foils, without whom the story would be valueless, have been allowed to drop into unknown graves. Nothing is known of them, not even their names. Their status in life we have, but that is all. To the reader of the present day, who is accustomed to peruse the minutest details in the careers of men who have been suddenly lifted into notoriety by crime, politics, or labor, this is positively exasperating. Mr. Justin McCarthy, whose work was interestingly characterized in the last issue of SELF CULTURE, enjoys the unique honor of having been the first man to write history with the quick-moving pencil of the newspaper reporter. He never misses a detail. Even the boy Oxford, and Francis, the crack-brained, who assaulted the Queen, are enshrined in the fascinating pages of "A History of Our Own Times. The author knew what his readers wanted, and he never omitted to chronicle even the "small beer." When we look back, however, we must exclaim at the slovenly manner in which the older writers prepared their books. The student of achievement and great deeds is perplexed now-a-days when he ransacks the histories in vain for features which do not appear. We all remember the touching story of Alfred the Great and the cakes. If the poets failed to immortalize that distinguished monarch, in heroic stanzas, until the other day, the historians certainly have not neglected him. His remarkable career, his thirst for knowledge of every sort, his rare powers as a minstrel, his genius, his valor, his Christianity, his love of country, his marvellous gifts in short, have occupied the pens of many. In glowing prose his virtues are set forth. Of course, the tale of the burning cakes, which many regard as the turning-point in Alfred's career, is told and re-told with unction and close fidelity to facts. The historians are agreed that it was in the forest of Athelney that the King received his first lesson from the lips of a peasant's wife. The late Thomas Hughes, author of "Tom Brown's School Days," in his delightful monograph on "Alfred the Great," has even preserved the exact words which the neat-herd's wife used on the memorable occasion. "Drat the man," cried the frugal but angry spouse, "never to turn the loaves, when you see them burning. I'ze warrant, you're ready enough to eat them when they're done." It is also carefully explained that though the wife knew not the identity of her royal guest, her husband had been entrusted with the weighty secret. He was a faithful subject, and though his better-half was sharp-tongued and endowed with all the keen curiosity of her sex, he never told his partner the name of the inmate of their humble roof. Now, it is just here where the early chroniclers, who have saved this beautiful legend from destruction, have fallen short in their professional work. Without the neat-herd, and, particularly, without the neat-herd's wife, one of the most important events in the history of Alfred, sometimes written Ælfred, would not have occurred. The location of the hut, the scene of the disaster to the cakes, we know was in Selwood. We are also quite satisfied that while the neglected loaves were being reduced to cinders, the young monarch was absorbed in thought, and that while his fingers were busy in repairing his bows and arrows, his mind was running backwards and forwards to past misfortunes, and to thoughts of the future. Even the odor which must have arisen from the batch, did not cause him to turn his head. With shrewd circumstantiality, we are told how it was the neat-herd's wife herself, who was the first to discover the calamity, and the outflow of impatient objurgation was, naturally, not long in following. following. We are even made familiar with the feelings of the King, and to his credit, it must be said, he received his well-merited rebuke kindly, and without making a royal fuss over it. And yet, despite the care which the historians have taken to gather these facts, the name of the herdsman is un known, and he sleeps somewhere, anywhere in old Selwood, in an unmarked grave. His wife, too, who was such a prominent actor in the drama, and who performed one of the speaking parts, has left no trace of her origin, her name and date of marriage being alike omitted from the record. The dramatis personæ included but three, the disguised king, the leal-hearted neat-herd, and the painfully disturbed housewife. The sovereign's disguise was penetrated; the others, who wore no disguise, and could, therefore, have easily been recognized and identified, cannot be discovered, and no one's memory holds them in ken. And this is all the more unpardonable, when that rough and untoward churl, Denewulf, the swineherd, is made conspicuous by oft-reiterated reference, and his deeds, though trivial, are set forth with great prominence. Can it be that the rude press-censor of those early English days allowed prejudice to overcome his sense of justice, or are the discarded ones merely innocent victims of cold neglect? The real truth may never be known. From whatever cause, the fact remains that a brilliant page of history is marred by omissions, which, at this remote date from the event, cannot be restored. We will never know the names of the reticent peasant, and the woman who rebuked the lord of Wessex, in the humble hut, over a thousand years ago. It is indeed, singular to note, how prone the older historians were to omit the connecting links in the chain of evidence, which they left to posterity. The barons who forced King John to sign Magna Charta, we know to a man, though we may not be able to decipher their chirography. But the Jews, whose teeth he extracted when demanding loans, we may never know by name. And yet, without the aid of the usurers, John could never have carried on affairs at home or abroad. His unwilling money-lenders saved the situation, but notwithstanding the tortures they endured, their cognomens cannot be found in the list of martyrs of that despicable ruler's reign. And then, again, there is that charming object-lesson, the story of Canute and his sycophant courtiers. They flattered him up to a point, which tickled the shrewd Dane's fancy so much, that he resolved to try the effect of an experiment. You are the grandest monarch in the world, said his followers, in so many words. You can even command the services of the waves, and the great waters of the sea will obey your every wish. These courtiers are known now only as lay figures. They may have been dukes or earls or barons; probably all three orders numbered them as memBut their names, have, somehow, been suppressed, and all that we know of their personal history is the fact that one day the king commanded his chair to be set on the seashore. He sat upon it, pleasantly chatting to those who pressed around him, apparently unmindful mindful that the tide was coming along swiftly in his direction. Majesty, in a loud voice, bade the waters recede, and called on them to obey the orders of their lord. He even pretended that they would retire, and submit themselves to his will. But when they rose and wet his royal feet, he calmly moved off, and cried out to his embarrassed courtiers, whose names we are not in a position to give, "the power of kings is but vanity. He only is king who can say to the ocean, thus far shalt thou go and no farther." And, adds the chronicler of that day, "he never bore his crown again." His The absence of the names of the courtiers, we repeat, robs the story of a very salient feature. Fortunately, however, the facts have been substantiated, though it would have been wise to preserve the names of the king's attendants, the eyewitnesses of a scence, which conveyed so admirable a lesson in morals and common sense. Many a true story has suffered for the want of endorsing testimony, but this one has escaped challenge on that score. Many more examples of the woful neglect by historians of the foils who have made incidents in the careers of the great possible might be cited, but one other will suffice. There is, for instance, that popular episode in the life of Napoleon. Letter-press and the engraver's art have told the story of the weary sentinel discovered sleeping at his post, on the very eve of a battle, by the little Corporal when going his rounds. The Emperor took the man's musket and mounted guard himself, while the warrior on the ground remained exhausted, and rooted to the spot. When he awoke, his frightened eyes be held the well-known form of his sovereign and general. He knew his fate was death. But Napoleon, taking in the situation at a glance, pardoned the delinquent, and the soldier's life was saved. The features of the guardsman appear in the pictures by artists who never saw him. Napoleon, if he ever knew the man's name, did not reveal it, and another important foil thus disappears from history, leaving for publication the identity only of the chief actor in the scene. The story is a pretty one, and it represents the great Captain in a most magnanimous mood. But the name of the party of the second part is unknown, and so is the name of the old guardsman who wore a bullet in his fob instead of a watch. Now what would become of the good stories if there were no foils? They are the forgotten, the unremembered, the neglected, the blighted beings whose presence in the nick of time enables this or that great man to round an incident. They are used as supers," and then cast aside. Names they do not appear to have ever had. But what a pity it is that not one of the tribe has ever been able to tell the story from his own point of view! Even that small comfort is denied him. GEORGE STEWART, D.C.L. THE ROMANCE OF THE EAST: AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EMINENT ASSYRIOLOGIST * NE of the most fascinating chapters in the history of research is that which deals with the revelations made by the monuments of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon. The silent, hoary East has of late been speaking through the mouths of men who were laid to their long rest "beyond" the "beyond" of history. As the chattering Arabs of today, digging among the mounds which cover the now deserted Babylonian plains, reveal to the eager eye of the archæologist clay tablets which have lain there silent during the long cen *Through the courtesy of a friend of SELF CULTURE, we are enabled to publish in these pages an interesting account of an interview which appeared in an English source, with Prof. A. H. Sayce, LL. D., who holds the chair of Assyriology at the University of Oxford, and was for many years assistant to Prof. Max Müller as lecturer on Philology. Prof. Sayce is one of the great scholars of the time who have been engaged in the East in deciphering the "records of the past" in Assyrian, Babylonian, and Egyptian fields of discovery and research. He has had great success in bringing to light a number of clay tablets, inscribed in cuneiform characters, and recording occurrences at Nineveh, in Egypt, and in the Hittite country, and by his vast linguistic knowledge has been able to decipher them and appraise their value as endorsations of Holy Writ, as well as records, of a peculiarly interesting character, illustrative of the early history of the race. The interview will be of value to those especially who know Prof. Sayce's writings, and the light he has shed on biblical subjects deciphered from ancient monuments and other records of early Oriental nations.-ED. S. C. turies, there rises before him a vision of a people who lived and loved, of a city which teemed with busy life, and of a civilization as high as that of the then unborn Imperial Rome, which existed centuries before the portals of history were opened, but which have passed away and left not a rack behind. As he investigates he finds that the history of humanity goes back farther than was ever dreamed of. The old world has a "past" of which it need not be ashamed, but of which the only record lies buried in its dust. Of those who have pointed out the significance of the many wonderful discoveries of late years, Prof. A. H. Sayce, who occupies the only chair of Assyriology in England, is one of the chief. The greater part of the year he spends in a dahabiyeh on the Nile. This is a combination of a yacht and a house-boat, fitted up for a permanent residence, and is the largest boat of its kind on the river. It is amid the old-world surroundings of the Nile that Prof. Sayce writes those innumerable books which he devotes to the subject which is so dear to him. There, with a large library about him, he is able to do his work without the interruptions which are almost unavoidable in the Babylon of the West. It was not, however, to Egypt that I travelled to find the professor, but to another oldworld spot-Queen's College, Oxford, of which he is a Fellow. "That goes back to my boyhood," replied the professor when, seated in his college rooms, I asked how he first came to be interested in archæological research. "I always had a fancy for it; it was ingrained in me. When I was a small boy my lungs were not strong, and I had to pass a good deal of the winter in the house. I was obliged to amuse myself as best I could, and took a great fancy to the forms of the letters in the Hebrew Bible. These I learned, and the result, I suppose, was that I came to have a love for the East and Oriental things. When I was a schoolboy I read Layard's Travels with great delight, and from that time forward I date my interest in Assyriology. Then I wished to know something of cuneiform characters and their meaning. But I was not able to take up the subject seriously until I had finished my Oxford work and taken my degree. When I was an undergraduate I always had a great liking for the study of languages, and my lungs still being bad, I was obliged to spend my winters in the south of France and north of Spain. That led me to live among the Basques, and to take an interest in the Basque language. As soon as I was free from my Oxford work I devoted myself to my special pursuits, and published an Assyrian Grammar for comparative purposes, in which I endeavored to compare the grammatical forms of Assyrian with those of the other Semitic languages, and as far as possible to trace the origin and development of them. Then I devoted myself to the study of comparative philology." Prof. Sayce's work has now extended over thirty years, and during that time. he has helped to build up what we now know about the Assyrian language and the history of Babylon. And his work is not yet done. A few days after I saw him, he returned to his vessel on the Nile, and there proposes to write four new books. One will be upon the history of the Hebrews in the light of archæology; another will deal with the religions of the ancient East; and a third will be on the social life of the ancient Babylonians. ing there as the guest of a Mohammedan family"-so Mr. Sayce began the story -"the festival took place of the grandfather of Mahomet, who was supposed to be buried in one of the mosques in the town. As I was considered to be a member of the family, I was taken to the festival. It was a very curious sight, for the whole of Gaza was there under the dark blue sky. There was no moon, but the atmosphere was very clear, and the great court of the mosque was lit up with innumerable lights. What struck me most was the way in which a spirit of religious ecstasy fell on the people. They were not professional dervishes, but simply the townspeople. But one by one a strange spirit of ecstasy fell upon them, and I realized what was meant regarding Saul when it was said that a sort of afflatus came upon him. These people formed circles and moved to a certain chant, with their eyes open, but in a state of trance. Then they fell to the ground, and after a time some began to torture themselves; I saw them putting skewers through their skin and yet no blood came out. Some began to stand on braziers of burning charcoal, and apparently without hurt. They were in a cataleptic state, brought on by religious excitement. I have seen the same sort of thing performed in Algeria, but there it is impossible to tell how much of it is imposture.” I was anxious to hear something about the very interesting discoveries with which Prof. Sayce has been associated, so I asked him to tell me some of the results of recent research. "As far as our researches among the monuments of Babylon, Assyria, and Egypt are concerned," he replied, "they have opened up a new world undreamed of a few years ago. They show that the history of mankind goes back to a very remote past, and that civilization was then quite as high as that of Imperial Rome or the civilization of Europe at the time of the Renaissance, if not higher in some respects. They have also shown how much there is still to be discovered. After all, what we have found is only the beginning of what we shall find. It is no longer possible to say, as in the early days of Oriental research, that such and such a thing could not have been. The population of the early The professor has witnessed some strange scenes in his travels. He has himself been attacked by Bedouins when travelling in Palestine. But one of the most curious sights he saw was at Gaza, in the south of Palestine. 'While stay- East was highly cultured and highly |