Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 11, 1895 - Miscellanies, Volume III

'VIRGmiBUS PUERISQUE'
tions that this is quite the case with the Indians of
North America, and it is unquestionably so with the
gipsy.' In short, where a man has not a full pos-
session of the language, the most important, because
the most amiable, qualities of his nature have to lie
buried and fallow ; for the pleasure of comradeship,
and the intellectual part of love, rest upon these very
* elements of humour and pathos.' Here is a man
opulent in both, and for lack of a medium he can
put none of it out to interest in the market of affec-
tion ! But what is thus made plain to our appre-
hensions in the case of a foreign language is partially
true even with the tongue we learned in childhood.
Indeed, we all speak different dialects ; one shall be
copious and exact, another loose and meagre ; but
the speech of the ideal talker shall correspond and
fit upon the truth of fact — not clumsily, obscuring
lineaments, like a mantle, but cleanly adhering, like
an athlete's skin. And what is the result? That
the one can open himself more clearly to his friends,
and can enjoy more of what makes life truly valuable
— intimacy with those he loves. An orator makes a
false step ; he employs some trivial, some absurd,
some vulgar phrase ; in the turn of a sentence he
insults, by a side wind, those whom he is labouring
to charm ; in speaking to one sentiment he uncon-
sciously ruffles another in parenthesis ; and you are
not surprised, for you know his task to be delicate
and filled with perils. ' O frivolous mind of man,
light ignorance ! ' As if yourself, when you seek
to explain some misunderstanding or excuse some
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