“I feel fortunate to be bound to my mother tongue, bound as perhaps only
few are, bound as Adam was to Eve because there was no other woman,
bound because it has been impossible for me to learn any other language
and therefore impossible for me to be tempted into proud and snobbish
condescension with respect to my native tongue. But it has also been a joy
to be bound to a mother tongue that is so fertile in its inner originality
when it expands the soul, and whose sweet sounds resound so voluptuously
in the ear; a mother tongue that does not rasp, panting for breath, when it
encounters a difficult thought—and perhaps the reason some believe that it
cannot express the thought is that it makes the difficulty easy by articulating
it; a mother tongue that does not gasp and sound strained when confronted
with the inexpressible, but busies itself with it in jest and in earnest until it
is expressed; a language that does not discover far off what is nearby, or seek
in the depths for what is ready at hand—because in its happy relationship
with its task it bustles about like an elf and brings it forth like a child who
comes up with the perfect words without really knowing it; a language that
is vehement and turbulent whenever the right lover knows how, in manly
fashion, to incite its feminine passion; a language that is sure of itself and
triumphant in intellectual battle whenever the proper sort of master knows
how to lead the way; that is as supple as a wrestler whenever the proper
sort of thinker refuses to let go of it—and refuses to let go of the idea; a
language that is not impoverished, even if it might seem to be so at one or
another point, but has been jilted like a humble, modest sweetheart who is
indeed of the highest worth and who above all is not shabby; a language
that is not lacking in expressions for what is great, for what is crucial, for
what is prominent, yet has a lovely, winsome, delicious propensity for the
connecting thought, the subordinate concept, the adjective, and the chit-
chat of moods, and the hum of transitions, and the inwardness of inflection,
and the secret luxuriance of comfortable seclusion; a language that under-
stands jest fully as well as earnestness; a mother tongue that captivates its
children with a chain that ‘is easy to bear, yes, but hard to break!’ ”
Did someone call him a hack?
Stages on Life’s Way
Quite a few years ago a man of letters sent some books to Hilarius Book-
binder, who was to see after having them bound. The bookbindery was
busy, however, so the books lay around for a rather long time, so long, in
fact, that the man of letters died in the meanwhile and the still-unbound
books became the property of his heirs, who lived abroad. Some time after