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Commerce at present is
doing more than the philosophers to that end. While the countrymen
of Wilhelm von Humboldt and Max Mueller persist in burying their
laboriously heaped treasures under a load of black-letter type and
words and sentences the most fearfully and wonderfully made, the
skipper scatters English words with English calico and American clocks
among all the isles. A picturesque fringe of pigeon English decorates
the coasts of Africa, Asia and Oceanica. It might be deeper, and
doubtless will be, for our mother-tongue will very certainly be
supreme in the world of trade for at least a couple of centuries to
come. If we were only half as sure of its being adopted by France as
by Fiji!
If almighty steam and sail must remain unequal to this task, wondrous
indeed are their other potencies. They have contracted the globe like
a dried apple, only in a far greater degree. In 1776 three years
was the usual allotment of the grand tour. Beginning at London, it
extended to Naples and occasionally Madrid. It often left out Vienna,
and more frequently Berlin.


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