There are some curious observations I should like to make about the
mental machinery, but I think we are getting rather didactic.
- I should be gratified, if Benjamin Franklin would let me know
something of his progress in the French language. I rather liked
that exercise he read us the other day, though I must confess I
should hardly dare to translate it, for fear some people in a
remote city where I once lived might think I was drawing their
portraits.
- Yes, Paris is a famous place for societies. I don't know whether
the piece I mentioned from the French author was intended simply as
Natural History, or whether there was not a little malice in his
description. At any rate, when I gave my translation to B. F. to
turn back again into French, one reason was that I thought it would
sound a little bald in English, and some people might think it was
meant to have some local bearing or other,--which the author, of
course, didn't mean, inasmuch as he could not be acquainted with
anything on this side of the water.
[The above remarks were addressed to the school-mistress, to whom
I handed the paper after looking it over. The divinity-student
came and read over her shoulder,--very curious, apparently, but his
eyes wandered, I thought. Fancying that her breathing was somewhat
hurried and high, or thoracic, as my friend, the Professor, calls
it, I watched her a little more closely.
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