"a sign of recognition now applied to strangers." Here, again, our experience supports Mr. Buckman. The child will often apply it the instant a stranger enters upon an afternoon call, waving a small hand to enforce its dismissal of the intruder.

inside it, or, to put it in another way, two words and two ideas are run together, and a compound, which is also a new word, is produced. For example, a girl of under three was lately told that she was going abroad, and also that she was going to reach forBut we cannot follow Mr. Buck- eign parts by going on board ship. A man's vocabulary any further, or in- mere grown-up person would have quire how far "ach" or "ah" is or is plodded on, using the two phrases side not, "a general conversational word," by side. But at two and three-quaror "kah" "a strong sign of displeasure ters the mind is too alert for these dull at anything nasty to the taste." Again, ways, and a portmanteau word was "ba-ha" must remain undiscussed, nor soon produced. "When am I going can we debate the examples furnished abroadships?" became a half-hourly of Isabel's talk at two and a half years question. How much more expressive old or at three and a half, of Ella's at and how much less long than "When three or of George's at four or five, ex- am I going abroad on board ship?" cept to say that we have not of recent Both the new and important ideas of years met any children whose lan- foreign travel and sea-voyage are covguage was so simple and primitive. ered over by that "one narrow word," What surprises one with children of "abroadships." There is, of course, three or four nowadays, is to find a nothing the least remarkable in sucn young lady or gentleman who does not a compound. Every nursery can furtalk with an entire plainness of utter- nish examples of new words which ance, and employ the syllogism with a often display far more euphony and complete mastery of its uses. We re- also far better logic than the dreadful call how a small boy of four listened words produced by the men of science to the talk about a new house, and as labels for their new discoveries in when he thought that the night nurs- the regions of applied chemistry. The ery had been omitted, struck in with, speech of children shows also a won"I must have a night nursery-the derful quickness and resource in the evenings will come to the new house matter of supplying the language with just the same." Every one must have direct phrases and forms of speech. met examples of the logical case often While the grown-ups are content to put against going to bed at a slightly walk round, the child takes a verbal different hour, or under slightly shortcut. Children are very seldom ferent conditions. "Nurse always content with such round-about devices comes to fetch me to go to bed. Nurse as "Had not I better" do this or that. hasn't come to fetch me. I won't go "Bettern't I" is the much more direct to bed." The baby who assumes this and much more expressive form kind of attitude and enforces it in per- adopted in almost all nurseries. fectly clear and well-cut sentences, is Take, again, the word "whobody" to apparently unknown to Mr. Buckman. match with "anybody" and "someAnother category of infant speech is body." When the facetious parent reas little known to him. He mentions marks, "Somebody's been walking on the child's habit of decapitating and this flower-bed," he may, if his offdecaudating its words-" "have" spring is inclined to ingenuities of lanbehave, or "pram" for perambulator- guage, be answered by the interrogabut he says comparatively little about tion "Whobody?" These portmanteau the power shown by children to make words and short-cut phrases show that what the author of "Alice in Wonder- if children could only be induced to land" so happily calls portmanteau keep up the verbal habits prevalent words. A portmanteau word is a from two to five our language might word which has another word packed be indefinitely enriched. Unfortu

dif

for

nately after five or six the language of lowed to butter the slices of cake and children is apt to become pedantically then had whole-strawberry jam on the conventional and correct. The child top." If the speech of children of ten of ten, indeed, seems often to be train- is restricted in the matter of commening himself for a fauteuil in Mr. datory adjectives, it is equally reStead's proposed academy. He stops stricted in the way of adjectival dewhat he considers a new or unauthor- nunciation. Every one a boy dislikes ized word like a suspected person. or does not understand is "quite mad." Every phrase is challenged and in- Of course things in general of a disspected, and the parent or uncle who agreeable kind are always "beastly" or makes a slip in grammar or pronunci- "vile;" and why he should not be alation, or steps outside the conventional lowed to use these epithets where rut, is pounced upon and corrected they are clearly applicable passes his with all the primness of a pedagogue. comprehension. Obviously the lanThe boy of ten, no doubt, has the com- guage of the schoolboy is not a fleximand of a certain amount of slang, ble instrument. Gestures and low but it is of a limited and defined kind. whistles and clicks and winks may A special vocabulary is in use at his stimulate it into a certain vividness school, but outside this vocabulary the and picturesqueness, but per se the schoolboy does not think it good form language of the schoolroom is not half to travel. The language of children at as full of imagination and resource as this stage is, indeed, exceedingly the language of the nursery. Literary amusing on account of its cast-iron gentlemen on the lookout for new colstrictness. For months, nay, years, to- ors for the verbal palette may get gether one word of commendation is some startling effects out of the baby, considered sufficient for all needs. but from Master Jack they will learn Ask a boy of ten to describe his chief little or nothing. Meantime, we adfriend to you,-to tell you, that is, vise the men of science to be careful what kind of a boy he is. Almost cer- how they build their theories on the tainly you will get as your answer, "mas," "bas," and "das" of knee-high "He's a very decent chap." There is infants. We have a strong belief ourno idea of depreciation. It merely selves that baby language is a purely happens that "decent" is the word of artificial product of the nurses and the hour for expressing all good mothers,-a tradition handed down by things. Asked what he would like his them, and not by the babies. If this friends to think of him, Jack will re- is so, the nurses and mothers could ply, "A decent chap, of course, father." change it if they would, and nothing In the same way Jack brings you his is more likely than that they would do favorite book and asks, "Don't you so if they saw the prattle of the cradle think, father, that this is an awfully set forth in printed books. They decent story?-all about fighting would never believe that it was all sharks under water with those rotten done for science, but would conclude rays or whatever they are, and a boy- that they and their precious charges pirate who ran off with a torpedo-boat were being laughed at by rude men and caught two archbishops; only its who know nothing about children. sickening rot aɩ the end, all about his Just to prove these rude men wrong being in love with a little fool of a they would invent a new vocabulary, Greek girl, called Hydrant, or Haidee, and turn the laugh against the books or something." A new pistol is "a by making them obviously incorrect. frightfully decent one, don't you The nurses would only have to put think?" because it fires eight peas at their heads together to make "tatta" once; and the tea at a tea-party was mean "good morning" everywhere "very decent," because "we were al- from Chicago to Aberdeen.

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Binding with cords of love man to the Is there a princess at all that your

From Cosmopolis.
CURRENT FRENCH LITERATURE.

It might have been expected that, as Switzerland is thronged every year with English people, the first Swiss novel would come from an English pen. But it has been left for an eminent French novelist to seize the dramatic elements which have so long been offering themselves in vain in the upper valleys of the Alps. It is doubtful, indeed, whether any Englishman living could have written the admirable study of Alpine life which M. Edouard Rod has given us in "Là-Haut" (Perrin et Cie). No persons, probably, have fuller knowledge of the physical conformation of the mountains than the large and intelligent section of English professional society which every summer make the Alps their playground. But we English have an extraordinary way of carrying about with us an impermeable crystal armor, which permits the penetration of visual phenomena and excludes all relation of ideas. We travel in Switzerland in large numbers, and we display every variety of gusto and intrepidity; what there is to do and to see, the English climber sees and does. But we form, as M. Rod has observed, an independent and tyrannical colony, "qui s'empare du salon pour danser les soirs de pluie et chanter des cantiques le dimanche;" we are "fort aimables d'ailleurs (oh! this cruel touch!) "pourvu qu'on ne nous gênât pas."

But it never occurs to us-it would be foreign to our whole attitude and manners-to consider as civilized beings the inhabitants of the valleys we invade, or to speculate as to their ambitions or peculiarities. If our hotelkeepers are civil, our guides competent and steady, we ask no more; we make the Oberland a temporary English county.

It is, therefore, more than probable that this new story of M. Rod's (the most delightful, in my judgment, that he has yet produced) will be read with peculiar pleasure by English men and women who are familiar with the physical aspect of the High Alps, but have been prevented, by the national

habit of tyrannical shyness, from making any investigation of its people. Knowing the scenes so familiarly, English readers will follow with unusual intelligence a cicerone who can take them from châlet to châlet, and expose before them the hopes and desires of those human beings whom they have hitherto, unconsciously, regarded as portions of the landscape. The subjectmatter, too, of "Là-Haut" should be peculiarly interesting to our race, since it is we, more than any other people, who have led to its development. M. Rod (whose early Genevan experiences, doubtless, arm him with exact impressions of Swiss sentiment) paints the struggle between the old life in a mountain village with its small inns, its warm local movement, its jealousy, its individuality—and the new life of monster hotels, casinos, rack-and-pinion railways, and complete devotion to the complex speculative system of modern Switzerland. It is a very curious crisis in social existence which M. Rod has chosen to portray, and one on the outskirts of which we are almost as much at home as in a hamlet of Sussex or East Lothian, but of which the majority of us have been densely unappreciative. A young man, Julien Sterny, who has passed in public through a painful emotional experience, desires to hide his head for awhile, until the wounds of his spirit are healed. Driven by his agitated nerves from spot to spot, he takes refuge at last in the high Alpine village of Vallanches in the Bas Valais. (Where is this village? It has something of Orsières, something of Evolena. They are all of one likeness, these brown hamlets of the Valais, that look so Japanese from the cornices of the peaks above them.) Vallanches - all this is some ten or fifteen years ago—is still known only to a group who visit it, affectionately and loyally, year after year. Its modest hotels preserve their ancient aspect, great châlets transformed within to decently comfortable and clean, but not luxurious, lodginghouses. Its inhabitants, a sturdy clan, are bound together by ancient observances and cultivate a simple patriotism.