"In Flemish."
If he had said in Laputan, I should hardly have been more surprised.
"I thought the patois was spoken only by the lower orders, and that to the reading-classes it was as unintelligible as myself."
"It is not a patois, but a language," replied the Fleming, gravely. "The general use of French is a modern innovation in our country, and no good one either. Flemish is the original language of the land; and not only is it much more widely known than you imagine, but several very eminent writers, both of prose and poetry, compose in no other tongue, preferring it far before the French, on account of its greater sweetness and power."
I began to feel as much ashamed of my non-acquaintance with the Flemish school of literature, as if I had been convicted of profound ignorance of a Flemish school of painting. Of course, I made allowance for a little patriotic exaggeration, when accepting my friend's account of this host of poets and prosaists, who pass their lives in writing a language which scarce any besides themselves understand. But after all, thought I, why should there not be Flemish writers, just as writers are found in other tongues, equally unknown to the world at large? Did I not myself, when in Southern France, get shaved, clipped, and trimmed, in the prune-producing town of Agen, by a literary barber, hight Jessamine, who had written volume upon volume of poems in that Gascon dialect which, according to M. Alexandre Dumas, and other of the highest French literary authorities, is entirely comprised in the words Cadedis, Mordious, Capdedious, Parfandious, and eight or ten other expletives, equally profane and energetic,—just as, according to some funny Frenchman, the essence of the English tongue resides in a favourite anti-ocular malediction? At any rate, it was neither civil nor grateful to let my kind companion suspect contempt on my part for what he chose to consider his national tongue. So I bowed humbly, and expressed my deep regret that a defective education left it out of my power to read the legend with which I had desired to become acquainted. The contrite tone of this confession fully regained me any ground I had lost in my Fleming's good opinion. He mused for a minute before again breaking silence.
"Are you bent upon leaving Antwerp to-morrow?"
"It is my present intention."
"Change it. Come to the opera to-night, breakfast with me in the morning, and I will read you the tale between coffee and chasse."
"I have already had the painful honour of informing you that my godfathers, reckless of baptismal promises, have suffered me to attain my present mature age in profound ignorance of the Flemish tongue."
The Fleming looked at me with the half-pleased half-angry air of a dog pelted with marrow-bones, and as if he smoked I was roasting him. I loaded my countenance with a double charge of gravity.