Speech is a school. Every language is
a persuasion, an induced habit, an instrument which receives the note
indeed but gives the tone. Every language imposes a quality, teaches a
temper, proposes a way, bestows a tradition: this is the tone--the
voice--of the instrument. Every language, by counter-change, replies to
the writer's touch or breath his own intention, articulate: this is his
note. Much has always been said, many things to the purpose have been
thought, of the power and the responsibility of the note. Of the
legislation and influence of the tone I have been led to think by
comparing the tranquillity of Johnson and the composure of Canning with
the stimulated and close emotion, the interior trouble, of those writers
who have entered as disciples in the school of the more Teutonic English.
For if every language be a school, more significantly and more
educatively is a part of a language a school to him who chooses that
part. Few languages offer the choice. The fact that a choice is made
implies the results and fruits of a decision. The French author is
without these. They are of all the heritages of the English writer the
most important. He receives a language of dual derivation. He may
submit himself to either University, whither he will take his impulse and
his character, where he will leave their influence, and whence he will
accept their education.
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