I like a language just about as foreign as the Scotch is. There are a
good many words in it that people not Scotch don't understand, but that
gives a person the feeling that she is travelling abroad, which I want
to have when I am abroad. Then, on the other hand, there are not enough
of them to hinder a traveller from making herself understood. So it is
natural for me to like it ever so much better than French, in which,
when I am in it, I simply sink to the bottom if no helping hand is held
out to me.
I had some trouble with Jone that night at the hotel, because he had a
novel which he had been reading for I don't know how long, and which he
said he wanted to get through with before he began anything else. But
now I told him he was going to enter on the wonderful country of the
"Lady of the Lake," and that he ought to give up everything else and
read that book, because if he didn't go there with his mind prepared
the scenery would not sink into his soul as it ought to. He was of the
opinion that when my romantic feeling got on top of the scenery it
would be likely to sink into his soul as deep as he cared to have it,
without any preparation, but that sort of talk wouldn't do for me. I
didn't want to be gliding o'er the smooth waters of Loch Katrine, and
have him asking me who the girl was who rowed her shallop to the silver
strand, and the end of it was that I made him sit up until a quarter of
two o'clock in the morning while I read the "Lady of the Lake" to him.
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