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Introduction to 'The New Guide of the Conversation in Portuguese and English' · The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain

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  Speaker 1: Section twenty five of The thirty Thousand Dollars Bequest and
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  Speaker 1: Other Stories. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
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  Speaker 1: are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
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  Speaker 1: please visit LibriVox dot org. The thirty thousand Dollars Bequest
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  Speaker 1: and Other Stories by Mark Twain, Section twenty five Introduction
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  Speaker 1: to the New Guide of the Conversation in Portuguese and
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  Speaker 1: English by Pedro Carolino. In this world of uncertainties, there is,
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  Speaker 1: at any rate one thing which may be pretty confidently
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  Speaker 1: set down is a certainty, and that is that this
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  Speaker 1: celebrated little phrase book will never die. While the English
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  Speaker 1: language lasts, its delicious, unconscious ridiculousness and its enchanting naivete
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  Speaker 1: as are supreme and unapproachable in their way, as are
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  Speaker 1: Shakespeare's sublimities. Whatsoever is perfect in its kind in literature
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  Speaker 1: is in perishable. Nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can
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  Speaker 1: hope to produce its fellow. It is perfect, It must
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  Speaker 1: and will stand alone. Its immortality is secure. It is
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  Speaker 1: one of the smallest books in the world, but few
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  Speaker 1: big books have received such wide attention and been so
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  Speaker 1: much pondered by the grave and learned, and so much
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  Speaker 1: discussed and written about by the thoughtful, the thoughtless, the wise,
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  Speaker 1: and the foolish. Long notices of it have appeared from
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  Speaker 1: time to time in the great English reviews, and in
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  Speaker 1: erudite and authoritative philological periodicals, And it has been laughed at,
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  Speaker 1: danced upon, and tossed in a blanket by nearly every
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  Speaker 1: newspaper and magazine in the English speaking world. Every scribbler
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  Speaker 1: almost has had his little fling at it at one
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  Speaker 1: time or another. I had mine fifteen years ago. The
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  Speaker 1: book gets out of print every now and then, and
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  Speaker 1: one ceases to hear of it for a season. But
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  Speaker 1: presently the nations and near and far colonies of our
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  Speaker 1: tongue in lineage call for it once more, And once
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  Speaker 1: more it issues from some London or Continental or American press,
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  Speaker 1: and runs a new course round the globe, wafted on
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  Speaker 1: its way by the wind of a world's laughter. Many
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  Speaker 1: persons have believed that this book's miraculous stupidities were studied
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  Speaker 1: and disingenuous, but no one can read the volume carefully
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  Speaker 1: through and keep that opinion. It was written in serious,
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  Speaker 1: good faith and deep earnestness by an honest and upright
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  Speaker 1: idiot who believed he knew something of the English language
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  Speaker 1: and could impart his knowledge to others. The amplest proof
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  Speaker 1: of this crops out somewhere or other upon each and
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  Speaker 1: every page. There are sentences in the book which could
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  Speaker 1: have been manufactured by a man in his right mind
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  Speaker 1: and with an intelligent and deliberate purpose, to seem innocently ignorant.
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  Speaker 1: But there are other sentences and paragraphs which no mere
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  Speaker 1: pretended ignorance could ever achieve, nor yet even the most
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  Speaker 1: genuine and comprehensive ignorance, when unbacked by inspiration. It is
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  Speaker 1: not a fraud who speaks in the following paragraph of
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  Speaker 1: the author's preface, but a good man, an honest man,
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  Speaker 1: a man whose conscience is at rest, a man who
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  Speaker 1: believes he has done a high and worthy work for
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  Speaker 1: his nation and his generation, and is well pleased with
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  Speaker 1: his performance. We expect, then, who the little book, for
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  Speaker 1: the care what we wrote him, and for her typographical
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  Speaker 1: correction that may be worth the acceptation of the studious persons,
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  Speaker 1: and especially of the youth at which we dedicate him. Particularly,
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  Speaker 1: one cannot open this book anywhere and not find richness
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  Speaker 1: to prove that this is true, I will open it
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  Speaker 1: at random and copy the page I happen to stumble upon.
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  Speaker 1: Here is the result, Dialogue sixteen. Or to see the
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  Speaker 1: town and othany go to accompany they, gentlesmen, Do they
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  Speaker 1: see the town? We won't to see all that is remarkable? Here?
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  Speaker 1: Come with me, if you please. I shall not forget
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  Speaker 1: nothing that can to merit your attention. Here we are
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  Speaker 1: near to cathedral. Will you come in there? We will
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  Speaker 1: first to see him in outside. After we shall go
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  Speaker 1: in there, for to look the interior, admire this masterpiece
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  Speaker 1: Gothic architectures. The chasing of all they figures is astonishing. Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: the cupola and the knave are not less curious to see.
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  Speaker 1: What is this palace? How I see yonder? It is
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  Speaker 1: the town hall, and this tower here at this side
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  Speaker 1: it is the observatory. The bridge is very fine. It
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  Speaker 1: have ten arches and is constructed of free stone. The
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  Speaker 1: streets are very laid out by line and two paved.
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  Speaker 1: What is the circuit of this town? Two leagues? There
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  Speaker 1: is it also hospitals? Here? It not fail them? What
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  Speaker 1: are then the edifices? The worthest to have seen? It
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  Speaker 1: is the Arsena Hall, the Spectacle's hall, the Cusium house,
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  Speaker 1: and the purse. We are going to see the other's monuments,
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  Speaker 1: such that the public pawnbroker's office, the plants gardens, the
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  Speaker 1: money offices, the library. That it shall be for another day.
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  Speaker 1: We are tired Dialogue seventeen to inform oneself of a person?
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  Speaker 1: How is that gentleman whom you did speak by and by?
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  Speaker 1: Is a German? I did think him Englishmen. He is
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  Speaker 1: of the Saxony side. He speak French very well, tough,
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  Speaker 1: he is German. He speaks so much well Italyan, French,
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  Speaker 1: Spanish and English that among the Itaians they believe him Italyan.
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  Speaker 1: He speak the French ay as the frenchase himself. The
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  Speaker 1: spanish Men believe him Spanishing, and the Englishes Englishmen. It
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  Speaker 1: is difficult to enjoy well so much several languages. This
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  Speaker 1: last remark contains a general truth, but it ceases to
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  Speaker 1: be a truth when one contracts it and applies it
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  Speaker 1: to an individual, provided that that individual is the author
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  Speaker 1: of this book. Signor Pedro Carolino, I am sure I
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  Speaker 1: should not find it difficult quote to enjoy well so
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  Speaker 1: much several languages. End quote, or even a thousand of them,
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  Speaker 1: if he did the translating for me from the Originals
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  Speaker 1: into his ostensible English, and of introduction to the new
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  Speaker 1: Guide of the Conversation in Portuguese and English. Recording by
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  Speaker 1: Tricia Gee