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Altogether, it seems to me unlikely that the world will let English supplant French for international purposes, and likely that French will be ousted only when the world shall have been so internationalised that the children of every land will have to learn, besides their own traditional language, some kind of horrible universal lingo begotten on Volapuk by a congress of the world's worst pedants.
People of condition, liberally educated, have unfortunately abandoned public affairs for some time; so that the incapacity of some, and the pride or despondency of others, have, in a manner, left the nation to the guidance of pedants, incendiaries, and adventurers.
WILL. laught this off at first as well as he could; but finding himself pushed on all sides, and especially by the Templar, he told us, with a little Passion, that he never liked Pedantry in Spelling, and that he spelt like a Gentleman, and not like a Scholar: Upon this WILL. had recourse to his old Topick of shewing the narrow-Spiritedness, the Pride, and Ignorance of Pedants; which he carried so far, that upon my retiring to my Lodgings, I could not forbear throwing together such Reflections as occurred to me upon that Subject.
As a parliamentary orator he was simply a speech-maker, like the Unitarian minister Fox, or that still abler man the Quaker Bright, both of whom were great rhetoricians. It is probable that he himself understood his true sphere, which was that of a literary man, an historical critic, appealing to intelligent people rather than to learned pedants in the universities.
Do you forget that action is the grand career for men who think as you do? Will this word-weighing and picture-writing the cold eulogies of pedants the listless praises of literary idlers, content all the yearnings of your ambition? You were not made solely for the closet; 'The Dreams of Pindus, and the Aonian Maids' cannot endure through the noon of manhood.
He did not yield to Cicero in admiration of her illustrious thinkers. It is probable that with his keen appreciation of the Roman character he saw that it was unfitted for speculative thought; that in most cases its cultivation would only bring forth pedants or hypocrites.
'No railway within seven miles. Just the place for a pedant to escape to, and live there through the winter with his musty books. 'But it must be equally delightful for people who are not pedants! exclaimed Alma. 'In spring or summer, no doubt, though even then the civilised person would probably find it dull. 'That's your favourite affectation again.
Wagner, the last of the romanticists, closes an epoch and belongs to the past. Nietzsche took pains to proclaim his Polish origin and abominated Germany, a country, according to him, of middle-class pedants. His Slavism was so pronounced that he even prophesied the overthrow of the Prussians by the Slavs. . . . And there are others.
There is a class of pedantic label-mongers, pedants by nature and by grace, who remind me of that man who, purposing to console a father whose son has suddenly died in the flower of his years, says to him, "Patience, my friend, we all must die!" Would you think it strange if this father were offended at such an impertinence? For it is an impertinence.
First as freaks and cranks, then as scholars and pedants, then protected and perhaps stimulated under the competitive royal patronage as societies and academies, they prepared for the harvest. Comparing them to pioneer farmers sowing an undeveloped territory is really totally inadequate and inaccurate.
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