United States or Netherlands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
A childlike shyness, and the Germanisms of speech which he never had laid aside in his life of absorbing toil, embarrassed him much in giving expression to his ideas. Moreover, his friends overawed him. They had in respect to him the tremendous superiority of the man who does nothing over the man who works; and M. Chebe, less generous than Delobelle, did not hesitate to make him feel it.
"Ah! It has been always the plan, you know, in England, as well as in America, courteously to avoid taking up a German theory till the Germans had quite done with it, and thrown it away for something new. But what are we to say of those who are trying to introduce into England these very Americanised Germanisms, as the only teaching which can suit the needs of the old world?"
In the first place, no doubt, its poetical quality, its beauty of manner that fine literary expression in which Amiel has been able to clothe the subtler processes of thought, no less than the secrets of religious feeling, or the aspects of natural scenery. Style is what gives value and currency to thought, and Amiel, in spite of all his Germanisms, has style of the best kind.
Word Of The Day