MR. LANG AND THE "AUTOCRAT"
is an ingenious and admirable translator: I wish he would translate Emerson's sentence from American into English, without loss of brevity, directness, and simple Saxon strength. For my part, I can think of nothing better than " In man she is always telling it," which strikes me as a feeble makeshift. "All the time," I suggest, is precisely one of the phrases we should accept with gratitude—if, indeed, it be not already naturalised.
Mr. Lang is peculiarly unfortunate in calling Oliver Wendell Holmes to witness against his particular and pet aversion " I belong here " or " That does not belong there." Writing of " needless Americanisms," he says, "The use of 'belong' as a new auxiliary verb [an odd classification, by the way] is an example of what we mean. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes was a stern opponent of such neologisms." I turn to the Oxford Dictionary, and the one quotation I find under " belong " in this sense, is—"'You belong with the last set, and got accidentally shuffled with the others.'—O. W. Holmes, 'Elsie Venner?'" But this, Mr. Lang may say, is in dialogue. Yes, but not in dialect. I am very much mistaken if the locution does not occur elsewhere in Holmes. If Mr. Lang, in a leisure hour, were to undertake a search for it, he might incidentally find cause to modify his view as to the sternness of the Autocrat's anti-Americanism.
Let me not be thought to underrate the services which, by sound precept and invaluable example,
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