Page:Popular Tales of the Germans (Volume 1).djvu/239

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
OF THE VEIL.
221

ſuch an inſight had he acquired into the female heart, that his plain, broad, ruſtic ſenſe, ſeemed to have been caſt in a new mould. Inventive love by degrees ſupplied the ſequeſtered pair with a laconic language, but a language ſo expreſſive, that they could converſe as intelligibly as Inkle and Yarico.

Friedbert had long harboured a wiſh to know of what tongue, from what country and race the fair unknown ſprung; as alſo in what ſituation of life ſhe had been born, that he might judge how far love had matched like with like. Being an unlearned layman, he had no idea that the delicate mouth of the lovely maid was rounded by Grecian ſounds: for to him every language but Swabian was no better than Chineſe. He was informed, by the help of the new-invented dialect, that fortune had thrown into his net a Grecian beauty. In Friedbert’s time, indeed, no Greek model had inflamed the fancy of the German youth: no one dreamed of tranſlat-

L 3
ing