fancied—­to three or four other words, that I never know whether it means despised, painted, suspected, or married; until I look in the dictionary, and then I find it means the latter.  There are lots of such words and they are a great torment.  To increase the difficulty there are words which seem to resemble each other, and yet do not; but they make just as much trouble as if they did.  For instance, there is the word VERMIETHEN (to let, to lease, to hire); and the word verheirathen (another way of saying to marry).  I heard of an Englishman who knocked at a man’s door in Heidelberg and proposed, in the best German he could command, to “verheirathen” that house.  Then there are some words which mean one thing when you emphasize the first syllable, but mean something very different if you throw the emphasis on the last syllable.  For instance, there is a word which means a runaway, or the act of glancing through a book, according to the placing of the emphasis; and another word which signifies to associate with a man, or to avoid him, according to where you put the emphasis—­and you can generally depend on putting it in the wrong place and getting into trouble.

There are some exceedingly useful words in this language.  Schlag, for example; and ZUG.  There are three-quarters of a column of SCHLAGS in the dictionary, and a column and a half of ZUGS.  The word Schlag means Blow, Stroke, Dash, Hit, Shock, Clap, Slap, Time, Bar, Coin, Stamp, Kind, Sort, Manner, Way, Apoplexy, Wood-cutting, Enclosure, Field, Forest-clearing.  This is its simple and exact meaning—­that is to say, its restricted, its fettered meaning; but there are ways by which you can set it free, so that it can soar away, as on the wings of the morning, and never be at rest.  You can hang any word you please to its tail, and make it mean anything you want to.  You can begin with Schlag-Ader, which means artery, and you can hang on the whole dictionary, word by word, clear through the alphabet to Schlag-Wasser, which means bilge-water—­and including Schlag-mutter, which means mother-in-law.

Just the same with ZUG.  Strictly speaking, ZUG means Pull, Tug, Draught, Procession, March, Progress, Flight, Direction, Expedition, Train, Caravan, Passage, Stroke, Touch, Line, Flourish, Trait of Character, Feature, Lineament, Chess-move, Organ-stop, Team, Whiff, Bias, Drawer, Propensity, Inhalation, Disposition:  but that thing which it does not mean—­when all its legitimate pennants have been hung on, has not been discovered yet.

One cannot overestimate the usefulness of Schlag and ZUG.  Armed just with these two, and the word also, what cannot the foreigner on German soil accomplish?  The German word also is the equivalent of the English phrase “You know,” and does not mean anything at all—­in talk, though it sometimes does in print.  Every time a German opens his mouth an also falls out; and every time he shuts it he bites one in two that was trying to get out.