and just relations between ideas by etymologies, derivations, and synonymes.  Colored reflections of light and shade are thus thrown upon all expressions, so that they necessarily call into vibration through the mind the correspondent tone of a third, which modulates the thought into a major or minor mode.  The richness of the language always permits the choice of the mode, but this very richness may become a difficulty.  It is not impossible that the general use of foreign tongues in Poland may be attributed to indolence of mind or want of application; may be traced to a desire to escape the necessary labor of acquiring that mastery of diction indispensable in a language so full of sudden depths, of laconic energy, that it is very difficult, if not quite impossible, to support in it the commonplace.  The vague agreements of badly defined ideas cannot be compressed in the nervous strength of its grammatical forms; the thought, if it be really low, cannot be elevated from its debasement or poverty; if it really soar above the commonplace, it requires a rare precision of terms not to appear uncouth or fantastic.  In consequence of this, in proportion to the works published, the Polish literature should be able to show a greater number of chefs-d’oeuvre than can be done in any other language.  He who ventures to use this tongue, must feel himself already master.

[Footnote:  It cannot be reproached with a want of harmony or musical charm.  The harshness of a language does not always and absolutely depend upon the number of consonants, but rather upon the manner of their association.  We might even assert, that in consequence of the absence of well-determined and strongly marked sounds, some languages have a dull and cold coloring.  It is the frequent repetition of certain consonants which gives shadow, rhythm, and vigor to a tongue; the vowels imparting only a kind of light clear hue, which requires to be brought out by deeper shades.  It is the sharp, uncouth, or unharmonious clashing of heterogeneous consonants which strikes the ear painfully.  It is true the Sclavic languages make use of many consonants, but their connection is generally sonorous, sometimes pleasant to the ear, and scarcely ever entirely discordant, even when the combinations are more striking than agreeable.  The quality of the sounds is rich, full, and varied.  They are not straitened and contracted as if produced in a narrow medium, but extending through a considerable register, range through a variety of intonations.  The letter L, almost impossible for those to pronounce, who have not acquired the pronunciation in their infancy, has nothing harsh in its sound.  The ear receives from it an impression similar to that which is made upon the fingers by the touch of a thick woolen velvet, rough, but at the same time, yielding.  The union of jarring consonants being rare, and the assonances easily multiplied, the same comparison might be employed to the ensemble of the effect produced by these idioms upon foreigners.