the consolidation of several abbreviated words into a single one, which
occurs in almost every Alemannic sentence: for instance, in _woni_ he
would have some difficulty in recognizing _wo ich; ságene_ does not
suggest _sage ihnen_, nor _uffeme, auf einem_.

These singularities of the dialect render the translation of Hebel's
poems into a foreign language a work of great difficulty. In the absence
of any English dialect which possesses corresponding features, the
peculiar quaintness and raciness which they confer must inevitably be
lost. Fresh, wild, and lovely as the Schwarzwald heather, they are
equally apt to die in transplanting. How much they lose by being
converted into classical German was so evident to us (fancy, "Scots who
have with Wallace bled"!) that we at first shrank from the experiment of
reproducing them in a language still farther removed from the original.
Certainly, classical English would not answer; the individual soul of
the poems could never be recognized in such a garb. The tongue of Burns
can be spoken only by a born Scot; and our Yankee, which is rather a
grotesque English than a dialect, is unfortunately so associated
with the coarse and the farcical--Lowell's little poem of "'Zekel's
Courtship" being the single exception--that it seems hardly adapted to
the simple and tender fancies of Hebel. Like the comedian whose one
serious attempt at tragic acting was greeted with roars of laughter, as
an admirable burlesque, the reader might, in such a case, persist in
seeing fun where sentiment was intended.

In this dilemma, it occurred to us that the common, rude form of the
English language, as it is spoken by the uneducated everywhere, without
reference to provincial idioms, might possibly be the best medium.
It offers, at least, the advantage of simplicity, of a directness
of expression which overlooks grammatical rules, of natural pathos,