INTRODUCTION TO "THE NEW GUIDE OF THE CONVERSATION IN

PORTUGUESE AND ENGLISH"


by Pedro Carolino



In this world of uncertainties, there is, at any rate, one thing
which may be pretty confidently set down as a certainty: and that is,
that this celebrated little phrase-book will never die while the
English language lasts. Its delicious unconscious ridiculousness,
and its enchanting naivete, as are supreme and unapproachable,
in their way, as are Shakespeare's sublimities. Whatsoever is
perfect in its kind, in literature, is imperishable: nobody can
imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow;
it is perfect, it must and will stand alone: its immortality
is secure.

It is one of the smallest books in the world, but few big books have
received such wide attention, and been so much pondered by the grave
and learned, and so much discussed and written about by the thoughtful,
the thoughtless, the wise, and the foolish. Long notices of it
have appeared, from time to time, in the great English reviews,
and in erudite and authoritative philological periodicals; and it
has been laughed at, danced upon, and tossed in a blanket by nearly
every newspaper and magazine in the English-speaking world.