^ OF VITAL MOTION. 13? 



in an English family, at that time resident in Ger- 

 many. As is not unusual under such circumstances, 

 one of the younger children had acquired the power 

 of speaking on ordinary matters in German or in 

 English, without confusing the words or idioms ; but, 

 notwithstanding this double faculty, he was invariably 

 obliged to reply in the language in which he was 

 spoken to, if addressed by an adult. When, for ex- 

 ample, he carried a message to the nursery-maid, who 

 was a native villager without a knowledge of any 

 language save her mother- tongue, he delivered it in 

 German, though it had been received the moment 

 previously in English ; and hence we are led to ima- 

 gine that his speech was ruled for the time by some 

 influence proceeding from the maid akin perhaps to 

 that which, under other circumstances, might have 

 awakened a smile in his countenance ; for the child 

 was too young to allow us to suppose any process of 

 reasoning by which he had purposely selected from his 

 vocabulary the words which were intelligible to her. 

 And that this was the case appears from what took 

 place on his return to the parlour. At this time he 

 joined in the English conversation which was carried 

 on, and he had no power of doing otherwise if he 

 spoke at all : thus, if asked what Annchen had said, 

 he answered in English as often as the question was 

 proposed in English, and even though pressed to give 

 the words he had heard in the nursery, he still 



