[24] Head of house doing all he can do well, himself. If he had not had time to make the brooms well, he would have bought them. [25] Do not calculate so closely how much you can afford to give for the price. [26] Not meaning "you can cheat them afterwards," but that the customer would not leave him for another broom-maker. [27] Sold. [28] "Aussi" also how happy she felt. Aussi is untranslateable in this pretty use; so hereafter I shall put it, as an English word, in its place. [29] "Nigaud," good for nothing but trifles; worthless, but without sense of vice; (vaut-rien, means viciously worthless). The real sense of this word here would be "Handless fool," but said good-humouredly. [30] Se mit à regarder. I shall always translate such passages with the literal idiom--put himself. [31] A single batz, about three halfpence in bad silver, flat struck: I shall use the word without translating henceforward. [32] Pushed it. No horse wanted. [33] Coup de main, a nice French idiom meaning the stroke of hand as opposed by that of a senseless instrument. The phrase "Taking a place by a coup de main" regards essentially not so much the mere difference between sudden and long assault, as between assault with flesh or cannon. [34] Assez clair semées. [35] He is now a capitalist, in the entirely wholesome and proper sense of the word. See answer of 'Pall Mall Gazette,' driven to have recourse to the simple truth, to my third question in last 'Fors.' [36] See above, the first speech of the farmer to Hansli, "Many's the year now," etc. It would be a shame for a well-to-do farmer to have to buy brooms; it is only the wretched townspeople whom Hansli counts on for custom. [37] Copeaux, I don't understand this. [38] The mistress of a farm; paysan, the master. I shall use paysanne, after this, without translation, and peasant, for paysan; rarely wanting the word in our general sense. [39] "Du battu," I don't know if it means the butter, or the buttermilk. [40] "Le bout du monde," meaning, he never thought of going any farther. [41] Compare, if you can get at the book in any library, my article on 'Home and its Economies' in the 'Contemporary Review' for May. [42] Colonel Talbot, in 'Waverley;' I need not, surely, name the other:--note only that, in speaking of heroism, I never admit into the field of comparison the merely stage-ideals of impossible virtue and fortune--(Ivanhoe, Sir Kenneth, and the like)--but only persons whom Scott meant to be real. Observe also that with Scott, as with Titian, you must often expect the most tender pieces of completion in subordinate characters. [43] I beg my readers to observe that I never flinch from stating a fact that tells against me. This George's Square is in that New Town of Edinburgh which I said, in the first of these letters, I should like to destroy to the ground.