But, it will be objected, what a loss of time and energy! If it is a question of languages, why not learn one of the more useful ones? To this we may reply that, while English deforms the mouth and makes it incapable of pronouncing any language which is not spoken from the tip of the lips, Gaelic, on the contrary, so exercises the organs of speech that it renders easy the acquisition and the practice of most European idioms. Let us add, by way of example, that French, which is usually difficult for strangers, is much more within the compass of Irishmen who speak Irish, no less because of certain linguistic customs than from the original relationship between the two languages. This remark brings us to another objection which is often lodged against our movement. It is urged that Ireland is already isolated enough, and that by making it a Gaelic-speaking nation, we shall make that state of affairs still worse. English, say the objectors, is spoken more or less everywhere, while Gaelic will never be able to claim the position of a quasi-universal language. To this line of reasoning it might be answered, for one thing, that no one can tell how far Gaelic will go, in case our movement is a success, and that many a language formerly "universal" is today as dead as a door-nail. But we must look at the question from another point of view. John Bull's language is spread everywhere, while he himself retains the most exclusive insularity. He travels to every land and there finds his own language and his own customs. Now it goes without saying that from this very universalization his language is corrupted and becomes vulgarized. The idiom of Shakespeare and Milton gives place gradually to the idiom of the seaports. Furthermore, far from isolating us, Gaelic will tend to put us in touch with the civilization of the West. As a people Anglicised, and badly Anglicised at that, we share, and even exaggerate, the faults which I have just described. It is Anglo-Saxon speech which isolates us, and we wish on this ground to break with it and to hold out our hand to our brothers of the continent.