No foreigner who knows the French people will disapprove of the novel desire to know the modern languages, which has been one of the most unexpected consequences of the war. Their extreme ignorance of the literature of other nations has been the cause of enormous evils. Notwithstanding her central position, France has been a very isolated country intellectually, much more isolated than England, more isolated even than Transylvania, where foreign literatures are familiar to the cultivated classes. This isolation has produced very lamentable effects, not only on the national culture but most especially on the national character. No modern nation, however important, can safely remain in ignorance of its contemporaries. The Frenchman was like a gentleman shut up within his own park-wall, having no intercourse with his neighbors, and reading nothing but the history of his own ancestors--for the Romans were your ancestors, intellectually. It is only by the study of living languages, and their continual use, that we can learn our true place in the world. A Frenchman was studying Hebrew; I ventured to suggest that German might possibly be more useful. To this he answered, _that there was no literature in German_. "_Vous avez Goethe, vous avez Schiller, et vous avez Lessing, mais en dehors de ces trois noms il n'y a rien._" This meant simply that my student of Hebrew measured German literature by his own knowledge of it. Three names had reached him, only names, and only three of them. As to the men who were unknown to him he had decided that they did not exist. Certainly if there are many Frenchmen in this condition, it is time that they learned a little German. LETTER VIII. TO A STUDENT OF MODERN LANGUAGES. Standard of attainment in living languages higher than in ancient ones--Difficulty of maintaining high pretensions--Prevalent illusion about the facility of modern languages--Easy to speak them badly--Some propositions based upon experience--Expectations and disappointments.