A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

the grammatical horoscope of this matter, I answer up

confidently and state in German that the bird is staying

in the blacksmith shop “wegen (on account of) DEN Regen.”

Then the teacher lets me softly down with the remark

that whenever the word “wegen” drops into a sentence,

it ALWAYS throws that subject into the GENITIVE case,

regardless of consequences–and therefore this bird stayed in

the blacksmith shop “wegen DES Regens.”

N.B.–I was informed, later, by a higher authority,

that there was an “exception” which permits one to say “wegen

DEN Regen” in certain peculiar and complex circumstances,

but that this exception is not extended to anything

BUT rain.

There are ten parts of speech, and they are all troublesome.

An average sentence, in a German newspaper, is a sublime

and impressive curiosity; it occupies a quarter of a column;

it contains all the ten parts of speech–not in regular order,

but mixed; it is built mainly of compound words constructed

by the writer on the spot, and not to be found in any

dictionary–six or seven words compacted into one,

without joint or seam–that is, without hyphens;

it treats of fourteen or fifteen different subjects,

each enclosed in a parenthesis of its own, with here and

there extra parentheses, making pens with pens: finally,

all the parentheses and reparentheses are massed together

between a couple of king-parentheses, one of which is placed

in the first line of the majestic sentence and the other

in the middle of the last line of it–AFTER WHICH COMES

THE VERB, and you find out for the first time what the man

has been talking about; and after the verb–merely by way

of ornament, as far as I can make out–the writer shovels

in “HABEN SIND GEWESEN GEHABT HAVEN GEWORDEN SEIN,”

or words to that effect, and the monument is finished.

I suppose that this closing hurrah is in the nature of the

flourish to a man’s signature–not necessary, but pretty.

German books are easy enough to read when you hold them

before the looking-glass or stand on your head–so as

to reverse the construction–but I think that to learn

to read and understand a German newspaper is a thing

which must always remain an impossibility to a foreigner.

Yet even the German books are not entirely free from attacks

of the Parenthesis distemper–though they are usually so mild

as to cover only a few lines, and therefore when you at

last get down to the verb it carries some meaning to your

mind because you are able to remember a good deal of what

has gone before. Now here is a sentence from a popular

and excellent German novel–which a slight parenthesis

in it. I will make a perfectly literal translation,

and throw in the parenthesis-marks and some hyphens

for the assistance of the reader–though in the original

there are no parenthesis-marks or hyphens, and the reader

is left to flounder through to the remote verb the best way he

can:

“But when he, upon the street, the (in-satin-and-silk-covered-

now-very-unconstrained-after-the-newest-fashioned-dressed)

government counselor’s wife MET,” etc., etc. [1]

1. Wenn er aber auf der Strasse der in Sammt und Seide

gehu”llten jetz sehr ungenirt nach der neusten mode

gekleideten Regierungsrathin begegnet.

That is from THE OLD MAMSELLE’S SECRET, by Mrs. Marlitt.

And that sentence is constructed upon the most approved

German model. You observe how far that verb is from

the reader’s base of operations; well, in a German

newspaper they put their verb away over on the next page;

and I have heard that sometimes after stringing along the

exciting preliminaries and parentheses for a column or two,

they get in a hurry and have to go to press without getting

to the verb at all. Of course, then, the reader is left

in a very exhausted and ignorant state.

We have the Parenthesis disease in our literature, too; and one

may see cases of it every day in our books and newspapers:

but with us it is the mark and sign of an unpracticed

writer or a cloudy intellect, whereas with the Germans

it is doubtless the mark and sign of a practiced pen

and of the presence of that sort of luminous intellectual