Brown John Irwin. The Further Adventures of O'Neill in Holland
CHAPTER I. WHERE DID O’NEILL’S DUTCH COME FROM?
CHAPTER II. SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF THE COMPENDIOUS GUIDE TO THE DUTCH LANGUAGE
CHAPTER III. HOW O’NEILL LEARNED TO PRONOUNCE
CHAPTER IV. AN INTERLUDE AND AN APPLICATION
CHAPTER V. THE ‘COMPENDIOUS GUIDE’ ON DUTCH SYNTAX
CHAPTER VI. THE GRAMMATICAL CARESS
CHAPTER VII. A GOSSIPY LETTER
CHAPTER VIII. THE SURPRISES OF THE MAAS
CHAPTER IX. THE THUNDERSTORM
CHAPTER X. THE DEVOTED NURSE
CHAPTER XI. GOSSIP AND DIPLOMACY
CHAPTER XII. A STUDY IN CHARACTER
CHAPTER XIII. BELET!
CHAPTER XIV. THE DAY-TRAIN
CHAPTER XV. SUPPER AT A BOERDERIJ
EPILOGUE
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There was something good on every page, as might be expected from the very preface. And, withal, there was a steady process of boasting about its own merits that was most refreshing in the barren realm of grammar.
With mock modesty it dubbed itself on the title page, “The Compendious Guide,” and followed this up with another title “Korte Wegwijzer tot de nederduitsche taal.” The whole compilation was evidently the work of several generations of literary gentlemen, who aimed at the ‘Polish of the Civilized Lady’ in quite different ways, but whose united efforts certainly made ‘The Work’ remarkably incoherent.
.....
Her admiring criticism I duly entered in my notes and kept for use.
Some days after Terence had left, the landlady was praising her son’s cleverness to me; and to please her I just said that he was a wonderful boy. ‘Mirakel van een jongen’ was the expression I employed; and I was quite proud of it. But she didn’t seem appreciative of my effort, so I fell back on her own idiom. Fortunately the lad was quite slender, and I could dwell with satisfaction on the suitability of my new word.
