Hugo Schuchardt Archiv

Baltimore, 6/30, 1886.

My dear Sir,

I owe you an apology for not answering long since your kind favor of Jan 20^th, which was preceded, a few weeks before, by your Ueber die Lautgesetze,¹ etc. and a few weeks later followed the reprints of the Literaturblatt,² No. 5, No. 12 (1885) and No. 2 (1886) – Du patois créole de l’île Bourbon;³ “Gombo Zhèbes”.⁴ For all these favors, please accept my best thanks. I have waited, in part, to send you something of my own in return for your courtesy and, in fact, to give you some information about Florida. In the next No. of the American Journal of Philology another instalment of my Canada Work⁵ will appear and I shall send it to you immediately. I have already corrected the proofs. |2|With ref.[erence] to the latter (Florida), I have made inquiry in the direction you indicate but, unfortunately, have had no news as yet about it. I shall continue the search and as soon as I have found anything, will communicate it to you.

Your favor of 16 June, just received, tells me of other kindness and courtesy on your part. I shall be delighted to get the publications mentioned and, of course, shall see that they are mentioned in our “Modern Language Notes” – the only journal in America devoted exclusively to such questions as you treat and one which reaches already 9/10 of the philologians of the country. The journal of Philology (American)⁶ is almost exclusively for classical scholars (specialists) and is taken by few of our Modern Languages Professors, who, on the contrary, patronize very [liberally] the Mod. Lang Notes.⁷|3| I have sent you today No. 6 of our new Journal and next year I hope to show you that we are serious in our work here by publishing a series of supplements to it contain longer philological papers.

You need make no apology to me about the English. While I have personal friends in England whom I love dearly, I think, as a people, as a set of scholars in philological matters, they are a century or two behind the age. Old-fogyism seems to be their motto.

By the way, I shall send you, in a few days, the Proceedings of our annual convention of the Modern Language Association.⁸ In this you will, perhaps, find something to intrest you on the Negro-French of Louisiana. It contains a short article by a man who is able to speak it.⁹

Many thanks for your pleasant reference to my tour in Europe. I have engaged passage for S. S. “Rugia” |4|, Hamburg Line, for July 15 and hope to have the great pleasure of seeing you [sometime] during the summer. I shall land at Plymouth, spend two or three days at Oxford, about the same at Cambridge, then go direct to Heidelberg for two or three days during the Ceremonies of the Great Anniversary, thence to Ems,¹⁰ my old tramping-ground, for a few weeks. This is my general plan. Will you kindly let me know where you will be most of the summer and I shall make a special effort to get to see you? I am looking forward with indescribable pleasure to another short visit to my beloved Deutschland.

With renewed thanks for your various acts of courtesy and with the hope of surely seeing you during my vacation,

I am Yours most truly,
A. M. Elliott

P.S. My Address: Firth’s Hotel, Salisbury St., Strand, London