[BNP/E3, 143 – 13-14]

Thomas Crosse’s possible articles:

1. The conflict of languages and the universal language.

2. The birthplace of Columbus. 

3. Epigrams. 

4. Dictatorships. 

5. King Sebastian. 

6. The Legend of the Returning King. 

7. The Old Portuguese Song-Books.  

8. The Military Government in Portugal (based on Interregno). 

The similarity of Spanish and Portuguese is perhaps not easily imagined by anyone unacquainted with either or both; and I say “either of both” because to be acquainted with one is practically to be acquainted with the other. But a common phrase will show the close resemblance. Take the phrase “I have received your letter and thank you for it”. Put down, one under the other the Spanish and the Portuguese for that; here they are:

Spanish: Recibi su carta, que agradezco. 

Portuguese: Recebi sua carta, que agradeço.

Barring a letter or two, the words are the same. This is not so throughout the two languages, of course; there are surprising differences, chiefly in common words. But the fact remains that if you read one language, you can automatically understand anything written in the other; and if you speak one, you will be understood by anyone speaking the other, if you do not speak too quickly. The Portuguese automatically read and understand Spanish better and quicker than the Spanish-speaking peoples understand Portuguese; that is because Portuguese is the more difficult and complex, besides being by far the richer, of the two, and because the Portuguese are far more pliant and adaptable than the Spanish.

[14r]

The final conflict between English and Spanish and Portuguese will resolve itself into {…}

(1) England has a far greater and more varied literature than both Spain and Portugal put together.

(2) Portuguese was brought in the seventeenth century to a degree of exactness, purity and perfection which Spanish never attained and English seems never to have neared attaining.

(3) To-day, in spite of common English, common Spanish and common Portuguese being equally flagrant departures from pure speech, yet the Portuguese react more against this, and the best Portuguese writers of to-day, however little they may be important intellectually, do write their language better than the best English and the best Spanish writers write theirs.

(4) English is more complex and concise than either Spanish or Portuguese. On the other hand, Portuguese has possibilities of shades of meaning which are undreamed of even in English. The Portuguese have, for instance, a personal infinitive. Thus the phrase which in English cannot be rendered in less words than “It is enough that we exist” or “that we be”, can be given in Portuguese in only two words – “Basta sermos”.

French has the advantage of its great simplicity. It has a very easy grammar, its rules are very simple and it is not difficult with some care to write it with at least comparative purity.