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Aberystwith My dear Nicholson, I am constantly reminded of you by the study which I have been rather closely pursuing here for nearly eight weeks, viz. the reading of Robinson Crusoe in Arabic. It is to me often difficult from several causes: (1) It is not pointed, nor even the Teshdied added; (2) I could not bring Golin's with me, and the dictionaries which I have are very imperfect; (3) the writer has most arbitrarily changed the details of Robinson's story, and makes if often incoherent and stupidly impossible; so that neither does the original help me much, nor can I rest on internal congruity to help me out. I am greatly encouraged by my success in understanding it, for it is a far more ambitious style and on far more various topics than I have ever before encountered; and when I get my Golin's I expect to get to the bottom of many words that puzzle me, though others are probably modern developments, especially quadrilaterals and words belonging to special arts. But there is a religious formula which recurs many times, every word of which is easy, and yet the whole of it is to me unintelligible. I suspect it is elliptical and allusive, and it occurs to me that it may be familiar to you; if so, I know you will have pleasure in explaining it to me. Whenever Robinson falls into distress and betakes himself to prayer, I meet these words:— [Arabic Script] and then follows the matter of sorrow. I also three times meet [Arabic] at the end of a sentence, where the meaning seems to be et alia ejusdem generis. I suppose it is an abridgment by initial letters. Can you help me to a solution? We have stuck here longer than we intended; in fact, we should have left nearly a week ago, only that Mrs. N. caught a sharp cold, and the weather became suddenly so severe that I have feared to let her travel. . . . Probably, like all the world and his wife, you are yourself just now absent from home. . . . Do you not with me see that the Italians already are showing how vast a benefit L. N. has brought them? It is only the beginning of a vast revolution.
I am, ever your true friend,
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