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Errors in Language Learning and Use
 APPLIED LINGUISTICS AND
LANGUAGE STUDY

General Editor
PROFESSOR CHRISTOPHER N. CANDLIN,
MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY, SYDNEY

For a complete list of books in this series see pages v-vi

Errors in Language
Learning and Use
Exploring Error Analysis

Carl James

~ ~~o~1~~n~~~up
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 1998 by Pearson Education Limited

Published 2013 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint ofthe Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright © 1998, Taylor & Francis.

The right of Carl James to be identified as the author of this Work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, in-
cluding photocopYing and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, with-
out permission in writing from the publishers.

Notices
Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and expe-
rience broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or
medical treatment may become necessaf}T.

Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in
evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described
herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and
the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibili1:}r.

To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or edi-
tors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of
products liabili1:}r, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods,
products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein.

ISBN: 978-0-582-25763-4 (Pbk)

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

James, Carl, 1939-

Errors in language learning and use: exploring error analysis /
Carl James.
p. cm. - (Applied linguistics and language study)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Language and languages-Study and teaching-Error analysis.
I. Title. II. Series.
P53.3J36 1998
418'.007-dc21 97-34548
CIP
Set by 35 in 10/12 pt Baskerville
 APPLIED LINGUISTICS AND
LANGUAGE STUDY

GENERAL EDITOR
PROFESSOR CHRISTOPHER N. CANDLIN

Macquarie University, Sydney

Language and Development: Language, Literature and the

Teachers in a Changing World Learner: Creative Classroom
BRIAN KENNY and Practice
WILLIAM SAVAGE (Eds) RONALD CARTER and
JOHN MCRAE (Eds)
Autonomy and Independence in
Language Learning Theory and Practice of Writing:
PHIL BENSON and An Applied Linguistic
PETER VOLLER (Eds) Perspective
WILLIAM GRABE and
Literacy in Society ROBERT B. KAPLAN
RUQAIYA HASAN and GEOFFREY
WILLIAMS (Eds) Measuring Second Language
Performance
Phonology in English Language TIM MCNAMARA
Teaching: An International
Approach Interaction in the Language
MARTHA C. PENNINGTON Curriculum: Awareness,
Autonomy and Authenticity
From Testing to Assessment: LEO VAN LIER
English as an International
Language Second Language Learning:
CLIFFORD HILL and Theoretical Foundations
MICHAEL SHARWOOD SMITH
KATE PARRY (Eds)

Language as Discourse: Analysing Genre - Language Use

Perspectives for Language in Professional Settings
V.K. BHATIA
Teaching
MICHAEL MACCARTHY and Rediscovering Interlanguage
RONALD CARTER
LARRY SELINKER

Language and Discrimination: Language Awareness in the

A Study of Communication in Classroom
Multi-Ethnic Workplaces CARL JAMES and
CELIA ROBERTS, EVELYN DAVIES PETER GARRETT (Eds)
and TOM JUPp
Process and Experience in the
Translation and Translating: Language Classroom
Theory and Practice MICHAEL LEGUTKE and
ROGER T. BELL HOWARD THOMAS
An Introduction to Second Listening to Spoken English
Language Acquisition Research Second Edition
DIANE LARSEN-FREEMAN and GILLIAN BROWN
MICHAEL H. LONG
Observation in the Language
Listening in Language Learning Classroom
MICHAEL ROST DICK ALLWRIGHT

The Classroom and the Vocabulary and Language

Language Learner: Teaching
Ethnography and Second- RONALD CARTER and MICHAEL
language Classroom Research MCCARTHY (Eds)
LEO VAN LIER
Bilingualism in Education:
Second Language Grammar: Aspects of Theory, Research and
Learning and Teaching Practice
WILLIAM E. RUTHERFORD MERRILL SWAIN and JIM CUMMINS

An Introduction to Discourse Reading in a Foreign Language

Analysis J. CHARLES ALDERSON and
Second Edition A. H. URQUHART (Eds)
MALCOLM COULTHARD
Language and Communication
Learning to Write: First JACK c. RICHARDS and RICHARD
Language/Second Language w. SCHMIDT (Eds)
AVIVA FREEDMAN, IAN PRINGLE
and JANICE YALDEN (Eds)
Error Analysis: Perspectives on
Second Language Acquisition
Stylistics and the Teaching of JACK RICHARDS
Literature
HENRY WIDDOWSON

Contrastive Analysis
CARL JAMES
 Contents

Publisher's Acknowledgements ix
Author's Preface x
Abbreviations XUl

1 Definition and Delimitation 1

Human error 1
Successive paradigms 2
Interlanguage and the veto on comparison 6
Learners and native speakers 9
The heyday of Error Analysis 11
Mounting criticism of Error Analysis 15
Data collection for Error Analysis 19
2 The Scope of Error Analysis 25
Good English for the English 26
Good English for the FL/SL learner 39
The native speaker and the power dimension 46
The Incompleteness hypothesis 53
Other reference points for Error Analysis 56
3 Defining 'Error' 62
Ignorance 62
Measures of deviance 64
Other dimensions: errors and mistakes 76
Error:mistake and acquisition:learning - an equation? 85
Lapsology 86
4 The Description of Errors 90
Error detection 91
Locating errors 92
Describing errors 94
Error classification 97

vii
viii Errors in Language Learning and Use

Error taxonomies 102

Counting errors 114
Profiling and Error Analysis 117
Computerized corpora of errors 124
5 Levels of Error 129
Substance errors 130
Text errors 141
Lexical errors 142
Classifying lexical errors 144
Grammar errors 154
Discourse errors 161
6 Diagnosing Errors 173
Description and diagnosis 173
Ignorance and avoidance 175
Mother-tongue influence: interlingual errors 179
Target language causes: intralingual errors 184
Communication strategy-based errors 187
Induced errors 189
Compound and ambiguous errors 200
7 Error Gravity and Error Evaluation 204
Evaluation 204
Criteria for error gravity (EG) 206
Viewpoint 226
8 Error Correction 235
What is 'correction'? 235
Whether to correct: pros and cons 240
How to do error correction: some options and principles 249
Noticing error 256
Rules and the role of corrective explanation 263
9 A Case Study 267
Elicitation and registration 267
Error identification 268
Categorizing the errors 273
Status: error or mistake? 273
Diagnosis 275

References 278
Intkx 300
 Publisher's Acknowledgements

We are indebted to the very Revd. Dr. N T Wright for permission

to reproduce an extract from his letter to The Times 7 December
1996.

ix
 Author's Preface

I notice on my travels that students on TEFL and Applied Lin-

guistics courses, in the UK and beyond, study not only the
Interlanguage paradigm of foreign language learning. Courses in
Contrastive Analysis are still generally offered, and Error Analysis
(EA) continues to enjoy widespread appeal. The explanation is
not hard to find: teachers cannot escape from a preoccupation
with learners' errors, and they are attracted towards EA by its pro-
mise of relevance to their everyday professional concerns. Students,
for their part, enjoy the 'hands on' contact with real data that EA
provides. As Vivian Cook puts it, Error Analysis is 'a methodology
for dealing with data, rather than a theory of acquisition' (1993:
22). In fact, while some people want theory of Second Language
Acquisition (SlA), I am convinced that many others want meth-
odology for dealing with data.
Though there are a number of books available on Contrastive
Analysis (or 'Language Transfer' as it is now called) and on Inter-
language study, there is no well-documented and reasonably com-
prehensive monograph on EA. This is all the more surprising when
you consider that Bernd Spillner's diligent Comprehensive Bibliography
of Error Analysis carried, back in 1991, a staggering 5,398 entries.
We have only the excellent but short handbooks for teachers
by John Norrish: Language Learners and their Errors (1983) and by
J. Edge: Mistakes and Correction (1989). The only other books avail-
able on EA are the edited anthologies by J.C. Richards: Error
A nalysis: Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition (Longman, 1974),
and that by R. Freudenstein: Error in Foreign Languages (1989).
Nickel's Fehlerkunde (1972) did much to define parameters of
the field, especially that of error evaluation, and S.P. Corder's
Error Analysis and Interlanguage (1981) is a collection of his seminal

x
 Author's Preface Xl

papers, wherein one can trace his developing thoughts. But some
of these collections are to some extent dismissive of EA and defend
the Interlanguage approach. The would-be student of EA there-
fore has no option but to seek out individual articles published by
the thousands in a wide range ofjournals. This is an unsatisfactory
situation at a time when the rising cost ofjournals, tougher copy-
right law enforcement and higher numbers of students make easier
access to study materials a high priority.
EA used to be associated exclusively with the field of foreign
language teaching, but it has recently been attracting wider inter-
est, having become associated with other domains of language
education: mother-tongue literacy, oracy and writing assessment;
language disorders and therapy work; and the growing field of
forensic linguistics. In fact, it was in the course of a friendly con-
versation that Malcolm Coulthard, doyen of forensic linguistics,
bemoaning the lack of a solid monograph on EA for people in his
field to train on, suggested I write this book.
There is also an increased interest in error among cognitive and
educational scientists outside the field of language: Pickthorne's
work on Error Factors in children's arithmetic is an example, while
the Chomskian discussion of the roles of 'evidence' (especially
negative evidence in the form of error) and the renewed interest
in feedback (now delivered to the learner by computer) in lan-
guage acquisition all point to a revival of interest in EA. I there-
fore believe the time is ripe for a publication on Error Analysis,
and the best channel must be Chris Candlin's Applied Linguistics
and Language Study series with Longman.
I published Contrastive Analysis with Longman in 1980, and one
of the reviews it received in particular (that written by my good
friend Eddie Levenston), has been giving me food for thought for
17 years. Eddie wrote that Contrastive Analysis was a book that
anyone could have written but only Carl James did. Did he mean
I was an opportunistic carpetbagger who saw a chance and grabbed
it? Or that the book wasn't really worth writing because it said
nothing new - nothing at least to the scores of applied linguists
who could have written it? Criticism on this score would be invalid,
since the book was not written for my peers and was not intended
as an advancement of human knowledge, but rather it was a text-
book, written to clarify the field to students and to serve as a set
text and catalyst of discourse for applied linguistics classes. Now
though I believe I know what Eddie was 'saying', in his very subtle
xii Errors in Language Learning and Use

way, and he hit the nail right on the head: that this book was in
fact written by others, all of them acknowledged in the Bibliography
of course. I had merely been the agent, organizing and putting
their original ideas into one, I hope, coherent text. I would not
be disappointed if the present volume were to receive the same
judgement from the same eminences.
We have seen in recent years a plethora of publication of
encyclopaedias of language, linguistics and applied linguistics.
The present volume is a non-alphabetic and non-thematic, but
perhaps a procedurally organized encyclopaedia of Error Analysis.
I certainly have tried to be encyclopaedic (in the sense of com-
prehensive), in my coverage of the subject matter. Its principal
merits: it seeks coherence; it is wide-ranging; it is balanced; and,
most important, I am riding no bandwagon. At the very least, the
book can be used as an annotated bibliography.
The present book, Errors in Language Learning and Use, is
conceived as a companion volume to Contrastive Analysis, and is
similarly a compendium, a digest and a history of the vast and
amorphous endeavours that hundreds of scholars and teachers
have made over the years in trying to grapple with foreign lan-
guage learners' learning difficulties and the inadequacies in their
repertoires that bear testimony to the daunting undertaking of
foreign language learning.
I am indebted to many people, too numerous to name. But I
could never have witten this book without the generosity of the
Government of Brunei Darussalam, whose Visiting Professorship
at the University of Brunei offered me a year's ac~demic asylum in
that veritable 'Abode of Peace' from the numbing 60-hour work-
ing weeks endemic to British universities.
Special thanks and admiration are due also to Chris Candlin,
General Editor of the Longman Applied Linguistics and Language
Study series, for his constant encouragement of the author at times
of self-doubt and for his advanced insights into the most intricate
subject matter: long may he maintain his genius - and his stamina!

Carl James
Bangor, Wales
 Abbreviations

Applied linguistics has spawned its myriad of specialistjargon terms,

many of which have been abbreviated and some expressed as
acronyms. While the newcomer might be daunted by their use,
I have tried to define them by use in context. There follows a
grouped listing of the most common:

NL (native language), MT (mother tongue), Ll (first language):

synonyms here

FL (foreign language): unlike SL/L2 in being learnt/used solely

in class
SL or L2 (second language): synonyms here
TL (target language), language (FL or SL/L2) being learnt
(T)ESL/EL2 (Teaching) (English as a second language)
(T)EFL (Teaching) (English as a foreign language)
ELT (English Language teaching)

SlA (second language acquisition) cf. FLL (foreign language

learning)

NS (native speaker); NNS (non-native speaker), NrNS (near-native

speaker)

CA (Contrastive analysis: contrasting MT and TL of the learner)

EA (Error analysis)
TA (Transfer analysis)
IL (Interlanguage: the version of the TL used or known by the
learner)
ID (idiosyncratic dialect: near-synonym for IL, q.v.)

xiii
XIV Errors in Language Learning and Use

ElL (English as an international language)

WSE (World standard English: an ideal global norm for English)

I.A (Language awareness: a person's explicit knowledge about their

linguistic competence)
CR (Consciousness raising: drawing learners' attention to forms
of the TL)

Two common bracketing conventions are used: [ ... ] enclose

phonetic elements; < ... > enclose spellings.
The asterisk * signals error, while the tick ~ indicates well-
formedness. * and ~ are often juxtaposed.

The question mark ? indicates linguistic strangeness.

Bold type indicates key concepts in the text.

Italic type is used for emphasis and examples.
Dedicated to my Dear Friend
der Allendorfer Jugendjahre:

Dr. merle Wolfgang Reichel

1941-1975
This page intentionally left blank
 1

Definition and Delimitation

Es irrt der Mensch, so lang' er strebt.

If you try to better yourself, you're bound to make the odd mistake.
(Goethe, Prolog im Himmel, Faust Part 1, eds R. Heffner,
H. Rehder and W.F. Twaddell. Boston: D.C. Heath and
Co., 1954 p. 17)

Human error
Much effort has gone into showing the uniqueness of language to
humans: homo sapiens is also homo loquens, and humans' wisdom is
the consequence of their gift of language. Linguistics is, by this fact,
the direct study of humankind, and ought to be the most human-
istic of all disciplines. Error is likewise unique to humans, who are
not only sapiens and loquens, but also homo errans. Not only is to err
human, but there is none other than human error: animals and
artifacts do not commit errors. And if to err and to speak are each
uniquely human, then to err at speaking, or to commit language
errors, must mark the very pinnacle of human uniqueness. Lan-
guage error is the subject of this book. The first thing we need is
a provisional definition, just to get us started on what will in fact
be an extended definition of our topic. Let's provisionally define a
language error as an unsuccessful bit of language. Imprecise though
it sounds, this will suffice for the time being. It will also allow us
to define Error Analysis: Error Analysis is the process of determin-
ing the incidence, nature, causes and consequences of unsuccess-
ful language. I shall presently return to dissect this definition.
In Chapter 2 we shall explore the scope of Error Analysis (EA)
within the many disciplines that have taken on board the notion

1
2 Errors in Lang;uage Learning and Use

of error. Indeed, the very idea of 'discipline' suggests recognition

of the need to eliminate or minimize error. In this book, however,
we focus on errors and their analysis in the context of foreign
language (FL) and second language (SL or synonymously L2)
learning and teaching. Doing this is quite uncontentious: a recent
statement implying that error is an obseIVable phenomenon in
FL/SL learning that has to be accounted for is Towell and Hawkins:
'Second language learners stop short of native-like success in a
number of areas of the L2 grammar' (1994: 14). They stop short
in two ways: when their FL/SL knowledge becomes fixed or 'fos-
silized', and when they produce errors in their attempts at it. Both
of these ways of stopping short add up to failure to achieve native-
speaker competence, since, in Chomsky's words, native speakers
(NSs) are people who know their language perfectly. While we
shall focus on FL/SL error, we shall, especially in Chapter 2 which
explores the scope - the breadth rather than depth - of EA, refer
to errors in other spheres.
In the rest of this chapter we shall attempt to contextualize EA:
first, historically, showing the course of development of ideas about
learners' less-than-total success in FL/SL learning; and secondly,
by looking at EA as a 'paradigm' or approach to a field of study
(FL/SL learning) and seeing how that one of several options relates
to alternative options. In fact, since paradigms, like fashions, have
their heyday in strict succession, any account of them tends also
to be historical.

Successive paradigms

Notwithstanding our claim that the study of human error-making

in the domain of language Error Analysis is a major component
of core linguistics, Error Analysis is a branch not of linguistic
theory (or 'pure' linguistics) but of applied linguistics. According
to Corder's (1973) account of applied linguistics, there are four
'orders of application', only the first two of which will concern us
here. The 'first-order' application of linguistics is describing lan-
guage. This is a necessary first step to take before you can move
on to the 'second-order' application of comparing languages.
In the applied linguistics of FL/SL learning there are three
'codes' or languages to be described. This becomes clear when
we describe the typical FL/SL learning situation. In terms of
 Definition and Delimitation 3

L l/M T FL/SL (TL)

Interlanguage (IL)

MT: TL comparisons (Contrastive Analysis)

I L: TL comparisons (Error Analysis)
MT: I L comparisons (Transfer Analysis)

Figure 1.1 Points of comparison for successive FL learning paradigms

Figure 1.1, at the start of their FLjSL learning, the learners are
monoglots, having no knowledge or command of the FLjSL, which
is a distant beacon on their linguistic horizon. They start, and tor-
tuously, with frequent backtrackings, false starts and temporary
stagnation in the doldrums, gradually move towards their FLjSL
goals. This is the complex situation: what are the language codes
involved which need to be described?
First, language teaching calls for the description of the language
to be learnt, the FLjSL. Let us use a term that is neutral between
these two: target language or TL. This is a particularly useful label
in the way it suggests teleology, in the sense of the learners actu-
ally wanting or striving to learn the FLjSL. It may even be extended
to include the learners setting themselves goals. Without that will-
ingness, there is of course no learning.
The second code in need of description in the teaching enter-
prise is the learners' version of the TL. Teachers are routinely called
upon to do this when they decide whether the learners have pro-
duced something that is right or wrong. This requires them to
describe the learners' version of TL, or, as it is called by Selinker
(1972,1992), their Interlanguage (IL), a term suggesting the half-
way position it holds between knowing and not knowing the TL.
Corder (1971) prefers to call it the learners' idiosyncratic dialect
of the TL standard, a label that emphasizes other features it has.
Another label that has been applied to description of the learners'
set of TL-oriented repertoires is performance analysis. F£erch
(1978) attributes to Corder (1975) a conceptual distinction which
is relevant here. Performance analysis is 'the study of the whole
performance data from individual learners' (Corder, 1975: 207),
whereas the term EA is reserved for 'the study of erroneous utter-
ances produced by groups of learners' (ibid.: 207). Note the con-
sistency in Corder's equation of performance analysis with the study
4 Errors in Lang;uage Learning and Use

of the idiosyncratic dialect of each learner. In that case we need

to ask what sorts of 'groups of learners' develop systems that have
something in common. The most obvious group is of learners with
a common Ll.
There is at least one other language involved in the FL learning
operation: the leamer's mother tongue (MT) or Ll. This should be
described also. I said at least one other language, but there might
be more: people who know many languages already might want to
learn even more, in which case we should describe the totality of
the TL learner's prior linguistic knowledge, whether this be one
or many languages, to varied degrees of mastery.
Moving on to the second-order applications of linguistics, which
is comparisons, we can compare these three (MT, IL, TL) pairwise,
yielding three paradigms - (a), (b) and (c). By 'paradigm' here
we mean something like 'fashion': the favoured or orthodox way,
at a certain period, of viewing an enterprise. The enterprise in
this case is FL/SL teaching and learning.

(a) Contrastive Analysis

In the 1950s and 1960s the favoured paradigm for studying FL/
SL learning and organizing its teaching was Contrastive Analysis
(James, 1980). The procedure involved first describing compar-
able features of MT and TL (e.g. tense, cooking verbs, consonant
clusters, the language of apologizing), and then comparing the
forms and resultant meanings across the two languages in order
to spot the mismatches that would predictably (with more than
chance probability of being right) give rise to interference and
error. In this way you could predict or explain, depending on the
degree of similarity between MT and TL, up to 30 per cent of the
errors that learners would be likely or disposed to make as a result
of wrongly transferring Ll systems to L2. By the early 1970s, how-
ever, some misgivings about the reliability of Contrastive Analysis
(CA) began to be voiced, mainly on account of its association with
an outdated model of language description (Structuralism) and a
discredited learning theory (Behaviourism). Moreover, many of
the predictions of TL learning difficulty formulated on the basis
of CA turned out to be either uninformative (teachers had known
about these errors already) or inaccurate: errors were predicted
that did not materialize in Interlanguage, and errors did show
up there that the CA had not predicted. Despite some residual
 Definition and Delimitation 5

enthusiasm and some attempts to formulate more modest claims

for CA (James, 1971), the paradigm was generally jettisoned.

(b) Error Analysis

The next paradigm to replace CA was something that had been
around for some time (as we shall presently see): Error Analysis
(EA). This paradigm involves first independently or 'objectively'
describing the learners' IL (that is, their version of the TL) and
the TL itself, followed by a comparison of the two, so as to locate
mismatches. The novelty of EA, distinguishing it from CA, was that
the mother tongue was not supposed to enter the picture. The
claim was made that errors could be fully described in terms of
the TL, without the need to refer to the L1 of the learners.

(c) Transfer Analysis

It has, however, proved impossible to deny totally the effects of
MT on TL, since they are ubiquitously and patently obvious. Where
CA failed was in its claim to be able to predict errors on the basis
of compared descriptions. This shortcoming had been noticed by
Wardhaugh (1970), who suggested that the CA hypothesis should
be thought of as existing in two versions, a 'strong' version that
claims to be able to predict learning difficulty on the basis of a
CA of MT and TL, and a 'weak' version that makes the more cau-
tious claim of merely being able to explain (or diagnose) a subset
of actually attested errors - those resulting from MT interference.
In its strong version, CA is no longer much practised in applied
linguistics. This is not surprising, since the alternative, diagnostic
CA, is compatible with and easily incorporated into EA, as a way
of categorizing those errors that are caused by interference from
the MT.
Predic"tive CA has had to give way to the description and ex-
planation of actually occurring MT transfers. This has led to some
contentious relabelling as CA got swept under the carpet, and it
is now more politic to talk of 'crosslinguistic influence' (Kellerman
and Sharwood Smith, 1986) or of 'language transfer' (Gass and
Selinker, 1983; Odlin, 1989). The term I reserve for this enterprise
is transfer analysis (TA) (James, 1990: 207). It must be emphas-
ized, however, that this TA is no longer CA, since the ingredients
are different in that when you conduct Transfer Analysis, you are
6 Errors in Language Learning and Use

comparing IL with MT and not MT with TL. Nor are you com-
paring IL and TL, so you are not doing EA proper. TA is a sub-
procedure applied in the diagnostic phase of doing EA. TA is not
a credible alternative paradigm but an ancillary procedure within
EA for dealing with those IL:TL discrepancies (and the associated
errors) that are assumed to be the results of MT transfer or inter-
ference. In so far as TA is something salvaged from CA and added
to EA, the balance has shifted.

Interlanguage and the veto on comparison

The third paradigm for the study of FL learning that has been
widely embraced is the Interlanguage hypothesis propounded by
Selinker (1972). Its distinctiveness lies in its insistence on being
wholly descriptive and eschewing comparison. It thus tries to avoid
what Bley-Vroman has called 'the comparative fallacy in FL learner
research', that is 'the mistake of studying the systematic character
of one language by comparing it to another' (1983: 15). This veto
on comparison is probably aimed at CA, but it is not wholly jus-
tified. The practitioners of CA similarly stressed the desirability of
not allowing the descriptive categories of one language to colour
what should be an objective, independent description of another.
The idea of describing a learner's language in its own terms with-
out reliance on the descriptive categories derived from the ana-
lysis of another language (the technical term is sui gencris) is not
new: the Structuralists of the 1950s warned against proscribing
sentence-final prepositions in English merely because putting them
in this position broke a rule - not of English, but of Latin. There
are even echoes of anthropological linguistic fieldwork methods
in the comparative prohibition too: study your learner 'objectively',
much like the anthropological field linguists, missionaries and
Bible translators did their native informants.
IL, or what the learner actually says, is only half of the EA equa-
tion. Meara (1984) set out to explain why the learning of lexis has
been so neglected in IL studies. His diagnosis is illuminating: it is
because IL studies have concentrated almost exclusively on the
description of ILs, on what Meara refers to as 'the tools'. And
there has been widespread neglect of the comparative dimen-
sion. This is regrettable since, 'we are interested in the difference
between the learner's internalized description of his L2 and the
 Definition and Delimitation 7

internalized descriptions that native speakers have' (Meara, 1984:

231). We do have to have a detailed and coherent description of
the learners' repertoires, but we cannot stop there, as Bley-Vroman
would have us stop. This is not to say that his directive is mis-
guided: it is necessary to be 'objective' and non-derivative in one's
linguistic description, and take care not to describe X in terms of
Y. With one exception: when you are doing EAt The reason is
obvious. The learners' errors are a register of their current per-
spective on the TL.
There is a constant tension between, on the one hand, the
long-term descriptive and explanatory priorities of people engaged
in IL studies and dedicated to Second Language Research (SLR)
and, on the other hand, the shorter-term pedagogic priorities of
foreign language educators who do EA. One is tempted at times
to conclude that SLR is not a part of applied linguistics, and is not
interested in language teaching, but is a branch of pure linguistics,
interested in the properties of languages rather than the prob-
lems of learners, in language learnability rather than the processes
of teaching. There does not have to be tension if we agree that
the SLR and EA enterprises are different and have different goals.
Mter all, as Cook puts it: 'Error Analysis was [and still is! CJ] a
methodology for dealing with data, rather than a theory of ac-
quisition' (1993: 22). Let those who want theory have theory, and
those who want them, ways of 'dealing with data'.
In one sense, however, SlA Interlanguage research is inescap-
ably comparative. There are two ways to conceptualize 'IL'. First,
it can refer to the abstraction of learner language, the aggregate
of forms, processes and strategies that learners resort to in the
course of tackling an additional language. This concept is similar to
de Saussure's langue. Alternatively, 'IL' can be used to refer to any
one of a number of concretizations (cf. de Saussure's parole) of
the underlying system. These are sequenced in time: ILl develops
after 100 hours of exposure, IL2 after 200 hours, and so on. The
SlA researcher who studies IL developmentally or longitudinally,
like the historical linguist, will be forced to make comparisons of
these successive stages.
In fact, this 'successive steps' view of FL learning is not un-
problematic for EA as we have defined it. It is plausible to suggest
that it has some psychological reality, in that the learners at the
learning stage of ILn, shall we say, are in fact aiming at linguistic
forms that are not at the end of the IL continuum, not TL forms,
8 Errors in Lang;uage Learning and Use

but forms that are but one stage nearer to TL than their IL com-
petence is currently located. In that case, we would define errors
in terms of the discepancy between what they are aiming at (IL
n+1) and ILn, not in terns of ILn and TL as suggested above.
At least one objective observer has no difficulty with the com-
parative definition of error. John Hawkins could not have been
clearer when he stated: 'The whole concept of error is an intrins-
ically relational one. A given feature of an [IL] is an error only by
comparison with the corresponding TL: seen in its own terms the
[IL] is a completely well-formed system' (1987: 471). There are
even times when the SlA theorists are caught off their guard, when
they too admit the need to compare IL with the TL. Ellis (1992:
232 ff.), for example, undertakes to define, exemplify and com-
pare two language-teaching techniques - language practice and
consciousness-raising. The latter, he contends, constitutes gaining
explicit knowledge, while practice is aimed at making knowledge
implicit. Now according to Ellis 'the acquisition of implicit know-
ledge involves three processes: noticing, ... comparing, ... and
integrating' (ibid.: 238). Ellis's definition of comparing runs as
follows: 'the learner compares the linguistic features noticed in the
input with her own mental grammar, registering to what extent
there is a "gap" between the input and her grammar' (ibid.: 238).
I believe that what Ellis intends here by 'her grammar' is not the
learner's NL but the learner's representation of the TL - that is,
her IL. What the learner is engaged in therefore, if Ellis is right,
is no other than EA, as we have defined it - comparing one's IL
with TL and noticing the discrepancies between the two.
Ellis develops this idea and gives it a label: cognitive com-
parison, which he recommends enthusiastically, since 'intake is
enhanced when learners carry out a second operation - compar-
ing what they have noticed in the input with what they currently
produce in their own output' (1995b: 90). And, Ellis declares:
'One way of fostering this is to draw learners' attention to the kinds
of errors learners typically make' (ibid.: 95). This is by no means
a new idea. Harlow (1959) defined all learning as a process of
progressive and cumulative error-eorrection. Clark (1982) had the
same idea in mind when she formulated coordination theory, since
it is a process whereby language production is brought more and
more into line (that is, coordinated) with what children hear,
and the gap between these two is closed as children compare their
output with available input and proceed to narrow the gap between
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Such is the abundance of oak, that above two hundred thousand
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Sweden is very great. The resources of Russia lie in its immense
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of Tasmania are three hundred and fifty feet high. The baobab of
Africa is said to live five thousand years, and one trunk has
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intervening rivers, the monkeys, almost the only inhabitants, might
pass along the tops of the trees for several hundred miles without
touching the earth. Sir Francis Head says that the backwoods of
North America are being cleared in the following way. The
mosquitoes torment the bisons and other wild animals to such an
intolerable degree that they run with eagerness into any smoke they
can reach, as their little tormentors will not follow them there. The
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this brings the animals about them, and they are easily shot. This is
favourable to the white agriculturist, but destructive to the poor
Indian, at least as long as he continues a mere hunter.
In British North America, the felling and removing of timber for
exportation is an important employment. This is known as the
lumber-trade, and those engaged in it are called lumberers. In
Danish America, the inhabitants are supplied with wood for fuel by
the drift-timber brought to the coasts by the currents. Brazil may be
regarded as a vast forest—the forests are so extensive that they can
hardly be penetrated even with the help of fire and the hatchet. In
these vast solitudes, sometimes a death-like silence reigns; at other
times are heard the howling of herds of monkeys, the screams of
parrots and toucans, with the buzzing of the bee-like humming-bird,
which the Brazilians prettily call the ‘Kiss the Flower.’ The New
Holland lily grows to the height of twenty-four feet; and in the
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twelve feet high, which form an impenetrable barrier, whilst they
last, to the attacks of the Indians.
The wild animals of England are now few in number. At Chillingworth
Park, in Northumberland, there are some wild oxen. Had the fox not
been preserved for the chase, it would long ago have been extinct.
Dogs have a strong repugnance to the wolf, but delight in the chase
of the fox. In cold countries, foxes are of various colours. Red foxes
are so abundant in the wooded districts of the fur countries, that
many thousand skins are annually exported from America to Britain.
The fur of the black fox is highly valued. While the writer was
engaged upon this article, the following circumstance came under
his notice. On the Alveston Hill estate, near Stratford-on-Avon, a
litter of eleven foxes, apparently about six weeks old, all tame and
docile, have taken possession of a rabbit-hole in a bank at the foot
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of numerous people attracted to the spot by the novel sight, leave
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and caressed, and they play about in the most amusing manner. An
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thought that the dog-fox has been killed, and that the vixen has
carried her cubs to the place mentioned. In corroboration of this, it
may be stated that when first discovered, only four or five cubs were
to be seen, and they have gradually increased until the present
number has been reached.
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corrosive sublimate. It has been found to eat a hundred cantharides
without injury. Plutarch mentions the case of a man who discovered
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opening next the quarter whence the wind would blow, and thus
could predict to a certainty to which quarter the wind would shift.
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no doubt, to its want of food or inability to bear cold or thirst. The
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and to threaten or beat them when they attempt to bite. It has been
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inclination to bite has been removed. Their bite is generally fatal: a
hare or rabbit once severely bitten never recovers. Buffon gives the
case of a weasel being found with three young ones in the carcase
of a wolf that was grown putrid, and that had been hung up by the
hind-legs as a terror to others. In this strange and horrid retreat, the
weasel had retired to bring forth her young; she had furnished the
cavity with hay, grass, and leaves; and the young ones were just
brought forth when they were discovered by a peasant passing that
way.
The stoat of the continent is a very precious article of commerce. In
Britain, their skin is of little value. In July 1827, a gentleman of
Cathcart, near Glasgow, having shot and wounded a stoat, observed
that it escaped into the hole of an old stone wall. He was led to
make an examination of the place, when he found a couple of
leverets immolated. The place also contained two young partridges
entire, and a pheasant’s egg unbroken. Besides these were two
other leverets in a state of putrefaction; and at the extremity of the
retreat lay the dead stoat. Naturalists state that stoats seldom eat
their plunder until putrefaction sets in; and this fact would seem to
bear out the impression. The polecat is very destructive to game.
During a severe storm, one of these animals was traced in the snow
from the side of a rivulet to a hole at some distance from it. As it
was observed to have made frequent trips, and as other marks were
to be seen in the snow which could not easily be accounted for, it
was thought a matter worthy of greater attention. Its hole was
accordingly examined, the polecat taken; and eleven eels were
discovered to be the fruit of its nocturnal excursions. The marks in
the snow were found to have been made by the motion of the eels
in the creature’s mouth.
It is a curious circumstance that many of those oaks which are called
spontaneous are planted by the squirrel. This little animal has
performed an essential service to the British navy. A gentleman
walking one day in the woods belonging to the Duke of Beaufort, in
the county of Monmouth, his attention was diverted by a squirrel,
which sat very composedly upon the ground. He stopped to perceive
its motions. In a few minutes the animal darted to the top of a tree
beneath which he had been sitting; in an instant it was down with
an acorn in its mouth, and after digging a small hole, it deposited
the acorn; then covering it, it darted up the tree again. In a moment
it was down again with another, which it buried in the same manner.
This it continued to do as long as the gentleman watched it. The
industry of this animal is directed to the purpose of securing itself
against want in the winter; and it is probable that its memory is not
sufficiently retentive to enable it to remember the spot in which it
deposited every acorn; the industrious little fellow no doubt loses a
few every year. These few spring up, and are destined to supply the
place of the parent tree.
Asses, like horses, are found in a wild state, but in greater
abundance. This animal is found wild in many islands of the
Archipelago, and in the deserts of Libya and Numidia. They live in
herds, each having a chief, and are extremely timid. The ass, so
common now in England, was entirely lost in the reign of Queen
Elizabeth. Holinshed says that our land yielded no asses. In early
times the ass was held in high repute, for he was ridden both by the
poor and the rich, and is frequently mentioned in the Scriptures. In
the principal streets of Cairo, asses stand bridled and saddled for
hire, and answer the same purpose as cabs in London. In Egypt and
Arabia, asses are frequently seen of great size and elegance. Their
step is light and sure, and their pace brisk and easy. They are not
only in common use for riding in Egypt, but the Mohammedan
merchants and ladies of the highest rank use them. In England, the
ass is regarded as a stupid and contemptible animal. The Spaniards,
on the contrary, bestow much pains upon him in endeavouring to
improve the breed.
 A FRIEND OF THE FAMILY.
CHAPTER II.—WORSE AND WORSE.
The Major fervently wished that the ground would open and swallow
him. Here was a third lady to pacify and to convince that a mistake
had been made. He could see that she was in a more exasperated
state even than Mrs Joseph, and likely to be as blind as Mrs John.
The complication was becoming utterly bewildering, and he felt that
his brain would not endure much more of it. How could such simple
letters as his—made studiously cautious in their statements—evoke
such wildly erroneous interpretations? He would rather have faced a
whole battalion of mutinous Sikhs or infuriated Afghans than have
had to go through the inevitable interview with this beautiful girl.
As soon as she reached the Major’s side, she clutched his arm as if it
were that of her natural protector, and turned sharply upon
Maynard: ‘Now, sir, will you leave me alone? Major Dawkins will
conduct me to my aunt, and will, if necessary, protect me from your
importunities.’
‘But Nelly, I only want to know what is my fault? How have I given
you cause for treating me in this way?’ pleaded Maynard. ‘I am
positive that none can exist except in your own imagination. I am
sure the Major will tell you that it is not fair to condemn a man
without hearing his defence—without even telling him what he is
accused of.’
‘If you are a gentleman, you will defer further discussion of the
subject until you see my aunt, Mrs Joseph Elliott.’
Had they been alone, the lover would doubtless have acted
differently; but to have such words addressed to him in the presence
of another man left no alternative. He bowed and retired, hurt and
angered by this injustice of his betrothed. Whatever her reason for
this outburst might be, he was resolved that it should be promptly
explained. He was a straightforward young fellow, and not one to
rest for a moment in doubt as to the meaning of her conduct.
The brief scene had closed before the Major could find his voice.
‘Call him back,’ he said agitatedly—‘call him back before it is too late.’
‘I certainly will not,’ replied the lady with a movement of the head as
if about to look behind, suggesting that she half-hoped to see him
still following. But he was not.
‘Then I must. I cannot allow you to distress yourself and a fine
fellow like that in consequence of my blunder.’
She stopped and faced him with an expression of supercilious
wonder. By this little movement she could look without appearing to
turn for the purpose of looking whether or not Maynard had really
obeyed her. ‘I do not understand you, Major Dawkins,’ she said with
a faint note of chagrin in her musical voice—for Maynard really was
not in sight.
‘Of course you cannot. How could you? The letter you have got was
not meant for you. I wrote it to another lady, and I beg you to give it
back to me, so that no further mischief may come of it.’
‘Another lady! Then I am not the only one he thinks of?’ (She was
quoting from the letter.)—‘Oh, Major Dawkins, this is too much.
Please, let me go to the house, and do not say another word about
it until I have had time to recover and to think.’
The Major stood aghast; he had put his foot in it again. ‘But you are
taking me up in quite a wrong way. Certainly you are the only one
Maynard thinks of; but he is not the man referred to in the letter. Do
give it back to me; and when you are calmer, everything will be
explained.’
He pleaded very earnestly; but his object was defeated by the
ingenuity on which he had congratulated himself. He had mentioned
no names in any of the epistles. The mind of each lady on reading
the one she received naturally fastened upon the man in whom she
was most interested, and the Major’s excited attempts at explanation
failed to make the error clear to them. Their unreasonableness was
painful to him; and if he had been less anxious about remedying his
error, he would have laughed at it.
‘For whom, then, was the letter written?’ asked Nellie, her
indignation now turning against the Major, as she reflected how cruel
and how foolish Stanley Maynard would think her if she had accused
him of falsehood on no other ground than that she had received a
misdirected letter from a friend. ‘I must insist upon an answer.’
‘You really must not insist upon my telling you. I accept all the
blame; and it would be another wicked blunder on my part to give
you my friend’s name.’
‘In that case, I must decline to return the letter until we are in the
presence of my aunt and Mr Maynard.—Meanwhile, I need not
trouble you to escort me to the house.’ Nellie walked proudly away;
but the poor girl was ready to cry with vexation and with regret for
the hastiness of temper which had characterised her conduct
towards Stanley Maynard. In the moment of repentance, however,
came the remembrance of the words which had distracted her. ‘I
want to save you’ (wrote the Major) ‘from a grave
misunderstanding.’ (‘Very kind indeed,’ she interjected.) ‘He who is, I
know, dearest to you, thinks only of you. Consider his impulsive
nature, and pardon his temporary aberration.’ (‘What could that
mean, if not that he had been making love to somebody else?’ she
asked bitterly. Had she not herself seen how barefacedly he flirted
with Mrs John, until she had a tiff with him on the subject? If he
could dare so much before her eyes, what might he not do when
unchecked by her presence?) ‘Be merciful to him,’ the note
proceeded, ‘as hitherto, and you will have your reward. I mean to
take the first available opportunity of talking to him after my arrival
at Todhurst, and am confident that he will be promptly brought to
reason.’
Was not that enough to rouse the spirit of any girl who had proper
pride, which means self-respect? Nellie thought in her anger that it
was more than enough. No doubt the Major had talked to him, and
having brought him to reason, was now anxious to screen him by
telling her that it was all a mistake—that the letter had been
intended for somebody else! But she was frightened by this
conclusion. Surely the Major could not tell a deliberate falsehood! He
might not have meant to do so, and yet do it in the excitement of
the moment, in order to soothe her. That must be the way of it; and
what an indignity that it should be necessary for a friend to plead for
her with the man to whom she had promised her hand!
Her thoughts alternated between the hope that it was all a mistake
and the fear that it was not. So she went to her room, cried, had a
headache, and excused herself from joining the family at luncheon.
The Major was out of breath and out of patience as he gazed
helplessly after the retreating form of Nellie Carroll. Nobody would
listen to him; everybody seemed determined to believe that he had
entered into a diabolic conspiracy to wreck the happiness of the
house of Elliott. What on earth could there be in any of his letters to
cause such a commotion, even when they had got into the wrong
hands? He had assured every one that there was only a
misunderstanding, and he had promised all round to set it right. But
they would not give him a chance. He had a good mind to order
Hollis to pack up for the next train to London. That, however, would
be cowardly, and he was not a coward. He would see the thing out
to the bitter end. He lifted his head with an air of resolution, and the
bitter end he saw at that moment was represented by the wealthy
spinster, Miss Euphemia Panton. She was standing at a little
distance, glaring at him severely through her gold-rimmed pince-
nez. The Major had reason to believe that he had found favour in
her eyes, and he thought with intense relief: ‘Well, here is somebody
at last who will give me a word of sympathy, and talk sensibly with
me.’
She, too, had reason to believe that she had found favour in the
Major’s eyes, and was pleased accordingly. But on the present
occasion, as he tripped hopefully towards her (he tripped somewhat
less gracefully than usual, on account of his recent excessive
exercise), she made no responsive movement; the pince-nez was
not lowered, and the severe expression remained. She had been
observing him pleading with all the ardour of a lover to Miss Carroll;
and she had no doubt whatever of the meaning of his evidently
eager speech: he was in love with the minx, and he had been only
pretending to care for Miss Euphemia! No lady can submit to be
trifled with in matters of affection, and least of all ladies who have
arrived at what may be called the ‘undiscovered decade’ in feminine
history. She had passed into that realm of mystery, and was indeed
one of its oldest inhabitants; and when nature would have lifted her
out of it into the peaceful land of resigned old-maidenism, she
sought the aid of art in order to keep her place in the still hopeful
region. She availed herself of the modern elixirs of youth, and
flattered herself that she did so with complete success. She, at their
first meeting, noted that the Major trafficked with the same
beneficent powers. He on his side made a similar observation
regarding her. Strange to say, this fact constituted a bond of
sympathy between them; but Miss Euphemia believed that the Major
was unaware of her secret, and he was satisfied that she had no
suspicion of his; whilst each pitied the other for not being more
expert in the use of dyes and cosmetics. Thus they became special
friends, and found so much pleasure in each other’s society, that a
matrimonial climax seemed not improbable, the lady having a
sufficient dowry to dispose satisfactorily of the important problem of
ways and means.
‘Thank goodness, you are here, Miss Panton,’ exclaimed the Major in
the full confidence of her sympathy in his miserable position. ‘I have
got myself into a most abominable mess by an act of stupidity
which, although reprehensible, is excusable.’
The lady answered not a word. She was nearly a head taller than he,
and she continued to survey him through her glasses as if he had
been some zoological specimen.
He had been hot enough before; he was chilled to the marrow now.
He could scarcely believe his senses. Would she, too, desert him in
this crisis?
‘Miss Panton,’ he stammered, ‘I hoped—that is, I believed that you
would show me some consideration. I suppose Mrs Joseph has been
speaking to you; but if you will only listen to a few words of
explanation, you will understand me.’
‘I think, Major Dawkins, I have to-day observed enough on the
tennis-lawn and here, to enable me to understand you perfectly
without Mrs Joseph Elliott’s assistance or yours.’ The words were
icicles. She dropped her pince-nez and walked away.
The Major was speechless. He trembled or shivered with dismay.
Lifting a hand to his brow, he felt the heads of cold perspiration on
it, and at the same moment the gong sounded for luncheon. Good
heavens! Horrible idea!—the effect of all this excitement and
perspiration must be to change the colour of his hair! And true
enough it was beginning to show a marked shade of gray-green at
the roots. He must get to his room to repair the damage before he
appeared at the luncheon table. ‘Desperate ills need desperate
remedies.’
Luncheon at Todhurst was, except in the hunting season, like the
family gathering of other days, when the mid-day meal was the chief
one. There were blithe interchanges of the morning’s experiences,
pleasant intercourse with some of the elder members of the nursery,
and a homely ease which was not always found at the late dinner,
when formal company-manners had to be assumed, so far as they
could be in the genial presence of Squire Elliott. All this was changed
on the fatal day on which the Major’s misdirected letters had been
delivered. The Squire sat at one end of the table, evidently in an ill-
humour; his spouse, Mrs Joseph, at the other end, doing her best
not to show the wrath which was in her bosom. Mrs John was
suppressing her natural gaiety and desire to make fun of the whole
party, whilst she was pathetically earnest in her endeavours to
soothe the perturbed spirit of her lord. The latter was irritable and
gloomy, accepting her attentions most ungraciously. Stanley Maynard
ate and looked as if he were savagely devouring an enemy. Miss
Euphemia sat like a post, playing with her knife and fork rather than
eating. Nellie was not present.
The Major was late in taking his place, and was flustered in
consequence, even more than he might have been under the
circumstances. He felt the gloom which pervaded the place, and he
was made painfully conscious of the fact that he was the cause of it.
He was generally regarded as an acquisition to any party, for he had
a special knack of setting conversations ‘going,’ a more useful quality
than that which constitutes a ‘good talker.’ The latter demands
everybody’s attention, and bores the greater part of his audience;
the former enables everybody to speak, and thus produces the
agreeable feeling of self-satisfaction in having personally contributed
to the enjoyment of the hour.
With desperate heroism, he endeavoured to break the spell which
tied the tongues of his companions. He told one of his best stories,
the point of which had never failed to set the table in a roar of
laughter. Lugubrious grimaces were the only response. He tried
another anecdote, with the same result. He descended to the lowest
depths of convivial intercourse; he propounded a conundrum, and
the eldest of the girls immediately answered it with the addition of
the galling commentary: ‘I knew that long ago.’ In his present
condition of absolute helplessness, he wished to goodness the child
would remember another conundrum, and give it for his benefit, if
not for that of the company. Probably, she would have done so, had
not the mother’s eye been upon her, suggesting the austere maxim,
‘Children should be seen, not heard.’
The Major took another tack. He put questions to his host about the
moors, about the horses, about the hounds, and about the cause of
Tally-ho’s illness—any one of which topics would at another time
have started the Squire into a gallop of chat. He would have
compared the seasons as affecting the moors for twenty years past;
he would have detailed the pedigree and merits of every horse in his
stables; he would have repeated endless anecdotes about the
hounds; and as to the illness of Tally-ho, he would have gone into
the most minute particulars as to its cause, his treatment, and the
probable result.
But on this day all was in vain. The Major’s suggestive queries were
responded to by: ‘Don’t know,’ ‘Much the same as usual,’ ‘Hope for
the best,’ and, ‘I daresay the brute will come round.’
When they rose from the table, the Major thanked heaven that this
trial was over. The Squire, with a curious mingling of awkwardness
and suppressed ill-temper, utterly opposed to his habitually jovial
manner, advanced to his unhappy guest: ‘I want to see you in the
library in about half an hour,’ he said, and walked out of the room.
‘That’s a comfort,’ thought the Major. ‘I shall have a man with some
common-sense to hear me.’
Meanwhile, he would have liked to speak a few words of consolation
to Maynard; but that gentleman met his advances with somewhat
repellent politeness.
‘If you want to speak to me about the trouble you have made
between Miss Carroll and me, you will have ample opportunity to do
so when we meet in the library,’ he said, and strolled out to the lawn
to seek the soothing influence of a cigar.
Then the Major wished to discharge the duty he had so rashly
undertaken, which was to bring the morbidly suspicious John Elliott
to reason. He was only now realising the difficulty of the task; and
he presently had a decisive indication that it was likely to be one he
could not accomplish. He had barely uttered half-a-dozen words of
his well-intentioned admonition which was to precede his
explanation of ‘the incident,’ when John Elliott peevishly interrupted
him: ‘I have promised not to discuss this subject until we are in the
library.’
So, he was to meet the three of them. So much the better; they
were men, and they would give him a patient hearing. Still, he would
have liked a little private talk with John Elliott before the meeting in
the library, which was assuming the character of a sort of court-
martial. There were things to say to him which could only be uttered
when they were conversing confidentially. For instance, he could not
say to him before others: ‘You have been accusing Mrs John of
behaviour unbecoming your wife; you have magnified the
circumstance of her allowing young Maynard to kiss her under the
mistletoe last Christmas, until you have come to believe that every
time she says a friendly word to him or smiles on him, she is false to
you. You have even gone so far as to think of employing a private
detective to watch them. Now, my dear friend, do get all that
confounded nonsense out of your head. Remember that she has
known Maynard from his boyhood; and although she is not old
enough to be his mother, she still looks on him as a boy, and he
regards her as an elder sister. She is naturally frank, and naturally
treats him with more frankness than she does other men. You know
that she long ago set her heart upon making a match between him
and Nellie Carroll, both being suitable in every respect; and she has
succeeded. What do you think will happen if your absurd fancies get
wind? Why, there will be a general rupture—a split in the camp
which may separate the young folk, and, possibly, you and Mrs John,
who has been and is devoted to you.’
There, that would have brought him to reason, if he had a scrap of
sense left. But it could not be spoken in the presence of others. Very
likely, suspicious John would ask him how he came to know all this,
and the question would be troublesome—a thousand times more
troublesome since all the letters had got into the wrong hands. The
one for John Elliott had reached Mrs Joseph, instead of the simple
intimation of the date of the Major’s arrival; that for Nellie had been
delivered to Mrs John, and Mrs John’s to Nellie. It was awkward.
‘As to the question,’ the Major reflected: ‘I got the information from
Matt Willis, the brother of Mrs John; and he made me promise not to
mix him up in the affair. He got the information from John Elliott
himself, who complained to his brother-in-law about the way his wife
was carrying on with Maynard. Matt had an unconquerable antipathy
to family squabbles, and would not interfere; but thinking that
something should be done to shut John up before serious harm
came of his insane suspicions, he asked me, as the friend of the
family, to put things right. Like a fool, I consented; and the blame of
all the trouble falls on me! Am I to blame?—Stop a minute. By Jove!
—it is John Elliott who is the author of the whole mischief, and I’ll
tell him so.’
Greatly consoled by the discovery that he was not the original culprit
in causing what promised to be a serious breach in the relationships
of valued friends, the Major was prepared to face the court-martial
before which he was presently to stand. Ay, and he would have no
nonsense about the affair. He would tell Squire Joseph bluntly that
Mrs Joseph had taken possession of a letter which did not belong to
her. He would tell Maynard to go and speak to Nellie, and assure her,
as he had done, that she had misinterpreted the letter she had
received, even if it had been intended for her; and he would tell
John Elliott that he must either speak to him in private, or take the
consequence of his speaking in the presence of the Squire and
Stanley Maynard.
 AN OLD TULIP GARDEN.
A quiet, sunny nook in the hollow it is, this square old garden, with
its gravelled walks and high stone walls; a sheltered retreat left
peaceful here, under the overhanging woods, when the stream of
the world’s traffic turned off into another channel. The gray stone
house, separated from the garden by a thick privet hedge and moss-
grown court, is the last dwelling at this end of the quiet market-
town, and, with its slate roof and substantial double story, is of a
class greatly superior to its neighbours, whose warm red tiles are
just visible over the walls. It stands where the old road to Edinburgh
dipped to cross a little stream, and, in the bygone driving days, the
stagecoach, after rattling out of the town and down the steep road
there, between the white, tile-roofed houses, when it crossed the
bridge opposite the door, began to ascend through deep,
embowering woods. But a more direct highway to the Scottish
metropolis was opened many a year ago: just beyond the bridge, a
wall was built across the road; and the gray house with its garden
was left secluded in the sunny hollow. The rapid crescendo of the
coach-guard’s horn no longer wakens the echoes of the place, and
the striking of the clock every hour in the town steeple is the only
sound that reaches the spot from the outside world.
The hot sun beats on the garden here all day, from the hour in the
morning when it gets above the grand old beeches of the wood, till
it sets, away beyond the steeple of the town. But in the hottest
hours it is always refreshing to look, over the weather-stained tiles
of the long low toolhouse, at the mossy green of the hill that rises
there, cool and shaded, under the trees. Now and then a bull, of the
herd that feeds in the glades of the wood, comes down that shaded
bank, whisking his tawny sides with an angry tail to keep off the
pestering flies, and his deep bellow reverberates in the hollow. In
the early morning, too, before the dewy freshness has left the air,
the sweet mellow pipe of the mavis and the fuller notes of the
blackbird float across from these green depths, and ever and again
throughout the day the clear whistle of some chaffinch comes from
behind the leaves.
Standing here, among the deep box edgings and gravel paths, it is
not difficult to recall the place’s glory of twenty years ago—the glory
upon which these ancient plum-trees, blossoming yet against the
sunny walls, looked down. To the eye of Thought, time and space
obstruct no clouds, and in the atmosphere of Memory, the gardens
of the Past bloom for us always. Years and years agone! It is the day
of the fashion for Dutch bulbs, when fabulous prices were paid for
an unusually ‘fancy’ bulb, and in this garden some of the finest of
them are grown. The tulips are in flower, and the long narrow beds
which, with scant space between, fill the entire middle of the
garden, are ablaze with the glory of their bloom. Queenly flowers
they are, and tall, each one with a gentle pedigree—for nothing
common or unknown has entrance here—and crimson, white, and
yellow, the velvet petals of some almost black, striped with rare and
exquisite markings, they raise to the sun their large chaste chalices.
The perfection of shape is there, as they rise from the midst of their
green, lance-like leaves; no amorous breeze ever invades the spot to
dishevel their array or filch their treasures; and the precious golden
dust lies in the deep heart of each, untouched as yet save by the
sunshine and the bee. When the noonday heat becomes too strong,
awnings will be spread above the beds; for with the fierce glare, the
petals would open out and the pollen fall before the delicate task of
crossing had been done.
But see! Through the gate in the privet hedge there enters as fair a
sight. Ladies in creamy flowered muslins and soft Indian silks,
shading their eyes from the sun with tiny parasols, pink and white
and green—grand dames of the county, and grander from a
distance; gentlemen in blue swallow-tailed coats and white
pantaloons—gallants escorting their ladies, and connoisseurs to
examine the flowers—all, conducted by the owner, book in hand,
advance into the garden and move along the beds. For that owner,
an old man with white hair, clear gray eyes, and the memory of their
youthful red remaining in his cheeks, this is the gala time of the
year. Next month, the beds of ranunculus will bloom, and pinks and
carnations will follow; but the tulips are his most famous flowers,
and, for the few days while they are in perfection, he leads about,
with his old-world courtesy, replying to a question here, giving a
name or a pedigree there, a constant succession of visitors. These
are his hours of triumph. For eleven months he has gone about his
beloved pursuit, mixing loams and leaf-moulds and earths, sorting,
drying, and planting the bulbs, and tending their growth with his
own hand—for to whose, else, could he trust the work?—and now
his toil has blossomed, and its worth is acknowledged. Plants envied
by peers, plants not to be bought, are there, and he looks into the
heart of each tenderly, for he knows it a child of his own.
Presently he leads his visitors back into the house, across the mossy
stones of the court, where, under glass frames, thousands of
auricula have just passed their bloom, and up the outside stair to the
sunny door in the house-side. He leads them into the shady dining-
room, with its furniture of dark old bees-waxed mahogany, where
there is a slight refreshment of wine and cake, rare old Madeira, and
cake, rich with eggs and Indian spice, made by his daughter’s own
hand. Jars and glasses are filled with sweet-smelling flowers, and
the breath of the new-blown summer comes in through the open
doors.
The warm sunlight through the brown linen blind finds its way across
the room, and falls with subdued radiance on the middle picture of
the opposite wall. The dark eyes, bright cheeks, and cherry mouth
were those of the old man’s wife—the wife of his youth. She died
while the smile was yet on her lip and the tear of sympathy in her
eye; for she was the friend of all, and remains yet a tender memory
among the neighbouring poor. The old man is never seen to look
upon that picture; but on Sundays for hours he sits in reverie by his
open Bible here in the room alone. In a velvet case in the corner
press there, lies a silver medal. It was pinned to his breast by the
Third George on a great day at Windsor long ago. For the old man
peacefully ending his years here among the flowers, in his youth
served the king, and fought, as a naval officer, through the French
and Spanish wars. As he goes quietly about, alone, among his
garden beds, perchance he hears again sometimes the hoarse word
of command, the quick tread of the men, and the deep roar of the
heavy guns, as his ship goes into action. The smoke of these battles
rolled leeward long ago, and their glory and their wounds are alike
forgotten. In that press, too, lies the wonderful ebony flute, with its
marvellous confusion of silver keys, upon which he used to take
pleasure in recalling the stirring airs of the fleet. It has played its last
tune; the keys are untouched now, and it is laid past, warped by
age, to be fingered by its old master no more.
But his guests rise to leave, and, receiving with antique grace their
courtly acknowledgments, he attends the ladies across the stone-
paved hall to their carriages.
Many years ago! The old man since then has himself been carried
across that hall to his long home, and no more do grand dames visit
the high-walled garden. But the trees whisper yet above it; the
warmth of summer beats on the gravelled walks; and the flowers,
lovely as of old in their immortal youth, still open their stainless
petals to the sun.
 ABOUT COBRAS.
BY AN OFFICER.
While at home on furlough from India a short time ago, I was much
amused at finding a very general impression among my friends that
to come across a cobra is an every-day kind of occurrence in India.
How erroneous this idea is may be gathered from the fact that not
many days ago a brother-officer told me that although he had been
about ten years in India, he had never yet seen a cobra in a wild
state. His is, it is true, probably an exceptional case; but still it
shows that an Englishman may pass a considerable time in India
without coming across one of these venomous reptiles. Cobras,
however, are met with quite often enough, and sometimes in very
curious and uncomfortable places. For instance, a young lady who
had just returned from a ball in a small station in Southern India,
noticed, as she was on the point of getting into bed, that the pillow
looked disarranged; and on taking it up to smooth it out, she
discovered a cobra coiled up underneath it. She called out for
assistance; and her father coming to the rescue, speedily
despatched the obnoxious intruder with a stick. I happened to
mention this circumstance to an officer one day, and he informed me
that the very same thing had happened to himself soon after his first
arrival in the country, and that, in consequence, he never got into
bed until he had examined the pillows.
In the year 1873, while quartered at Bellary, on going into the
drawing-room of the bungalow, which at that time I shared with a
friend, I discovered a cobra curled up on the sofa cushion. I
hastened out of the room to fetch a stick; but in doing so, I must, I
suppose, have made some noise, as on returning the snake had
disappeared. A few evenings later, however, just as my ‘chum’ was
leaving the house to go out to dinner, he called out to me that there
was a snake crawling up the steps of the veranda in front of the
drawing-room. I ran out with a stick, and succeeded in killing the
unwelcome visitor. It turned out to be a fairly large cobra, and was
in all probability the one which I had seen a few days previously on
the sofa. It is, however, in the bathrooms of an Indian bungalow
that cobras, when met with within doors, are most frequently
encountered, as they come there in pursuit of the frogs which
delight to take up their quarters there; for froggy is an article of diet
to which the cobra is very partial. An officer of the Madras cavalry,
since deceased, told me that when quartered at Arcot, he one day
observed in his bathroom, emerging from the waste-water pipe, the
head of a cobra, which was holding in his mouth a frog. The pipe
was too narrow to admit of the snake’s withdrawing his head unless
he released his victim; this, however, from unwillingness to forego
his meal, he would not do, and in consequence, paid the penalty for
his gluttony with his life.
One day, my wife’s ayah came running into our bedroom saying
there was a large snake in the bathroom. Arming myself as usual
with a stick, I went into the bathroom just in time to see the snake
disappear into the waste-water pipe, which ran under another small
room to the back of the house, where the water found its outlet. The
servants stationed themselves at the outlet, while I endeavoured to
drive the reptile out from the rear, first with my stick, and afterwards
by pouring the contents of a kettle of boiling water down the pipe.
Both attempts to dislodge the intruder from his position proving
ineffectual, I commenced a vigorous assault on him by thrusting a
bamboo about five feet long down the pipe, and this time success
rewarded my efforts, and the snake, driven from his refuge, was
killed by the servants outside. This cobra measured about five feet
six inches in length, and was the largest that I have ever seen killed.
I may here mention that the ordinary ideas about the size attained
by this species of snake are greatly exaggerated. Some years ago, a
surgeon-major serving in the Madras presidency, with whom I was
acquainted, took a great interest in this matter, and offered a
considerable reward to any one who would bring him a cobra six feet
in length; but, if my memory serves me right, the reward was never
gained, although a very large number of cobras were produced for
his inspection.
Once I witnessed a wonderful escape from the almost invariably fatal
effects of a cobra bite. I was marching with some native troops in
the cold weather, and halted for the night at a place called Maikur,
where, instead of having our tents pitched, my wife and I preferred
occupying a small bungalow belonging to the department of Public
Works, which was situated opposite the encamping-ground. Sitting
outside the bungalow after dinner, I had occasion to call my head-
servant to give him some orders for the next morning. As he ran up,
I saw him kick something off his left foot, and at the same time he
called out: ‘Sāmp, sahib, sāmp!’ (‘A snake, sir, a snake.’) There was a
bright wood-fire burning close by, and I saw by its light the snake
with its hood up. It was immediately killed by some of the camp-
followers, and was brought to me, and proved to be a small cobra.
On examining my servant’s foot, I found one tiny puncture on the
ankle, on which was a single drop of blood. The man was at once
taken to the hospital tent, and attended to by the hospital assistant
in medical charge of the troops, who applied ammonia and did all
that was in his power. I was very anxious about the man; but he
awoke me at the hour for marching next morning as if nothing had
happened, and for some time apparently experienced no
inconvenience. Some weeks later, however, after we had reached our
destination, his left leg swelled very much, and he suffered great
pain for a considerable time; but he eventually recovered. The snake
was seen by eight or ten persons besides myself, and was beyond
doubt a cobra; and the only possible explanation of the man’s
escape seems to be that the reptile must have bitten something else
very shortly before, and so to a great extent exhausted the deadly
poison in its fangs.
One of our children had a narrow escape, though of a different kind,
when quite a baby. My wife picked him up one day from the floor,
where he was lying enjoying himself in baby fashion. She had hardly
done so, when a cobra fell from the roof on the very spot on which
the little one had been disporting himself the moment before.
On one occasion, a curious native superstition with regard to the
subject of these notes came to my notice. A cobra which had been
killed in the hut of one of the men was brought up to be shown to
me, when a havildar (native sergeant) called my attention to the fact
that the end of his tail was blunt, saying in Hindustani: ‘Look, sahib;
this is a downright villain; he has bitten some man, and so lost the
tip of his tail.’ On my making further inquiries, I was confidently
assured that whenever a cobra bites a man, the tip of his tail
invariably becomes blunted!
 MITIS METAL.
The introduction of wrought-iron castings by the ‘Mitis process,’ to
which attention has lately been directed, forms a new and an
important departure in the employment of this class of iron. Up to
the present time, wrought-iron has been worked into the requisite
forms by means of hammering; whilst a system of stamping in
moulds was deemed a considerable advance in economical working.
It is now, however, proposed to treat wrought-iron in the same
manner as cast-iron—namely, by melting and pouring it into moulds
made in sand, and corresponding in shape with the object desired.
By such a process a considerable saving in the cost of production is
obtained. Annealing is found to be unnecessary.
The difficulty which has hitherto barred the adoption of this method
has been the high temperature to which it has been necessary to
heat the iron before it became sufficiently fluid to flow into the
moulds. Wrought-iron fuses at about four thousand degrees
Fahrenheit, but a considerably higher temperature had to be
obtained before the metal passed out of the viscid state; and on
reaching this increased heat, it was found to absorb gases which
caused cavities and flaws in the castings, rendering them worthless,
and what are technically known in the foundry as ‘wasters.’ To
obviate this difficulty, Peter Ostberg, a Swedish engineer, has taken
advantage of the fact that the melting-point in alloys is considerably
below that of their components; and by combining with the iron a
small percentage of aluminium, he has succeeded in lowering the
temperature of fusion of the mixture to such an extent that excellent
castings can be obtained, the temperature reached not being high
enough to cause the absorption of gases. The castings are clean and
sharp in form, and remarkably strong and fine in texture, being in
some cases, it is said, half as tough again as the metal from which
they were made. The great reduction in price cannot fail to procure
for the new process an opening commensurate with its intrinsic
merits.
In the United States and Sweden, Mitis Metal has already established
itself as an article of commerce at once reliable and economical; and
there can be little doubt that the engineers of this country will avail
themselves of this new form of iron, placed at their disposal by an
invention which promises to rival in importance any introduced into
this branch of industry for many years past.
 MISSION TO DEEP-SEA FISHERMEN.

In the year 1844, the Thames Church Mission was instituted. A few
years ago, an accidental development of the organisation led to the
establishment of a missionary enterprise among the fishermen
engaged in the North Sea. But the possibilities of the new field of
labour soon justified the formation of a separate body to cope with
them; and on the 30th of November 1884, the Mission to Deep-sea
Fishermen was started. Its primary object is to give religious
teaching to the twelve thousand men and lads who labour on the
twelve fishing-fleets cruising in the North Sea. It has six smacks in
its service, a seventh being, at the time of writing, on the stocks.
These smacks supplement their philanthropic labours by fishing with
the fleets with which they sail. Each vessel carries a missionary
skipper, who, as often as the weather will permit, gathers together in
his spacious hold a congregation of fellow-fishermen for worship.
The earnestness of a devout mariner has often been noted; and
from a short cruise the writer recently took on one of the Mission
vessels, he can testify not only to the exceptional enthusiasm and
fervour which characterised the services held on board, but also to
the sound moral tone which, as a result of such services, prevails
generally in the fleets—a condition of things in happy contrast to the
riots and crimes which were rife there in former years.
But not only are the Mission vessels centres of religious instruction;
each carries a quantity of healthy literature, which, circulating
through the fleets, beguiles many a fisherman’s leisure hour of its
tedium. Then, too, medicine-chests and surgical appliances are
always kept on board; and with these at hand, the skipper and
mate, qualified by their certificates from the St John’s Ambulance
Association and the National Health Society, treat the sick and
injured fishermen of the fleet, who would otherwise suffer until
reaching land the pangs of untreated disorders and undressed
wounds. Besides this, each missionary skipper labours to promulgate
temperance principles among the fleets both by personal example
and gentle persuasion. Another feature of the Mission’s work is the
collecting and forwarding of knitted cuffs and comforters—made by
friends on shore—to the North Sea fishermen, as preventives against
the terrible ‘sea-blisters’ which oil-skins produce on unprotected
wrists and necks. Lastly, we should mention that the fishermen of
the fleets are encouraged to come frequently aboard the Mission
vessels to join in social gossip over a mug of cocoa. Thus each of
these vessels exists in the various capacities of church, library,
temperance hall, dispensary, and social lounge. The methods by
which the Mission has fought the ‘coper’ or ‘floating grog-shop’ are
tolerably well known, and so need not be dwelt upon here.
Glancing at statistics, we note that, during last year, there were 1856
visits paid to vessels; 10,375 attendants at the seven hundred
services held; 515 temperance pledges were taken; 74,127 tracts
and 45,258 magazines distributed; 2725 cases medically and
surgically treated; 6665 comforters, 16,210 pairs of cuffs, and 668
helmets, given away; and 626 copies of the Scriptures sold. Thus the
Mission shows a most healthy growth. It has recently been
established in new offices at 181 Queen Victoria Street, London,
E.C.; and a new phase of its enterprise is the circulation of a
twopenny monthly journal entitled Toilers of the Deep, being a
‘record of Mission-work among them.’ The magazine is an excellent
one, and we commend it to all who feel an interest in the twelve
thousand men and boys ‘who toil through furious blast and sleety
storm—who hazard their lives, and fall victims, hundreds of them, to
the pitiless waves, that markets at home may be well supplied.’
 LOST AT SEA.

Good-night, beloved; the light is slowly dying

From wood and field; and far away the sea
Moans deep within its bosom. Is it sighing
For those whose rest can never broken be;
For those who found their way to God; yet never
Beneath green sod may rest, the sea holds them for ever?

Yes, deep and still your grave; the ocean keeping

Whate’er it gains for ever in its hold.
I know that in its depths you now are sleeping,
Quiet and dreamless as in churchyard mould;
But I have no still mound, as others, only
The memory of times past, ’mid days that now are lonely.

Buried deep with you in the sea for ever

Is all the brightness earth had once for me.
The spring returns; flowers bloom again; but never
I feel the joy in bird, and flower, and tree;
I see, but feel not as in days of yore,
Those days that can come back to me, ah, nevermore!

But yet I know that I am not forsaken.

‘Lead Thou me on,’ I now can calmly say.
None know the bitterness of sorrow taken
From out my heart; when I that prayer could pray,
In His own time God took you in His keeping,
All earthly sorrows past; where there is no more weeping.

Florence Peacock.
Printed and Published by W. & R. Chambers, 47 Paternoster Row,
London, and 339 High Street, Edinburgh.

All Rights Reserved.

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