In northern Europe we may, without impropriety, say good night! to
departing friends at any hour of darkness; but the Italians utter their
Felicissima Notte only once. The arrival of candles marks the division
between day and night, and when they are brought in, the Italians thus
salute each other. How impossible it is to convey the exact properties of
a foreign language by translation! Every word, from the highest to the
lowest, has a peculiar significance, determinable only by an accurate
knowledge of national and local attributes and peculiarites.
GOETHE.--_Blackwood's Magazine_.
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