ABSTRACT
French “ u ”), “ philosophy” is “ philosophy,1” “ argument ” is “ argument,” and the words look funny when so written; but they do not sound funny, they sound charming. The unexpected emphasis on the minor syllables has an air of not ungraceful pedantry or, better still, of an oldworld courtliness. We are listening to English spoken with watchful care and slightly timorous hesitation, as though it were a learned language. That at once ennobles our mother-tongue, brings it into relief, gives it a daintiness and distinction of which, in our rough workaday use of it, we had never dreamed. But the charm does not stop there. The Irish people sing our language-and always in a minor key. It becomes in very fact “ most musical, most melancholy.” Rarely, very rarely, the chant degenerates into a whine. But for the most part, the English ear is mildly surprised and entirely charmed. Talk of lingua Toscana in bocca Romana ! The English tongue on Irish lips is every whit as melodious.
