The bad name which their own half-countryman, Giraldus
Cambrensis, gave the Welsh in the twelfth century, clings to them
yet in the superstition of all Norman-minded and Saxon-minded
men, so that the Englishman I met on the way from Edinburgh was
doubtless speaking racially rather than personally when he said
that the Welsh were the prize liars of the universe. I for my
part heard no lies in Wales except those I told myself; but as I
am of Welsh stock, perhaps my experience is not wholly refutive
of that Englishman's position. I can only urge further the noted
philological fact that the Welsh language is so full of imagery
that it is almost impossible to express in it the brute
veracities in which the English speech is so apt. Otherwise I
should say that nowhere have I been used with a more immediate
and constant sincerity than in Wales. The people were polite and
they were almost always amiable, but in English, at least, they
did not say the thing that was not; and their politeness was
without the servile forms from lower to higher which rather weary
one in England.
Pages:
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166