Both infirmities are of
national origin and extent, and both are individual or personal
in their manifestation. That is, some Americans in every part of
the Union talk through their noses; some Englishmen in every part
of the kingdom drop their aitches.
The English-speaking Welsh often drop their aitches, as the
English-speaking French do, though the Scotch and Irish never
drop them, any more than the Americans, or the English of the
second generation among us; but the extremely interesting and
great little people of Wales are otherwise as unlike the English
as their mother-language is. They seem capable of doing anything
but standing six feet in their stockings, which is such a very
common achievement with the English, but that is the fault of
nature which gave them dark complexions and the English fair.
Where the work of the spirit comes in, it effects such a
difference between the two peoples as lies between an Eisteddfod
and a horse-race. While all the singers of Wales met in artistic
emulation at their national musical festival at Rhyl, all the
gamblers of England met in the national pastime of playing the
horses at Doncaster.
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