dormir debout

Reading Confessions of an Opium-Eater, I came across this hilarious passage describing a portion of the author’s stay in Welsh country as an adolescent. In it we see that the author (and probably other British folk of his educated class) considered Welsh to be a funny and unpronounceable language (on that matter, see the comedy of Rhod Gilbert) and that one could expect English to be a minority language in that region, even among young people (and not the other way around, like today).

And, that English is referred to as “Saxonese” (sassenach), apparently, in Welsh. I like that term much better, because, though we always refer to white people as Anglo-Saxon, we never call their language anything but Angle-ish (English). The term sassenach would make sense in Welsh if, when the Germanic tribes invaded Britain, there were more Saxons in the West intermingling with Welsh people, and the Welsh thus used Saxon as a blanket term for all Germans.

Once in particular, near the village of Llan-y-styndw (or some such name), in a sequestered part of Merionethshire, I was entertained for upwards of three days by a family of young people with an affectionate and fraternal kindness that left an impression upon my heart not yet impaired.

… They spoke English, an accomplishment not often met with in so many members of one family, especially in villages remote from the high road. Here I wrote, on my first introduction, a letter about prize-money, for one of the brothers, who had served on board an English man-of-war; and, more privately, two love-letters for two of the sisters. They were both interesting-looking girls, and one of uncommon loveliness. In the midst of their confusion and blushes, whilst dictating, or rather giving me general instructions, it did not require any great penetration to discover that what they wished was that their letters should be as kind as was consistent with proper maidenly pride.

… Thus I lived with them for three days and great part of a fourth; and, from the undiminished kindness which they continued to show me, I believe I might have stayed with them up to this time, if their power had corresponded with their wishes. On the last morning, however, I perceived upon their countenances, as they sate at breakfast, the expression of some unpleasant communication which was at hand; and soon after, one of the brothers explained to me that their parents had gone, the day before my arrival, to an annual meeting of Methodists, held at Carnarvon, and were that day expected to return; “and if they should not be so civil as they ought to be,” he begged, on the part of all the young people, that I would not take it amiss. The parents returned with churlish faces, and “Dym Sassenach” (no English) in answer to all my addresses. I saw how matters stood; and so, taking an affectionate leave of my kind and interesting young hosts, I went my way; for, though they spoke warmly to their parents in my behalf, and often excused the manner of the old people by saying it was “only their way,” yet I easily understood that my talent for writing love-letters would do as little to recommend me with two grave sexagenarian Welsh Methodists as my Greek sapphics or alcaics; and what had been hospitality when offered to me with the gracious courtesy of my young friends, would become charity when connected with the harsh demeanour of these old people.

Check out the whole work at Project Gutenberg. Thomas De Quincey writes singingly eloquent phrases that are often quite humorous.