THE ANGLO-IRISH LANGUAGE 187 



came to him." And having said this, having breathed 

 this sigh of pure and perfect poetry, she went on to 

 express her gratitude to the doctor. " \Vliy then, the 

 world knows he is a good docthor, and a great help to 

 the Lord Almighty, though, faith ! " — and here she 

 laughed — " sometimes it'd fail the pair o' thim ! " 

 This woman had " the two ways in her, and a touch 

 of the cross-roads," to use an ancient phrase of Anglo- 

 Irish. Cross-roads were in the older times places 

 where on Sunday afternoons the people met and danced 

 and talked — places where the knavish speech did not 

 sleep in the foolish ear. 



Dr. P. W. Joyce's little book might well for second 

 title have been called " Heard at the Cross-Roads." 

 He has listened well, and listened in the right places, 

 and records what he has heard with the ease of a 

 scholar and the sympathy of a son of the soil. That 

 his book is a small one is almost its only fault; 

 on such a subject completeness is practically impos- 

 sible. For beyond vocabulary and phrase, idiom and 

 proverb, lie construction, the shape in which thought 

 is born, the point of the mental attack, the moment 

 in the metre of the sentence where the weight must 

 fall. These can scarcely be set down, yet they govern 

 all. It may safely be said that few sentences of any 

 sustained length or intention are cast identically in 

 English and Anglo-Irish. Dr. Joyce knows this, and 

 knowing it, does not attempt the impossible; he is 

 content to give us, loosely, the gleanings of a long 

 life devoted to the study of Ireland, and gives them 

 with a simple geniality and agreeability that turn 

 what might have been an arid catalogue into an 

 entirely entertaining and sociable volume. Three 

 gifts must be pre-eminently his, and they are not freely 

 bestowed on studious men — the happy knack of 

 making others talk, the power of appreciation, and 



