188 STRAY- AW AYS 



the selective memory. Casually, during many years, 

 the examples have been jotted down ; casually, 

 among them, drop the illuminating comments ; he 

 does not hurry, he is never bored, and the jovial 

 anecdote, the personal reminiscence, crop up every- 

 where. His harvest is reaped, as is but natural, 

 among the peasants and the poor people of the towns ; 

 each upward step in the social scale is a step further 

 from the Irish language and its enormous influences. 

 Here and there he touches, but not perhaps with so 

 certain a hand, the delicate task of differentiating 

 between the formulas, shibboleths and phrases of the 

 upper social grades. We respectfully differ from him 

 when he states that " I am after finishing my work " 

 — "I am after my dinner " — are expressions " universal 

 in Ireland among the higher and educated classes " ; 

 or that " Sure I did that an hour ago," " Sure you 

 won't forget," are " heard perpetually among gentle 

 and simple." "I bought an umbrella the way I 

 wouldn't get wet," and " I'd 'no is John come home 

 yet," are also expressions with a grade of their own, 

 and cannot be classed, as they are by Dr. Joyce, as 

 "often used by educated people." Some exacter term 

 is needed here. Education can belong to all grades, 

 and education is only a rudiment of culture. It is 

 old-established culture and social usage that decide 

 upon these matters; and, for one reason or another, 

 certain expressions have ceased to be current among 

 the upper classes, while they remain suspended in 

 the next grade or two. It was just here that 

 Thackeray, in his desire for local colour, went wrong. 

 Lever, working with a full and slovenly brush, washed 

 in his local colour without an effort. He made his 

 heroes talk like gentlemen ; it was not necessary for 

 him to rely upon provincialisms to show that they 

 were Irishmen too. In the speech of the upper-class 



