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HENRY IRVING
have said that he hoped the Americans
would not be intolerant towards any Eng-
lish mannerisms of his speech which might
offend their unaccustomed ears. If he said
this, and said it seriously, the remark may
be taken as a curious proof of his uncon-
sciousness of the peculiarities of his de-
livery. For his oddities of utterance are
no more English than they are Choctaw ;
sometimes they suggest Cornwall, some-
times Devonshire, occasionally northern
Vermont. But such hints are given by fits
and starts ; the dialect is always substan-
tially his own, an Irving patois^ developed
out of his own throat and brain through
the operation of the familiar law of the
survival of the unfittest. An alternate
swallowing and double-edging of conso-
nants, a frequent lapse into an impure nasal
quality, an exclusion of nearly all chest
tones, the misdelivery of the vowels by
improper prolongation or equally improper
abbreviation, an astonishing habit of con-
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