To the Editor of ‘Titan.’
My Dear Sir,—I send you a few hasty notes upon Mr. Robert Ferguson’s little work (relating to the dialect current at the English Lakes).1 Mr. Ferguson’s book is learned and seasonable, adapted to the stage at which such studies have now arrived among us, and adapted also to a popular use. I am sure that Mr. Ferguson knows a great deal more about his very interesting theme than I do. Nevertheless, I presume to sit in judgment1 upon him; or so it will be inferred from my assuming the office of his reviewer. But in reality I pretend to no such ambitious and invidious functions. What I propose to do, in this hasty and extempore fashion, is—simply to take a seat in Mr. Ferguson’s court as an amicus curiæ, and occasionally to suggest a doubt, by possibility an amendment2; but more often to lead astray judge, jury, and docile3 audience into matter growing out of the subject, but very seldom leading back into it, too often, perhaps, having little to do with it; pleasant by possibility, according to Foote’s judgment in a parallel case, ‘pleasant, but wrong.’ No great matter if it should be so. It will be read within the privileged term of Christmas;2 during which licensed4 saturnalia it can be no blame to any paper, that it is ‘pleasant, but wrong.’
I begin with lodging5 a complaint against Mr. Ferguson, namely, that he has ignored me—me, that in some measure may be described as having broken ground originally in this interesting field of research. Me, the undoubted parent of such studies—i. e. the person who first solemnly proclaimed the Danish language to be the master-key for unlocking the peculiarities7 of the Lake dialect—me, has this undutiful son never noticed, except incidentally, and then only with some reserve, or even with a distinct scruple8, as regards the particular point of information for which I am cited. Seriously, however, this very passage, which offers me the affront9 of utter exclusion10 from what I had regarded as my own peculiar6 territory, my own Danish ring-fence, shows clearly that no affront had been designed. Mr. Ferguson had found occasion, at p. 80, to mention that Fairfield, the most distinguished3 of the Grasmere boundaries, and ‘next neighbour to Helvellyn’ (next also in magnitude, being above three thousand feet high), had, as regarded its name, ‘been derived12 from the Scandinavian faar, sheep, in allusion13 to the peculiar fertility of its pastures.’ He goes on thus—‘This mountain’ (says De Quincey) ‘has large, smooth pastoral savannahs, to which the sheep resort when all its rocky or barren neighbours are left desolate14.’ In thus referring to myself for the character of the mountain, he does not at all suppose that he is referring to the author of the etymology15. On the contrary, the very next sentence says—‘I do not know who is the author of this etymology, which has been quoted by several writers; but it appears to me to be open to considerable doubt’; and this for two separate reasons, which he assigns, and which I will notice a little further on.
Meantime I pause, for the sake of saying that the derivation is mine. Thirty-seven, or it may be thirty-eight, years ago, I first brought forward my Danish views in a local newspaper—namely, The Kendal Gazette, published every Saturday. The rival (I may truly say—the hostile) newspaper, published also on Saturday, was called The Westmoreland Chronicle. The exact date of my own communication upon the dialect of the Lake district I cannot at this moment assign. Earlier than 1818 it could not have been, nor later than 1820. What first threw me upon this vein16 of exploring industry was, the accidental stumbling suddenly upon an interesting little incident of Westmoreland rustic17 life. From a roadside cottage, just as I came nearly abreast18 of its door, issued a little child; not old enough to walk with particular firmness, but old enough for mischief19; a laughing expression of which it bore upon its features. It was clearly in the act of absconding20 from home, and was hurrying earnestly to a turn of the road which it counted upon making available for concealment21. But, before it could reach this point, a young woman, of remarkable22 beauty, perhaps twenty years old, ran out in some alarm, which was not diminished by hearing the sound of carriage-wheels rapidly coming up from a distance of probably two furlongs. The little rosy23 thing stopped and turned on hearing its mother’s voice, but hesitated a little, until she made a gesture of withdrawing her handkerchief from her bosom24, and said, coaxingly25, ‘Come its ways, then, and get its patten.’ Until that reconciling word was uttered, there had been a shadow of distrust on the baby’s face, as if treachery might be in the wind. But the magic of that one word patten wrought26 an instant revolution. Back the little truant27 ran, and the young mother’s manner made it evident that she would not on her part forget what had passed between the high contracting parties.4 What, then, could be the meaning of this talismanic28 word patten? Accidentally, having had a naval29 brother confined amongst the Danes, as a prisoner of war, for eighteen months, I knew that it meant the female bosom. Soon after I stumbled upon the meaning of the Danish word Skyandren—namely, what in street phrase amongst ourselves is called giving to any person a blowing-up. This was too remarkable a word, too bristling30 with harsh blustering31 consonants32, to baffle the detecting ear, as it might have done under any masquerading aura-textilis, or woven air of vowels33 and diphthongs.
Many scores of times I had heard men threatening to skiander this person or that when next they should meet. Not by possibility could it indicate any mode of personal violence; for no race of men could be more mild and honourably34 forbearing in their intercourse35 with each other than the manly36 dalesmen of the Lakes. From the context, it had long been evident that it implied expostulation and verbal reproach. And now at length I learned that this was its Danish import. The very mountain at the foot of which my Grasmere cottage stood, and the little orchard37 attached to which formed ‘the lowest step in that magnificent staircase’ (such was Wordsworth’s description of it), leading upwards38 to the summits of Helvellyn, reminded me daily of that Danish language which all around me suggested as being the secret writing—the seal—the lock that imprisoned39 ancient records as to thing or person, and yet again as being the key that should open this lock; as that which had hidden through many centuries, and yet also as that which should finally reveal.
I have thus come round to the name of Fairfield, which seemed to me some forty years ago as beyond all reasonable doubt the Danish mask for Sheep-fell. But, in using the phrase ‘reasonable doubt,’ I am far from insinuating40 that Mr. Ferguson’s deliberate doubt is not reasonable. I will state both sides of the question, for neither is without some show of argument. To me it seemed next to impossible that the early Danish settlers could, under the natural pressure of prominent differences among that circuit of hills which formed the barriers of Grasmere, have failed to distinguish as the sheep mountain that sole eminence41 which offered a pasture ground to their sheep all the year round. In summer and autumn all the neighbouring fells, that were not mere11 rocks, yielded pasture more or less scanty42. But Fairfield showed herself the alma mater of their flocks even in winter and early spring. So, at least, my local informants asserted. Mr. Ferguson, however, objects, as an unaccountable singularity, that on this hypothesis we shall have one mountain, and one only, classed under the modern Scandinavian term of field; all others being known by the elder name of fell. I acknowledge that this anomaly is perplexing. But, on the other hand, what Mr. Ferguson suggests is still more perplexing. He supposes that, ‘because’ the summit of this mountain is such a peculiarly green and level plain, it might not inappropriately be called a fair field.’ Certainly it might; but by Englishmen of recent generations, and not by Danish immigrants of the ninth century. To balance the anomaly of what certainly wears a faint soupçon of anachronism—namely, the apparent anticipation43 of the modern Norse word field, Mr. Ferguson’s conjecture44 would take a headlong plunge45 into good classical English. Now of this there is no other instance. Even the little swells46 of ground, that hardly rise to the dignity of hills, which might be expected to submit readily to changing appellations47, under the changing accidents of ownership, yet still retain their primitive48 Scandinavian names—as Butterlip Howe, for example. Nor do I recollect49 any exceptions to this tendency, unless in the case of jocose50 names, such as Skiddaw’s Cub51, for Lattrig; and into this class, perhaps, falls even the dignified52 mountain of The Old Man, at the head of Coniston. Mr. Ferguson will allow that it would be as startling to the dense53 old Danes of King Alfred’s time, if they had found a mountain of extra pretensions54 wearing a modern English name, as it would to the Macedonian argyraspides, if suspecting that, in some coming century, their mighty55 leader, ‘the great Emathian conqueror,’ could by any possible Dean of St. Patrick, and by any conceivable audacity56 of legerdemain57, be traced back to All-eggs-under-the-grate. If the name really is good English, in that case a separate and extra labour arises for us all; there must have been some old Danish name for this most serviceable of fells; and then we have not merely to explain the present English name, but also to account for the disappearance58 of this archæological Danish name. What I would throw out conjecturally59 as a bare possibility is this:—When an ancient dialect (A) is gradually superseded60 by a more modern one (E), the flood of innovation which steals over the old reign61, and gradually dispossesses it, does not rush in simultaneously62 as a torrent63, but supervenes stealthily and unequally, according to the humouring or thwarting64 of local circumstances. Nobody, I am sure, is better aware of this accident, as besetting65 the transit66 of dialects, than Mr. Ferguson. For instance, many of those words which are imported to us from the American United States, and often amuse us by their picturesqueness67, have originally been carried to America by our own people; in England they lurked68 for ages as provincialisms, localised within some narrow circuit, and to which some trifling69 barrier (as a river—rivulet—or even a brook) offered a retarding70 force. In supercivilised England, a river, it may be thought, cannot offer much obstruction71 to the free current of words; ages ago it must have been bridged over. Sometimes, however, a bridge is impossible under the transcendent importance of a free navigation. For instance, at the Bristol Hotwells, the ready and fluent intercourse with Long Ashton, and a long line of adjacencies, is effectually obstructed72 by the necessity of an open water communication with the Bristol Channel. At one period (i. e. when as yet Liverpool and Glasgow were fifth-rate ports), all the wealth of the West Indies flowed into England through this little muddy ditch of the Bristol Avon, and Rownham Ferry became the exponent73 and measure of English intercourse with the northern nook of Somersetshire. A river is bad; but when a mountain of very toilsome ascent74 happens to be interposed, the interruption offered to the popular intercourse, and the results of this interruption, become much more memorable75. An illustration which I can offer on this point, and which, in fact, I did offer (as, upon inquiry76, Mr. Ferguson will find), thirty-eight years ago, happens to bear with peculiar force upon our immediate77 difficulty of Fairfield. The valleys on the northern side of Kirkstone—namely, in particular, the three valleys of Patterdale, Matterdale, and Martindale—are as effectually cut off from intercourse with the valleys on the southern side—namely, the Windermere valley, Ryedale, and Grasmere, with all their tributary78 nooks and attachments—as though an arm of the sea had rolled between them. It costs a foot traveller half of a summer’s day to effect the passage to and fro over Kirkstone (what the Greeks so tersely79 expressed in the case of a race-course5 by the one word diaulos). And in my time no innkeeper from the Windermere side of Kirkstone would carry even a solitary80 individual across with fewer than four horses. What has been the result? Why, that the dialect on the northern side of Kirkstone bears the impress of a more ultra-Danish influence than that upon the Windermere side. In particular this remarkable difference occurs: not the nouns and verbs merely are Danish amongst the trans-Kirkstonians (I speak as a Grasmerian), but even the particles—the very joints81 and articulations of language. The Danish at, for instance, is used for to; I do not mean for to the preposition: they do not say, ‘Carry this letter at Mr. ‘W.’; but as the sign of the infinitive82 mood. ‘Tell him at put his spurs on, and at ride off for a surgeon?’ Now this illustration carries along with it a proof that a stronger and a weaker infusion83 of the Danish element, possibly an older and a younger infusion, may prevail even in close adjacencies, provided they are powerfully divided by walls of rock that happen to be eight miles thick.
But the inexorable Press, that waits for few men under the rank of a king, and not always for him (as I happen to know, by having once seen a proof-sheet corrected by the royal hand of George IV., which proof exhibited some disloyal signs of impatience), forces me to adjourn84 all the rest to next month.—
Yours ever,
Thomas De Quincey.
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1
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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amendment
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| n.改正，修正，改善，修正案 | |
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3
docile
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| adj.驯服的，易控制的，容易教的 | |
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4
licensed
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| adj.得到许可的v.许可，颁发执照(license的过去式和过去分词) | |
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5
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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6
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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7
peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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scruple
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| n./v.顾忌，迟疑 | |
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affront
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| n./v.侮辱，触怒 | |
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10
exclusion
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| n.拒绝，排除，排斥，远足，远途旅行 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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12
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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13
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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14
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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15
etymology
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| n.语源；字源学 | |
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16
vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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17
rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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18
abreast
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| adv.并排地；跟上(时代)的步伐，与…并进地 | |
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19
mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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20
absconding
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| v.（尤指逃避逮捕）潜逃，逃跑( abscond的现在分词 ) | |
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21
concealment
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| n.隐藏, 掩盖，隐瞒 | |
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22
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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24
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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coaxingly
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| adv. 以巧言诱哄，以甘言哄骗 | |
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wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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27
truant
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| n.懒惰鬼，旷课者；adj.偷懒的，旷课的，游荡的；v.偷懒，旷课 | |
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28
talismanic
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| adj.护身符的，避邪的 | |
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29
naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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30
bristling
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| a.竖立的 | |
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31
blustering
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| adj.狂风大作的，狂暴的v.外强中干的威吓( bluster的现在分词 )；咆哮；（风）呼啸；狂吹 | |
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32
consonants
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| n.辅音，子音( consonant的名词复数 )；辅音字母 | |
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vowels
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| n.元音，元音字母( vowel的名词复数 ) | |
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honourably
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| adv.可尊敬地，光荣地，体面地 | |
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35
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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38
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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39
imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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40
insinuating
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| adj.曲意巴结的，暗示的v.暗示( insinuate的现在分词 )；巧妙或迂回地潜入；（使）缓慢进入；慢慢伸入 | |
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41
eminence
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| n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家 | |
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42
scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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43
anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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44
conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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45
plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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46
swells
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| 增强( swell的第三人称单数 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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47
appellations
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| n.名称，称号( appellation的名词复数 ) | |
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48
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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49
recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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50
jocose
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| adj.开玩笑的，滑稽的 | |
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51
cub
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| n.幼兽，年轻无经验的人 | |
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52
dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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53
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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54
pretensions
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| 自称( pretension的名词复数 )； 自命不凡； 要求； 权力 | |
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55
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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56
audacity
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| n.大胆，卤莽，无礼 | |
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57
legerdemain
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| n.戏法，诈术 | |
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58
disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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59
conjecturally
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| adj.推测的，好推测的 | |
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60
superseded
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| [医]被代替的，废弃的 | |
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61
reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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62
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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63
torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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64
thwarting
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| 阻挠( thwart的现在分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过 | |
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65
besetting
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| adj.不断攻击的v.困扰( beset的现在分词 )；不断围攻；镶；嵌 | |
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transit
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| n.经过，运输；vt.穿越，旋转；vi.越过 | |
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67
picturesqueness
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68
lurked
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| vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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69
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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70
retarding
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| 使减速( retard的现在分词 )； 妨碍； 阻止； 推迟 | |
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71
obstruction
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| n.阻塞，堵塞；障碍物 | |
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72
obstructed
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| 阻塞( obstruct的过去式和过去分词 )； 堵塞； 阻碍； 阻止 | |
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73
exponent
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| n.倡导者，拥护者；代表人物；指数，幂 | |
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74
ascent
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| n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高 | |
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75
memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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76
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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77
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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78
tributary
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| n.支流；纳贡国；adj.附庸的；辅助的；支流的 | |
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79
tersely
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| adv. 简捷地, 简要地 | |
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80
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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81
joints
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| 接头( joint的名词复数 )； 关节； 公共场所（尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所） （非正式）； 一块烤肉 （英式英语） | |
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82
infinitive
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| n.不定词；adj.不定词的 | |
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83
infusion
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| n.灌输 | |
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84
adjourn
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| v.（使）休会，（使）休庭 | |
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