“Lilt,” he continued, “is the hardest thing of all to acquire.
Thousands attempt it, and hundreds fail. I have it (though I say it
who should not) to perfection. It is the quality you will discover
in the old ballads, but there it is often marred by curious
accidents which I can never properly explain. Their metre is often
very irregular, and I fancy that their style (which my Work closely
resembles) has suffered by continual copying. No: where you get the
true ‘Lilt’ is in the music halls--I am sorry it is so often wasted
upon impertinent themes. Do you know ‘It is all very fine and
large,’ or ‘At my time of life,’ or again, ‘Now we shan’t be long’?”