Froissart’s saying, if it was Froissart’s, that the English amuse
themselves sadly antedates that notion of Merry England which is now
generally rejected by serious observers. I should myself prefer the
agnostic position, and say that I did not know whether the English were
glad or not when they looked gay. What I seem to be certain of, but I
do not say that I am certain, is that they look gayer in their places
of amusement than we do. I do not mean theatres, or parliaments, or
music-halls, or lecture-rooms, by places of amusement, but what we
call summer resorts a little more largely than those resorts which the
English call watering-places. Of these I should like to take as a type
the charming summer resort on the coast of North Wales which is called
Llandudno in print, and in speech several different ways.
I
The English simply and frankly, after their blunt nature, call the place
Landudno, but the Welsh call it, according to one superstition of their
double _l_ and their French _u_, Thlandidno. According to another, we
cannot spell it in English at all; but it does not much matter, for
the last superstition is the ever-delightful but ever-doubtful George
Borrow’s, who says that the Welsh _ll_ is the same as the Spanish _ll_,
but who is probably mistaken, most other authorities agreeing that if
you pronounce it _lhl_ you will come as near it as any Saeseneg need.
It is a constantly besetting question in Wales, where the prefix _Llan_
speckles the map all over, owing to that multitude of Saints who peopled
the country in the times when a Saint’s sons were every one saints, and
none was of particularly holy, or even good life, because he was known
for a saint. Like a continental noble, he inherited his title equally
with all his brothers.
But through whatever orthoepic mazes you search it, Llandudno has every
claim on your regard and admiration. Like Aberystwyth, its sea front is
a shallow crescent, but vaster, with a larger town expanding back of it,
and with loftier and sublimer headlands, at either end, closing it in a
more symmetrical frame. But I should say that its sea was not so blue,
or its sky either, and its air was not so soft or dry. Morally it is
more constantly lively, with a greater and more insistent variety of
entertainments. For the American its appeal might well have begun with
the sight of his country’s flag floating over a tennis-ground at the
neighboring watering-place and purer Welsh town of Rhyl. The approach to
his affections was confirmed by another American flag displayed before
one of the chief hotels in Llandudno itself. I learned afterward of the
landlord that this was because there were several Chicago families in
his house, and fifteen Americans in all; but why the tennis-ground of
Rhyl flew our national banner, I do not know to this day. It was
indeed that gentle moment when our innocent people believed themselves
peculiarly dear to the English, and might naturally suppose, if from
Chicago, or Boston, or Denver, that the English would wish to see as
often as possible the symbol of our successful revolt from the princes
and principles to which they have religiously adhered.
[Illustration: LLANDUDNO--THE CITY AND HARBOR]
Both that home of the patriotic Chicago families, and the other best
hotel were too full for us, and after a round of the second-best we
decided for lodgings, hoping as usual that they would bring us nearer
the native life. The best we could get, facing the sea midway of the
crescent, were not exactly Welsh in their keeping. The landladies were,
in fact, two elderly Church-of-England sisters from Dublin, who had
named their house out of a novel they had read. They said they believed
the name was Italian, and the reader shall judge if it were so from its
analogue of Osier Wood. The maids in the house, however, were very truly
and very wickedly Welsh: two tough little ponies of girls, who tied
their hair up with shoe-strings, and were forbidden, when about their
work, to talk Welsh together, lest they should speak lezing of those
Irish ladies. The rogues were half English, but the gentle creature
who served our table was wholly Welsh; small, sweet-voiced, dark-eyed,
intelligent, who suffered from the universal rheumatism of the British
Isles, but kept steadily to her duty, and accepted her fate with
patience and even cheerfulness. She waited on several other tables, for
the house was full of lodgers, all rather less permanent than ourselves,
who were there for a fortnight; we found our landladies hoping, when we
said we were going, to have had us with them through the winter.