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This objection does not apply to Giraldus Cambrensis; his knowledge of Welsh was indeed slight but he had plenty of Welsh-speaking relatives and friends, and he was himself a collector of manuscripts. Gerald refers to "the lying statements of Geoffrey's fabulous history," and implies in a much-quoted passage that he regarded Geoffrey's history as a pack of lies.
His youth had been thus spent and he thus ruled, when as his thirtieth year approached he gave forth a decision to his nobles and to his earls and to the Welsh-speaking men and to the seafaring men and to the priests and to all his people. He said: "I will take ship and I will go over the sea to Rome, where I may worship at the tombs of the blessed Apostles, and there I will be baptized.
The Englishman who knows no language but his own may travel well-nigh all over the world and everywhere meet some one who can speak his tongue. But what of the Welsh-speaking Welshman? What of the Basque and the Lithuanian who can speak only his mother tongue? Everywhere such a man is a foreigner and with all the foreigner's disadvantages.
The few lessons he had given Helena had been as a golden gleam in a very grey day. But alack, Helena had soon tired of her lessons, as she had tired of the mile of coveted trout-fishing that Mr. Evans of the farm beyond the oak-wood had pressed upon her or of the books the young Welsh-speaking curate of the little mountain church near by was so eager to lend her.
But the Welsh churches are now supplied with Welsh-speaking clergy, though whether it is well for the Welsh to cling so strongly to their ancient speech is doubted by many Welshmen.
He pointed out that by letting off most of the glebe land and pretermitting David's "pocket-money" he might secure a young and energetic Welsh-speaking curate, the remainder of whose living-wage would he felt sure be found out of the diocesan funds of St. David's bishopric. The Revd.
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