“I’ve heard folks say, though,” put in the old gentleman, “that they’d ruther speak like a Virginian than speak correctly.  The old talk was pretty nice, after all.  I don’t hold to all these new improvements.  They’ve been going too far in this Commonwealth.”

“What have they been doing?” I asked.

“Doing!” he returned, “Why, they’re gradually taking the cuspidors out of the church pews!”

Before the question of dialect is dropped, it should be said that those who do not believe the soft southern pronunciation is derived from negroes, can make out an interesting case.  If, they ask, the negro has corrupted the English of the South, why is it that he has not also corrupted the language of the West Indies—­British and French?  French negroes speak like French persons of white blood, and British West Indian negroes often speak the cockney dialect, without a trace of “nigger.”  Moreover, it is pointed out that in southern countries, the world over, there is a tendency to soften the harsh sounds of language, to elide, and drop out consonants.  The Andalusians speak a Spanish comparable in many of its peculiarities with the English of our own South, and the south-Italians exhibit similar dialectic traits.  Nor do the parallels between the north and south of Spain and Italy, and of the United States, end there.  The north-Italians and north-Spaniards are the “Yankees” of their respective countries—­the shrewd, cold business people—­whereas the south-Italians and south-Spaniards are more poetic, more dashing, more temperamental.  The merchants are of the north of Spain, but the dancers and bull-fighters are Andalusians.  And just as our Americans of the North admire the lazy dialect of the South, so the north-Spaniards admire the dialect of Andalusia, and even imitate it because they think it has a fashionable sound—­quite as British fashionables cultivate the habit of dropping final g’s, as in “huntin’” for “hunting.”

Virginia, more than any other State I know of, feels its entity as a State.  If you meet a Virginian traveling outside his State, and ask where he is from, he will not mention the name of the city in which he resides, but will reply:  “I’m from Va’ginia.”  If, on the other hand, you are in Virginia, and ask him the same question, he will proudly reply:  “I’m from Fauquier,” or “I’m from Westmoreland,” or whatever the name of his county may be.  The chances are, also, that his trunks and traveling bags will be marked with his initials, followed not by the name of his town, but by the abbreviation, “Va.”

I was told of one old unreconstructed Virginian who had to go to Boston on business.  The gentleman he went to see there was exceedingly polite to him, asking him to his house, putting him up at his club, and showing him innumerable courtesies.  The old Confederate, writing to his wife, indicated his amazement:  “Although he is not a Virginian,” he declared, “I must confess that he lives like a gentleman.”