Excerpt from Essays English friends that for an Irishman to make a bad Speech was a brilliant and meritorious thing, and reflected the greatest credit on the bad Speaker. Nor must it be imagined that he was all good nature and humorous tolerance. He could be severe enough at times, but never savagely so. I was once praising a common friend of ours as inspired by very high ideals. Yes, said Todhunter, he is indeed a noble fellow; a noble fellow Pause. And he knows it. Saying which he stroked his beard a couple of times, a habitual gesture with him when ever he said a good thing. His friends will remember this habit. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.