of Bruges will use to a man of Poperinghe and not be understood.

It is one of the most interesting dialects known to me, containing
numbers of mighty mediaeval words which survive in daily use; and it is
one of the richest: rich especially--and this is not usual in
dialects--in words expressive of human characteristics and of physical
sensations.

Thus there is a word to describe a man who is not so much a poor wretch,
_un miserable_, as what Tom Hood loved to call "a hapless wight:" one who
is poor and wretched and outcast and out of work, not through any fault
of his own, through idleness or fecklessness, but through sheer ill-luck.
There is a word to describe what we feel when we hear the tearing of silk
or the ripping of calico, a word expressing that sense of angry
irritation which gives a man a gnawing in the muscles of the arms, a word
that tells what we really feel in our hair when we pretend that it
"stands on end." It is a sturdy, manly dialect, moreover, spoken by a
fine, upstanding race of "chaps," "fellows," "mates," "wives," and
"women-persons," for your Fleming rarely talks of "men" or "women." It is
also a very beautiful dialect, having many words that possess a charm all
their own. Thus _monkelen_, the West-Flemish for the verb "to smile," is
prettier and has an archer sound than its Dutch equivalent, _glimlachen_.
And it is a dialect of sufficient importance to boast a special
dictionary (_Westvlaamsch Idiotikon_, by the Rev. L. L. De Bo: Bruges,
1873) of 1,488 small-quarto pages, set in double column.

In translating Streuvels' sketches, I have given a close rendering: to
use a homely phrase, their flavour is very near the knuckle; and I have
been anxious to lose no more of it than must inevitably be lost through
the mere act of translation. I hope that I may be forgiven for one or two