And then I must make English of it for your ladyship, and that goes still worse with it." Alas! alas! the speech of every succeeding generation is a falling away from the pith and pathos of the preceding.

Speech gains in scope, but loses in intensity.
"There was once a girl in the Highlands," began Cosmo, "-- not very far from here it was, who was very beautiful, so that every young man in the neighbourhood fell in love with her.

She was as good as she was beautiful, and of course would not let more than one be her lover, and said no to every one else; and if after that they would go on loving her, she could not help it.

She was the daughter of a sheep--farmer, who had a great many sheep that fed about over the hills, and she helped her father to look after them, and was as good and obedient as any lamb of his flock.

And her name was Mary.
Her other name I do not know.
"Now her father had a young shepherd, only a year or two older than Mary, and he of course was in love with her as well as the rest, and more in love with her than any of them, because he was the most to be trusted of all in that country-side.