This is a repository copy of A Hundred Tongues: George Darley's Stammer. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/87639/ Version: Accepted Version Book Section: Davies, J (2016) A Hundred Tongues: George Darley's Stammer. In: Bradshaw, M, (ed.) Disabling Romanticism. Literary Disability Studies . Palgrave Macmillan , Basingstoke, UK , pp. 191-210. ISBN 978-1-137-46063-9 https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46064-6_10 Reuse Items deposited in White Rose Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. They may be downloaded and/or printed for private study, or other acts as permitted by national copyright laws. The publisher or other rights holders may allow further reproduction and re-use of the full text version. This is indicated by the licence information on the White Rose Research Online record for the item. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing
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[email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ 255 A Hundred Tongues: George Darley’s Stammer Jeremy Davies George Darley, the author of the following ‘Epigram: On being rallied by a beautiful woman for dulness in conversation’, had a severe and lifelong stammer. Ask me not thou, can I no thought afford Mirth to create or sadness to beguile: Thou smil’st so sweet ere I have spoke a word, Why should I speak a word to make thee smile? (Darley 1908, 452) The point of these lines is ostensibly the neatness with which the speaker’s ‘dulness’ is converted into fluent flattery, but their transparent allusion to the condition that habitually prevented Darley from speaking in company is probably a greater source of interest.