Scottish Characteristics
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE HUMOURS OF SCOTTISH CHARACTER. A LTHOUGH so many hands have attempted to - delineate it, the Scottish character is not very easily sounded; there is a subtlety and a variety in it which a few crayon strokes will by no means satisfy. This character is composite ; the Lowlander and the Highlander meet in the character; the Dane and the Englishman may each recognise some features of themselves. The first thing which has usually impressed us is that the Scotchman is one who is always "keeping up a terrible thinking"?a kind of man engaged in a perpetual soliloquy, or rather colloquy, with himself? " As I walked with myself I talked with myself, And myself replied to me." We some time since were dining in Edinburgh at our table by ourselves, but in an opposite corner was a Scotchman dining also,
...and his mind seemed sorely exercised. Quite alone at his table, he was altogether oblivious of any company in the room, and at intervals of two or three moments came forth the ejaculation, " Ay,?ay, ay ! " He pursued the pathway of silence, occupied with his steak, but as he stretched forth his fork for another potato, it came forth again, " Ay, ay,?ay! " And so through the whole of his dinner he renewed his expressive utterances from the flashes of silence. It seemed to us very Scotch. Would it be possible to write the " Cotter's Saturday Night" now? Even if Scotland had a Burns, would such a picture be any longer true of the social life of the country ? Is it true that, as Emerson says, merely " for everything given something is taken " ; that while " society has acquired new arts, it has lost its old instincts " ; that " the civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet; that he has a fine Geneva watch, but cannot tell the hour by the sun " ?...
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