Intellectual Life in Scotland. -- The Climate is not so bad
as it is represented to be. -- Comparisons. -- Literary and
Scientific Societies. -- Why should not France possess such
Societies? -- Scotch Newspapers. -- Scotland is the Sinew of
the British Empire.
How active and intellectual life in Scotland seems, in comparison with
the petty and monotonous existence led by the dwellers in Provincial
France!
Is it the climate that so stirs the Scotch up to action? Possibly it may
be, up to a certain point: in a cold damp climate, a man feels it
imperative to keep his brain and body stirring; however, it is not fair
to abuse that poor Scotch climate too much. I saw roses blooming on the
walls of a house I visited at in Helensburgh last January, and I culled
primroses in the open air in February, at Buckie on the north coast of
Scotland.
Scotch intellectual activity is the result of a widespread education
which is within the reach of the poorest.
Enter the lowliest cottage and you will find books there--the Bible,
books on agriculture, a novel or two, and almost invariably the poems of
their dear Burns.
There is no little town of three or four thousand inhabitants but has
its Literary and Scientific Society.
In some cases, a rich philanthropist has come forward with a sum of
money to build a suitable home for the Society, but very often no such
building exists, and the meetings are held in the Town Hall, or some
other public edifice of the place.
* * * * *
Scotchwomen are excellent housewives. In their leisure time they draw,
write, and make themselves acquainted with the social, religious, and
political, questions of the day.
They organise societies for the help of the poor, or get up concerts in
aid of the unfortunate. On Sundays, they teach the Bible to the children
of the poor. The old maids hunt out cases of distress and make
themselves useful to the community: they do the house-to-house
visitation.
At any rate it is living.
Compare this existence with life as led in Provincial France, where
people are wrapped up in their own family circle, take to keeping birds,
and divide their spare time between saying their _pater nosters_ and
criticising their neighbours.
In Paris there is too much life, and in the provinces too little. All
the blood goes to the head, and the body droops and is paralysed. It is
the initiative spirit that is wanting; for, thank Heaven, it is neither
the brain nor the money that lacks.
I spoke of Buckie at the commencement of this chapter. You have probably
never heard of Buckie, dear Reader. I assure you that a few months ago I
was in the same state of ignorance. My lecturing manager had marked this
little town on my list. I was invited to lecture at Buckie, it appeared.
This little hive of three or four thousand bees looked to me, as I
alighted from the train, like a most insignificant little place.
The chief doctor of the town, having written to offer me hospitality for
the night, had come to the station to meet me.
"Do you mean to say you have a Literary Society here?" I said to him.
"I should think so indeed," he replied; "and a very flourishing one it
is."
"It is a manufacturing town, I suppose?"
"Well, no; we have here a few well-to-do families. The rest of the town
consists of farmers, shopkeepers, and fisherfolk."
"I hope the lecture-room is a small one," I remarked.
"Make yourself easy about that," he replied; "our room holds from seven
to eight hundred people, but I guarantee it will be full to-night. They
will all want to come and hear what the Frenchman has got to say."
I pretended to feel reassured, but I was far from being so.
His prediction was verified after all, and never did I have a more
intelligent and appreciative audience.
Surely Lyons, Marseilles, Lille, Nantes, Nancy, Bordeaux, ought to be
able to do what can be done by Buckie!
* * * * *
I doubt whether the Scotch are more intelligent than the English (I mean
the masses), but they are still more energetic and persevering, much
more frugal and economical, and certainly more intellectual; that is to
say, that the pleasures they seek after are of a higher order.
The Scotch are great readers.
In their public libraries, I have seen hundreds of workmen and labourers
thronged around the tables, and absorbed in reading the newspapers.
* * * * *
The Scotch papers, such as the _Scotsman_, the _Glasgow Herald_, the
_Glasgow News_, the _British Mail_, are in no wise behind the London
papers in importance or in literary merit. They have their own
correspondents in all the capitals of the world, and get the news of the
day at first hand.
Comic papers are remarkable by their absence. The Scot does not throw
away his time and money on such trifles.
On the other hand, religious papers swarm and make their fortune.
The famous _Edinburgh Review_ has perhaps no longer quite the reputation
it used to enjoy, but it is still one of the most important _Reviews_ of
Great Britain.
Yes, in all truth, Scotland is an energetic, robust, and intelligent,
nation.
It is the sinew of the British Empire.