124: PKOSERPINA. 



be no ill-fortune ; the real ill- fortune is only to be despic- 

 able. These faults of human character, wherever found, 

 observe, belong to it as ill-trained incomplete ; confirm 

 themselves only in the vulgar. There is no base pertina 

 city, no overweening conceit, in the Black Douglas, 01 

 Claverhouse, or Montrose; in these we find the pure 

 Scottish temper, of heroic en da ranee and royal pride ; 

 but, when, in the pay, and not deceived, but purchased, 

 idolatry of Mammon, the Scottish persistence and pride 

 become knit and vested in the spleuchan, and your stiff 

 Covenanter makes his covenant with Death, and your Old 

 Mortality deciphers only the senseless legends of the eter- 

 nal gravestone, you get your weed, earth-grown, in bitter 

 verity, and earth-devastating, in bitter strength. 



12. I have told you, elsewhere, we are always first to 

 study national character in the highest and purest exam- 

 ples. But if our knowledge is to be complete, we have 

 to study also the special diseases of national character. 

 And in exact opposition to the most solemn virtue of 

 Scotland, the domestic truth and tenderness breathed in 

 all Scottish song, you have this special disease and mortal 

 cancer, this woody-fibriness, literally, of temper and 

 thought : the consummation of which into pure lignite, or 

 rather black Devil's charcoal the sap of the birks of 

 Aberfeldy become cinder, and the blessed juices of them, 

 deadly gas, you may know in its pure blackness best in 

 the work of the greatest of these ground-growing Scotch- 

 men, Adam Smith. 



