138 PROSERPINA. 



" Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle 

 instead of barley." 



1 1. Yet to be despised — either for men or flowers 

 — may be no ill-fortune ; the real ill-fortune is only 

 to be despicable. 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 pertinacity, no overweening conceit, 

 in the Black Douglas, or Claverhouse, or Montrose; 

 in these we find the pure Scottish temper, of heroic 

 endurance 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 Mor- 

 tality 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 examples. 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 : 



