6 JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. [CHAP. I. 



cedents should have acquired something of clannish- 

 ness. But any narrowing effect of such a tendency 

 was counteracted by a strong intellectual curiosity, 

 which kept them en rapport with the world, while 

 they remained independent of the world. And as 

 each scion of the stock entered into new relations, 

 the keen mutual interest, instead of merely narrow- 

 ing, became an element of width. I speak now of 

 the generation preceding our own. No house was 

 ever more affluent in that Coterie- Spr ache, for which 

 the Scottish dialect of that day afforded such full 

 materials. It would be pleasant, if possible, to recall 

 that humorous gentle speech, as it rolled the cherished 

 vocables like a sweet morsel on the tongue, or minced 

 them with a lip from which nothing could seem coarse 

 or broad, caressing them as some Lady Bountiful may 

 caress a peasant's child, or as it coined sesquipedalia 

 verba, which passed current through the stamp of 

 kindred fancy. This quaint freemasonry was un- 

 consciously a token not only of family community, 

 but also of that feudal fellowship with dependents 

 which was still possible, and which made the language 

 and the manners of the most refined to be often racy 

 of the soil. But Time will not stand still, and neither 

 the delicate " couthy " tones, nor that which they 

 signified, can be fully realised to-day. But we can 

 still in part appreciate the playful irony which 

 prompted these humorous vagaries of old leisure, 

 wherein true feeling found a modest veil, and a naive 

 philosophy lightened many troubles of life by making 

 light of them. 



