London to John O"Groafs. 331 



that does not extinguish nor absorb, nor compete with, 

 the Scot in his heart ; the feeling that he is a political 

 constituent of a mighty nation, whose feet stand upon 

 all the continents of the earth, while it holds the best 

 islands of the sea in its hands ; the feeling with which 

 he says We with all the millions of a dominion on which 

 the sun never sets, and Our, when he speaks of its 

 grand and common histories, its hopes, prospects, pro- 

 gress, power and aspirations. 



There was a Border-land, dark and bloody, between 

 Saxon England and Celtic Wales. For centuries the 

 red foot-marks of savage conflict scarred and covered its 

 wild war er before did so small a people make 



so stout, and desperate and protracted struggle for 

 local independence and isolation. Never did one pro- 

 duce a more strong-hearted and blind-eyed patriotism, 

 or patriotism more poets to thrill the listeners to their 

 lays with the intoxicating fanaticism of a national 

 sentiment. On that Border-land the white lambs 

 now He in the sun. The Welsh sentiment is as strong 

 as ever in the Snowden shepherd, and he may not 

 speak a dozen words of the English tongue. But the 

 Briton lives in his breast. The feeling of its great 

 meaning surrounds and illumines the inner circles of his 

 local attachment. He may never have seen a map of 

 the Globe, and never have been outside the wall of the 



