Another thing that has a tendency to do away with the Gaelic is because individuals from the low country are getting in amongst them, and as they find the people able to converse with them, they do not put themselves to the trouble of acquiring a knowledge of their language. I would not wish my countrymen to act uncivilly towards such, yet I think they might show them at least that they respect their own language; and as they have chosen the Highlands as their place of residence, they would also choose their language as their own. I have known many who could not speak one word of Gaelic, and who in a short time could speak it quite well.

Another thing that has a tendency to do away with the Gaelic, is, that many Highland ministers marry wives who cannot speak one word of Gaelic. Their children, especially their daughters, follow the mother, and not one word of Gaelic is spoken in the family, nothing but genteel pure English. So that the man, however hearty a Highlander he might have been, is fairly vanquished in his own house. He loses heart in the Gaelic; not accustomed to speak it in his family, he loses his relish to preach in it. He gets careless about it in his sermons, in the school, and in the whole parish; and perhaps whispers in the ears of some that it is in vain attempting to keep it up, and that it is as well that it should die a natural death. The daughters are no doubt taught music and drawing, and, of course, French, but not one word of Gaelic, which is considered too vulgar for young Misses. And these the daughters of a Highland clergyman—a Gaelic preaching minister! Tell it not in London, publish it not in the streets of Paris, lest the daughters of the former rejoice, lest the daughters of the latter triumph. I think that a minister’s wife should be humble, and so condescending as that when she enters the manse she should provide herself with Munro’s Grammar and M’Alpine’s Dictionary, and with the aid of her husband and female servants, to master the Gaelic, which would be more to her credit than—while their union lasted—to be in the habit of leaving her pew, and retiring with the genteel, the fashionable, and the gay, when her husband was about to commence the Gaelic service; proving to a demonstration that she had no great regard either for himself or for the truths which he preached.

It has a tendency likewise to do away with the Gaelic that the genteel, the polite, and the fashionable do not speak it. Genteel! That man does not deserve the name of a Highland gentleman who does not speak, not only the English, but the Gaelic properly. It is true that there are many Highland proprietors going about through the country dressed in the Highland garb, who cannot speak one sentence properly in the Gaelic. Were I to meet any such I think I would be disposed to give them the following salutation:—“I am glad, sir, to see you in that dress, but how dare you wear that kilt without speaking the Gaelic?” Were these gentlemen to know the commanding influence which the Gaelic would give them in the affection and esteem of the people, and how their very names would be cherished by them, not only during their life-time, but embalmed after their death, they would consider it a perquisite to a Highland proprietor to speak the Gaelic. If there is an individual on earth that I would be disposed to envy, he is a Highland proprietor who speaks the Gaelic, who appears among his tenants,—not as the haughty lord, not as the sectarian bigot, not as the foreigner, not in his representative, the factor—but in his precious self; as the warm-hearted, the noble, the homely Highland gentleman. The command of such a man would move the whole country, because he who gave it had a place in the affections of the inhabitants. His threatenings would have a greater influence in keeping down roguery than all the police in the world, and his frown would be more dreaded than transportation for life. There was a very touching account given in the Perthshire Advertiser of the late John Stewart Menzies, Esq., of Chestill, not more touching than true. I know the thrill of delight it spread, not only amongst his own tenants, but over the whole country, when it was known that he would not allow his servants to speak anything to his children but the Gaelic. I remember seeing him upwards of twenty years ago, when in the prime of manhood—the day that the Queen arrived at Taymouth Castle. The impression is still fresh upon my mind,—the noble appearance of the man dressed in the Highland garb, the sonorous sound of his voice as he addressed the Highlanders in Gaelic, requesting them to give three hearty cheers, so loud as to be heard at Benmore (a mountain upwards of twenty miles distant.) He gave a similar address in English, but it made no impression on me compared with the Gaelic. There was a majestic tone that accompanied the Gaelic which the English could not imitate. The Breadalbane Gaelic is the most appropriate that could be used from the lips of commanding officers of any in the Highlands. I could easily conceive what a powerful effect an address from a Chieftain would have over his clan in ancient times.

I know that we have been accustomed to look upon ourselves as a sociable and warm-hearted race, and to look upon our neighbours as cold-hearted. Now, the Lowland Scotch are anything but cold-hearted; they are also warm-hearted; but compared with us they are cold—at least we think them so. We cannot be called a cruel people; no doubt there are such among us—it is not our characteristic. We cannot be called proud or haughty. There is a good deal of that amongst us, but it is generally confined to a certain class, and more in the west than in the east—it is not our characteristic. We cannot be called a deceitful race; there is certainly too much of that amongst us, but it is not universal, it is confined to certain individuals. I have known some long-headed fellows amongst us, as perfectly up to the art of deception as any I have ever seen—still it is not our characteristic. Revenge cannot be called the characteristic of Highlanders. Revengeful certainly they are, and perhaps as much so as any in Britain, so that I cannot, I dare not say that revenge may not be characteristic of some of them—still it is not their characteristic. This then is the characteristic of our race—a warm-hearted Highlander. I know, without fear of contradiction, that this will find a response in every mind that knows them properly. It is also characteristic of the native Irish. If Robert Burns saw that nasty thing amongst us which he called “Hieland pride,” he saw something else that caught his attention, namely, “a Hieland Welcome;” and what can that be but the welcome that the warm-hearted give to their friends. I know a young lad who was in a certain glen for a week in search of sheep who had wandered. He was in many a house, but in none of them did they ask him “Had he dined?” No such questions were put, but in every house they put meat on the table, and urged him with a heartiness peculiar to themselves, to partake of it. Now, I ask, where in Scotland or in England would a man meet with such warm-hearted hospitality. The same lad was in a house at another time, where the wife was a Baptist, who asked him, “Have you breakfasted?” He reasoned with himself—If I say “No,” it will be the same as asking my breakfast, so he said “Yes.” The consequence was that he was that day in the hills without breakfast, well chastised for telling a falsehood. But was the good woman to be justified after all; ought she not to have entered more into the feelings of bashful youth. I know two ministers who were in a certain glen preaching the Gospel together. The one a Highlander, the other asked him two or three times, “Where shall we rest all night?” The other had no anxiety on the subject, knowing that the difficulty would be how to refuse invitations, answered, “Do you see that slated house on the other side of the river?” “Yes,” he replied. “Well, I do not know who is there, but if we get no other place we’ll go there.”

Now, a warm heart is one of the most agreeable features of human nature. Whatever a man may have, if this be awanting in him, he is destitute of that which would render him an object of affection. A man may be wise, shrewd, clever, intelligent, patient, and even sincere; but if he has not a warm heart, he is destitute of the brightest ornament that can adorn his nature. Now, I ask, what is it that gives us this feature in our character? Is it because we entered into the world with kinder dispositions than others? I have no idea of that. I believe it is our Gaelic that has done it. Whether it was our warm hearts that gave us the Gaelic, or the Gaelic that gave us the warm hearts, is a difficult question. The influence, I believe, has been mutual. And I am certain, if there is a language upon earth that might be called the language of a warm-hearted people, it is the Gaelic. So that, as a race, we have received our shape from the mould into which we have been cast, by the lips of our fond mothers pouring the eloquence of their affectionate souls into our tender minds. I have known mothers in the Highlands, who could speak the English as well as any in Edinburgh who, when their children, being hurt, came crying to them, would fling away their grammatical English as quite unsuited for the occasion, and begin to address them in the endearing epithets of the Gaelic, which alone could express their feelings.

Let any person compare the endearing epithets in the Gaelic with those in the English, and even in the broad Scotch, which is far in advance of the English in that respect, and he cannot but see how far short they come. They are few in the English—“love,” “my love;” “dear,” “my dear;” “darling,” “my darling.” They are not only few, but they are entirely without melody. There is no melody in “love:” the lips are closed in pronouncing it, and entirely exclude melody. “Dear” is equally destitute of melody: it ends with the driest, and the letter that has the least melody in the whole alphabet. “Darling” is not so bad, but comparatively has no melody. Now, to say that melody has no effect upon the human mind the whole world would contradict. It is a principle of nature’s teaching, that melody affects the human mind. The English language is artificial, and not the language of nature, and consequently is entirely without melody.

Let these endearing epithets be put into the lips of that enchantress, the Scotchwoman, who sets to music almost everything that passes through her fingers:—“Love,” “lovie,” “my lovie;” “dear,” “dearie,” “my dearie;” “my wee darling,” “my darling petty,” “my darling Johnnie;” “my wee lammie,” “my darling lammie;” “my sweetie,” “my sweet babie.” There is melody for you that would charm the very adders. Ah! but it is vulgar. “They are sour, they are sour,” said the fox, when he could not reach at the grapes. It is vulgar when the pride of a refined style of pure English prevents many from using it. If there is vulgarity in it, it is such as the English language cannot produce—not indeed, on account of its vulgarity, but on account of its true refinement.

Let us turn now to the endearing epithets in the Gaelic, and we shall find them towering as high above the English and the broad Scotch as our Highland mountains tower high above theirs. Gradh, a ghraidh (love, my love), the dh almost silent; a ghraidh is equally strong with “my love,” and full of melody; gaol, a ghaoil (love, my love, or dear, my dear). “Ghaoil, a ghaoil, do na fearaibh,” (M’Lachlan), the most endearing expression which could come from the lips of man, which the English cannot imitate, and which it is impossible properly to translate. The nearest approach that can be made to it—“Thou dearest, or most beloved, or most loving of men.” How touching Mo ghaolan, mo ghaolag, the former the diminutive masculine, the latter the diminutive feminine, the an being the sign of the one and the ag the sign of the other, and being the same as in broad Scotch affectionate. Cheist, a cheist, mo cheist, mo cheistean, mo cheisteag (the question, thou art the question, thou art my question, thou art my wee question, boy or girl). What is the question with the fond mother? What shall I do with my child? How shall I comfort him? How shall I make him happy? Eudail, m’ eudail, m’ eudail bheag—(thou art property, thou art my property, thou art my wee property). Eudail literally means cattle or property of any kind. Run literally means intention, secret, disposition, inclination, regard; but when used as an endearing epithet, it is the strongest in any language, and means an object where all the desires and affections of the soul meet as in a focus, an object on which they are fixed.

O’n bha Iosa, mo rùn,

Greis ’n a luidh anns an ùir,