The wanderer’s eye could barely view
The summer heaven’s delicious blue—
So wondrous wild!—the whole might seem
The scenery of a fairy dream!
I have been assured on the very best authority that all the beauty of Loch Katrine could have been left undisturbed, had the Scottish people taken any actively determined measures towards preserving it. The increasing water-supply necessary for Glasgow could have been procured from Loch Vennachar, which is a larger loch, and quite as good for the purpose. Only it would have cost more money, and that extra cash was not forthcoming, even for Sir Walter’s sake! It is a poor return to make to the memory of him who did so much for the fame of Scotland, to mutilate the scene he loved and immortalized! The struggles and disasters of the Jacobite Cause, and the defeat at Culloden brought more gain than loss to Scotland, by filling the land with glorious song and heroic tradition,—the result of the noble idealistic spirit which made even failure honourable,—but the defacement of Loch Katrine, the scene of “The Lady of the Lake” is nothing but a disgrace to those who authorized it, and to those who kept silence while the deed was done.
But there are yet other signs and tokens of the disappearance of that idealistic and romantic spirit in Scotland, which has more than anything, helped to make its history such a brilliant chronicle of heroism and honour. There are “a certain class” of Scottish people who are ashamed of the Scotch accent, and who affect to be unable to read anything written in the Scotch dialect. I am told—though I would hope it is not true—that the larger majority of Scottish ladies object to Scotch music, and do not know any Scotch songs. If this is true of any “certain class” of Scottish people, I am sorry for them. They have fallen down a long way from the height where birth and country placed them! I should like to talk to any Scot, man or woman, who is ashamed of the Scotch accent. As well be ashamed of the mountain heather! I should like to interview any renegade son or daughter of the Celtic race, who is not proud of every drop of Celtic blood, every word and line of Celtic tradition,—every sweet song that expresses the Celtic character. Nothing that is purely national should be set aside or allowed to perish. It is a thousand pities that the old Gaelic speech is dying out in the Highlands, along with the picturesque “plaid” and “bonnet” of the Highland shepherds. The Gaelic language is a rich and copious one, and should be kept up in every Scottish school and University. Some of the Gaelic music, too, is the most beautiful in the world,—and many a so-called “original” composer has taken the theme for an overture or a symphony from an ancient, long-forgotten Gaelic tune. A fine spirit of romance and idealism is the natural heritage of the Celtic race;—far too precious a birthright to be exchanged for the languid indifferentism of latter-day London fashion, which too often makes a jest of noble enthusiasm, and which would, no doubt, call Sir Walter Scott’s fine novel of The Heart of Midlothian, “kailyard literature”—if it dared!
And who that understands anything about music is so foolish and ignorant as to despise a Scottish song? Where can we match, in all song literature, the songs of Robert Burns? What German “lied”—what French or Italian “canzonet” or “chansonette” expresses such real human tenderness as “Of a’ the airts” or “My Nannie O!”? And it should be remembered that the imaginative pathos of the Scottish song has its other side of imaginative humour—sly, dry humour, such as cannot be rivalled in any language or dialect of the world. And in spite of the incredible assertion that they are beginning to despise their native Doric, there are surely few real Scotsmen who, even at this time of day fail to understand the whimsical satire of the famous old Jacobite song:
Wha the deil hae we gotten for a king
But a wee, wee German lairdie,
An’ he’s brought fouth o’ foreign trash