daily lives. So far as one can look into that
commonplace round of things which historians never tell us about, there
have rarely been seen in this world a set of people who have thought
more about right and wrong, and the judgment about them of the upper
powers. Long-headed, thrifty industry,--a sound hatred of waste,
imprudence, idleness, extravagance,--the feet planted firmly upon the
earth,--a conscientious sense that the worldly virtues are,
nevertheless, very necessary virtues, that without these, honesty for
one thing is not possible, and that without honesty no other excellence,
religious or moral, is worth anything at all--this is the stuff of which
Scotch life was made, and very good stuff it is. It has been called
gloomy, austere, harsh, and such other epithets. A gifted modern writer
has favoured us lately with long strings of extracts from the sermons of
Scotch divines of the last century, taking hard views of human
shortcomings and their probable consequences, and passing hard censures
upon the world and its amusements. Well, no doubt amusement is a very
good thing; but I should rather infer from the vehemence and frequency
of these denunciations that the people had not been in the habit of
denying themselves too immoderately; and, after all, it is no very hard
charge against those teachers that they thought more of duty than of
pleasure. Sermons always exaggerate the theoretic side of things; and
the most austere preacher, when he is out of the pulpit, and you meet
him at the dinner-table, becomes singularly like other people. We may
take courage, I think, we may believe safely that in those
minister-ridden days, men were not altogether so miserable; we may hope
that no large body of human beings have for any length of time been too
dangerously afraid of enjoyment. Among other good qualities, the Scots
have been distinguished for humour--not for venomous wit, but for
kindly, genial humour, which half loves what it laughs at--and this
alone shows clearly enough that those to whom it belongs have not looked
too exclusively on the gloomy side of the world. I should rather say
that the Scots had been an unusually happy people. Intelligent industry,
the honest doing of daily work, with a sense that it must be done well,
under penalties; the necessaries of life moderately provided for; and a
sensible content with the situation of life in which men are born--this
through the week, and at the end of it the 'Cottar'