our own opinions and speak in our own words, yet seem to hold them with
a difference or from another reason, and to speak on all things with
less interest and conviction. The first shock of English society is like
a cold plunge. It is possible that the Scot comes looking for too much,
and to be sure his first experiment will be in the wrong direction. Yet
surely his complaint is grounded; surely the speech of Englishmen is too
often lacking in generous ardour, the better part of the man too often
withheld from the social commerce, and the contact of mind with mind
evaded as with terror. A Scottish peasant will talk more liberally out
of his own experience. He will not put you by with conversational
counters and small jests; he will give you the best of himself, like one
interested in life and man's chief end. A Scotsman is vain, interested
in himself and others, eager for sympathy, setting forth his thoughts
and experience in the best light. The egoism of the Englishman is
self-contained. He does not seek to proselytise. He takes no interest in
Scotland or the Scots, and, what is the unkindest cut of all, he does
not care to justify his indifference. Give him the wages of going on and
being an Englishman, that is all he asks; and in the meantime, while you
continue to associate, he would rather be reminded of your baser origin.
Compared with the grand, tree-like self-sufficiency of his demeanour,
the vanity and curiosity of the Scot seem uneasy, vulgar, and immodest.
That you should continually try to establish human and serious
relations, that you should actually feel an interest in John Bull, and
desire and invite a return of interest from him, may argue something
more awake and lively in your mind, but it still puts you in the
attitude of a suitor and a poor relation. Thus even the lowest class of
the educated English towers over a Scotsman by the head and shoulders.

Different indeed is the atmosphere in which Scottish and English youth
begin to look about them, come to themselves in life, and gather up
those first apprehensions which are the material of future thought and,
to a great extent, the rule of future conduct. I have been to school in
both countries, and I found, in the boys of the North, something at once
rougher and more tender, at once more reserve and more expansion, a
greater habitual distance chequered by glimpses of a nearer intimacy,
and on the whole wider extremes of temperament and sensibility. T