ism of clanship, pride and love of kindred constitute
the animating social principle. Their clan-music is to them what the
Ranz de Vaches is to the Swiss: the one echoing the harmonics of social
intercourses, as the other revives the melodies of mountain life.
Through the love of kindred, the love of birth-place flourishes among
the Scotch. The Highland emigrants in Canada not only clasp hands when
they hear played the march of their clan, but wept when they found that
heather would not grow in their newly-adopted soil.

* * * * *

The traveller must talk with Old People, and see what is the character
of the garrulity of age. He must talk with Children, and mark the
character of the aspirations of childhood. He will thus learn what is
good in the eyes of those who have passed through the society he
studies, and in the hopes of those who have yet to enter upon it. Is it
the aged mother's pride that her sons are all unstained in honour, and
her daughters safe in happy homes? or does she boast that one is a
priest, and another a peeress? Does the grandmother relate that all her
descendants who are of age are "received church-members"? or that her
favourite grandchild has been noticed by the emperor? Do the old men
prose of a single happy love, or of exploits of gallantry? or of
commercial success, or of political failure? What is the section of life
to which the greatest number of ancient memories cling? Is it to
struggles for a prince in disguise, or to a revolutionary conflict? Is
it to the removal of a social oppression, or to a season of domestic
trial, or to an accession of personal consequence? Is it the having
acquired an office or a title? or the having assisted in the abolition
of slavery? or the having conversed with a great author? or the having
received a nod from a prince, or a curtsey from a queen? or have you to
listen to details of the year of the scarcity, or the season of the
plague?--What are the children's minds full of? The little West Indian
will not talk of choosing a profession, any more than the infant
Portuguese will ask for books. One nation of children will tell of the
last saint's day, and another will refer every thing to the emperor.
Elsewhere you will be treated with legends without end; or you will be
instructed about bargains and wages; or the boys will ask you why a
king's son should be king whether the people like him or not; and the
girls will whisper som