of existence professed by Mackay. Had this been an English
peasant the conclusion would be tenable. But Mackay had most of the
elements of a liberal education. He had skirted metaphysical and
mathematical studies. He had a thoughtful hold of what he knew, which
would be exceptional among bankers. He had been brought up in the midst
of hot-house piety, and told, with incongruous pride, the story of his
own brother's deathbed ecstasies. Yet he had somehow failed to fulfil
himself, and was adrift like a dead thing among external circumstances,
without hope or lively preference or shaping aim. And further, there
seemed a tendency among many of his fellows to fall into the same blank
and unlovely opinions. One thing, indeed, is not to be learned in
Scotland, and that is, the way to be happy. Yet that is the whole of
culture, and perhaps two-thirds of morality. Can it be that the Puritan
school, by divorcing a man from nature, by thinning out his instincts,
and setting a stamp of its disapproval on whole fields of human activity
and interest, leads at last directly to material greed?

Nature is a good guide through life, and the love of simple pleasures
next, if not superior, to virtue; and we had on board an Irishman who
based his claim to the widest and most affectionate popularity precisely
upon these two qualities, that he was natural and happy. He boasted a
fresh colour, a tight little figure, unquenchable gaiety, and
indefatigable good-will. His clothes puzzled the diagnostic mind, until
you heard he had been once a private coachman, when they became
eloquent, and seemed a part of his biography. His face contained the
rest, and, I fear, a prophecy of the future; the hawk's nose above
accorded so ill with the pink baby's mouth below. His spirit and his
pride belonged, you might say, to the nose: while it was the general
shiftlessness expressed by the other that had thrown him from situation
to situation, and at length on board the emigrant ship. Barney ate, so
to speak, nothing from the galley; his own tea, butter, and eggs
supported him throughout the voyage; and about mealtime you might often
find him up to the elbows in amateur cookery. His was the first voice
heard singing among all the passengers; he was the first who fell to
dancing. From Loch Foyle to Sandy Hook, there was not a piece of fun
undertaken but there was Barney in the midst.

You ought to have seen him when he stood up to sing at our concerts--his
ti