Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/303

 My riches a' my penny fee, An' I maun guide it cannie O,— But this world's gear ne'er fashes me,— My thoughts are a' my Nannie O!

It will be a sad day indeed when this spirit of wholesome, tender and poetic imagination drifts away altogether from Scotland. We must not forget that the Scottish race has taken a very firm root in the New World Beyond Seas,—and that out in Canada and Australia and South Africa the memories and the traditions of home are dear to the hearts of thousands who call Scotland their mother. Surely they should be privileged to feel that in their beautiful ancestral land, the old proud spirit is still kept up,—the old legends, the old language, the old songs,—all the old associations, which—far away as they are forced to dwell—they can still hand down to their children and their children's children. No king,—no statesman, can do for a country what its romancists and poets can,—for the sovereignty of the truly inspired and imaginative soul is supreme, and as far above all other earthly dominion as the fame of Homer is above the conquests of Alexander. And when the last touch of idealistic fancy and poetic sentiment has been crushed out of us, and only the dry husks of realism are left to feed swine withal, then may we look for the end of everything that is worth cherishing and fighting for in our much boasted civilization.

For with the vanishing gift, vanish many other things, which may be called in the quaint phrasing of an Elizabethan writer, "a bundle of good graces." The chivalrous spirit of man towards woman is one of those "good graces" which is rapidly dis