Page:The story of Mary MacLane (IA storyofmarymacla00macliala).pdf/251

 the French, the Russians—they have all some inevitable attributes to modify their genius.

But one may be anything—anything, if one is Scotch.

Always I think of the cruel, hardened, ferocious, weather-beaten, kilted Clan MacLean wandering over bleak winter hills, fighting the powerful MacDonalds and MacGregors—and generally wiping them from the earth,—marching away with merrily shrieking pipes from fields of withered, blood-soaked heather—and all this merely to gather intensified life for me. I feel that the causes of my tragedy began long, long ago from remote germs.

My Scotch blood added to my genius sense has made me into a dangerous chemical compound. By analyzing I have brought an almost clear portrait of myself up before my mind's eyes.

When I was a child I did not analyze knowingly, but the child was this same genius, though I am one of the kind