Ossian Collection > Gaelic concepts of life and death

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my friend's correct use of the word from his
point of view and estimate.
The omnivorous English language has for
long tried to swallow and digest these two
great men of ours, but they have disagreed
with its stomach. They have proved to be
indigestible. They cannot be assimilated in
English. They remain our own. Our own
two fine fellows — the duine-heairteach and the
duine-saihhir — our man of deeds and our hero,
and we do not want to part with them. This
is not good physiology, but you must excuse
it. There is some truth in it, even if it is
crudely stated.
An Duin'-uasal,
Another of our Gaelic men in review, which
the English language has tried to absorb and
digest, but cannot, is our Duine-uasal — and
for that failure one person in the world is
thankful. There may be more. The English
tongue and the English concept has no room
for our duine-uasal. They have a very fine
man of their own — the gentleman — and they
think that he is the same as our duine-uasal,
but he is not. The English concept in the
Gentleman is really a very fine one, and
although the name is of Latin origin, which
we need not follow through its long career in
later languages, it is even upon its face value
of simply the gentle man, a very fine and
admirable character, but he is not our duine-
uasal.
Our man contains the gentleman as the
greater contains the less. Our duine-uasal
must be a gentleman, but he is far more. I
have been in England now for practically a
life time, and have met many English gentle-
men, but it has been to me quite wonderful
how very few men I have met to whom our