Ossian Collection > Scottish eccentrics

STRANGE CASE OF WILLIAM BERRY 117
sophic Drummond. 'Ben Jonson', says he, 'was a great
lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and scorner of
others, given rather to lose a friend than a jest; jealous of
every word and action of those about him, especially after
drink, which is one of the elements in which he lived; a dis-
sembler of the great parts which reign in him; a bragger
of some good that he wanted; thinketh nothing well
done but what either he himself or some of his friends
hath said or done; he is passionately kind and angry, care-
less either to gain or keep. . . . He was for any religion,
being versed in both."
It is true, as Mr Moray MacLaren says, that "Scotland,
that strange, infuriating, enchanting country that has
almost ceased to be a country, has, with its ingrained
Puritanism of the last three hundred years, proved to
be an easy prey for the levelling and dulling tend-
ency of modern pleasure. Our Americanism is peculiarly
unpleasant Americanism, our middle class is peculiarly
middle, our dancing peculiarly dull, our civic nosyparker-
ism peculiarly nosy . . . and so it could go on. But, at the
same time, one of the most tantalising things about this
most lovable ghost of a country is that it has a habit of
justifying itself just when you least expect it. There are
in Scotland remains of the old life which are so vivid that
for a moment the observer is tricked or charmed into
forgetting the slow death all around him, and sees in the
vigour on which he has stumbled signs of a vitality which
may reanimate Scotland once again."
The prevailing impression, however, is one of utter
stupidity and sordidness — buddyism, Philistinism, dour,
determined mindlessness. It is a horrible atmosphere for
artists to live in, and while many incorrigible Bohemians
have been brave enough to follow their art despite starva-
tion and ghastly hardship, it is not surprising that others
in a country where art and letters pay so poorly, and
where 99 per cent of the people are so horribly anti-
aesthetic, have dealt very differently with their talents —
if few of them have reacted just in the manner of that