27 November: Boreham on St. Andrew's Day

Oatmeal and Molasses
No Scotsman worthy of the name will need to be reminded that St. Andrew's Day is drawing near. The occasion suggests an inquiry as to the place that Scotland now holds in the world of letters. If, as profane minds sometimes allege, Scotsmen are in the habit of praying for a guid conceit o' themselves, they must have recognised an answer to their fervent supplications in the generous tributes that have been paid in recent years to their most distinctive writers. For many a long day it was the fashion to say that there was no such thing as Scottish literature.

Truth to tell, Scotsmen have themselves done little to allure us to the works of their countrymen. One of the essential ingredients of great literature is sentiment, and, generation after generation, Scotsmen have indignantly repudiated any susceptibility to such softness. The world, supposing that these hard-headed Scots knew what they were talking about, accepted this solemn assurance. Cherishing implicit confidence in the integrity of the Scot, it took him at his own valuation. He was dour and canny. He gloried in appearing rugged, crabbed, austere, passionless, and stern. Other men—Irishmen particularly— might be emotional, impressionable, sentimental; but not he! No, most emphatically, not he! His heart, he pretended, was made of granite; there was never a catch in his breath, a lump in his throat or a tear in his eye. To such contemptible weaknesses he was a total stranger.

A New School Betrays An Old Secret
The most astonishing literary find of the nineteenth century was the discovery of the essential sentimentality of the Scotsmen. Its incredulity once shattered, the world realised to its amazement that the flinty tradition attaching to Scotsmen was based upon a clever pose; it was all camouflage and makebelieve. The sturdy souls who dwelt among the heather-draped mountains and moorlands of the North were actually capable of stirring a taste of molasses into their honest oatmeal porridge! The richest vein of sentimental literature which, during the Victorian era, was given to mankind was the graceful and affecting literature that revealed the unsuspected beauty of the inner character of the Scottish people. It was Dr. George Macdonald who let the cat out of the bag. Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns had occasionally come very near to the betrayal of the ancient secret. But they succeeded in conveying the impression that the characters who, exciting our emotions, brought moisture to our eyes, were exceptional and by no means typical. They as good as told us that we must on no account assume, from these remarkable exhibitions of romantic proclivities, that the Scottish people as a whole are capable of manifesting such pitiable frailties. But Dr. George Macdonald made no bones about it. Before Sir Walter Scott had reposed for a quarter of a century in his grave at Dryburgh Abbey, George Macdonald had begun to write novels that proclaimed to all the world the astounding circumstance that, believe it or not, every Scotsman was possessed of a heart—a heart that could be touched, a heart that could be stirred, a heart that could be broken.

Dr. George Macdonald never became extremely popular. For two reasons. He never became popular with Scotsmen because they eyed with grave suspicion his wanton disclosure of the subtle secret that had been preserved inviolate for so long. And he never became popular with the Englishmen because they simply could not believe that his interpretation of Scottish temperament was sound. Scotsmen gasped at his audacity! Englishmen gasped at his incredibility; and, between the two, Dr. Macdonald failed to secure the appreciation that he richly deserved. Later on, Macdonald was followed by a host of writers whose work was no greater than his own, but who rejoiced in a popularity of which he knew nothing. By the time that William Black and Robert Louis Stevenson and S. R. Crockett and Ian Maclaren and James Barrie had begun to write, Scotsmen had become reconciled to the exposure of their infirmity, and Englishmen had begun to suspect that the thing that they had regarded as utterly preposterous was really true.

Scotland Produces A Distinctive Type
In accordance with its invariable procedure, the pendulum swung to the opposite extreme. The men of the Kailyard School—Maclaren, Crockett and the rest—finding the new vein popular, badly overdid it. Not content with adding a spoonful of molasses to the bowl of oatmeal porridge, they soon presented a basin of molasses in which a few grains of meal were floating. The sentimentality became sickly; and, as a consequence, Scotsmen and Englishmen were alike nauseated. But, in the aggregate, good had been done. It became crystal clear that, whatever Scotland had or had not done, she had at least succeeded in developing a distinctive type of character. And, sooner or later, the land that is capable of producing a distinctive type of character may be trusted to express and reflect that character in a distinctive type of literature.

The average Scotsman is a tremendous believer. He believes implicitly in his God and his kirk; he believes unwaveringly in Scotland and her people; and he believes scarcely less absolutely in himself and his family. Because of this robust faith of his, he extols with peculiar pride the outstanding personalities of Scottish history and Scottish literature. To him, Scott is a golden tradition; Burns is a national sentiment; Stevenson is a classic of chivalry; and, in our own time, Barrie has been enthroned as a prince of delicious pathos and resistless whimsicality. Even Scotsmen who possess but a slender intimacy with the works of these men will talk intelligently, discerningly and enthusiastically of their place in the life of their country. In the weaving of a national life, and in the erection of a national literature, this element is vital. Scotsmen would be the last to deny that, in the creation of a stately national tradition, the pride that the lowliest of Scottish citizens feels in the loftiest has gone a very long way towards establishing Scotland's name and fame upon a sure and lasting foundation.

F W Boreham

Image: Scottish flag.