Novelists From Scotland

"The sword is the key of heaven and hell; a drop of blood shed in the cause of Allah, a night spent in arms, is of more avail than two months of fasting or prayer: whosoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven, and at the day of judgment his limbs shall be supplied by the wings of angels and cherubim."

"From the time of the North Briton of the unprincipled Wilkes, a notion has been entertained that the moral spine in Scotland is more flexible than in England. The truth however is, that an elementary difference exists in the public feelings of the two nations quite as great as in the idioms of their respective dialects. The English are a justice-loving people, according to charter and statute; the Scotch are a wrong-resenting race, according to right and feeling: and the character of liberty among them takes its aspect from that peculiarity."

"This work is not for the many; but in the unconscious, perfectly natural, irony of self-delusion, in all parts intelligible to the intelligent reader, without the slightest suspicion on the part of the autobiographer, I know of no equal in our literature…This and The Entail would alone suffice to place Galt in the first rank of contemporary novelists."

"In a word, man in London is not quite so good a creature as he is out of it."

"To rule without being felt…is the great mystery of policy."

"The cloven-foot of self-interest was now and then to be seen aneath the robe of public principle."

"Where the pools are bright and deep Where the gray trout lies asleep, Up the river and o'er the lea That's the way for Billy and me."

"Nothing in the world delights a truly religious people so much, as consigning them to eternal damnation."

"Man mind yourselve is the first commandment."

"And the difficultest job a man can do, Is to come it brave and meek with thirty bob a week, And feel that that's the proper thing for you. It's a naked child against a hungry wolf; It's playing bowls upon a splitting wreck; It's walking on a string across a gulf With millstones fore-and-aft about your neck; But the thing is daily done by many and many a one. And we fall, face forward, fighting, on the deck."

"Seraphs and saints with one great voice Welcomed that soul that knew not fear. Amazed to find it could rejoice, Hell raised a hoarse, half-human cheer."

"That minister of ministers, Imagination, gathers up The undiscovered Universe, Like jewels in a jasper cup."

"Farewell the hope that mocked, farewell despair That went before me still and made the pace. The earth is full of graves, and mine was there Before my life began; my resting-place."

"My feet are heavy now but on I go, My head erect beneath the tragic years."

"One must become Fanatic – be a wedge – a thunder-bolt To smite a passage through the close-grained world."

"Business – the world's work – is the sale of lies: Not goods, but trade-marks; and still more and more In every branch becomes the sale of money."

"Mere by-blows are the world and we, And time within eternity A sheer anachronism."

"Unwilling friend, let not your spite abate; Help me with scorn, and strengthen me with hate."

"It must be the old, darling, foolish Highlands in us, my dear, the old people and the old stupid stories they are telling us for generations round he fire, and it must be the hills about us, and the constant complaint of the sea."

"Beloved Scotland of the winter and the hills! ’Tis little that thou’lt get from them, but they will make thee hard and brave!"

"When you sleep in your cloak there's no lodging to pay."

"For everything created In the bounds of earth and sky Has such longing to be mated, It must couple or must die."

"Ah, better to love in the lowliest cot Than pine in a palace alone."

"The life upon which youth fancies itself entering is very different from the life which age refuses to acknowledge it is on the eve of quitting."

"Then drink, puppy, drink, and let ev’ry puppy drink, That is old enough to lap and to swallow; For he’ll grow into a hound, so we’ll pass the bottle round, And merrily we’ll whoop and we’ll holloa."

"I loved the Andrew Lang books"

"The windy lights of Autumn flare; I watch the moonlit sails go by; I marvel how men toil and fare, The weary business that they play! Their voyaging is vanity, And fairy gold is all their gain, And all the winds of winter cry, “My Love returns no more again.”"

"Here’s a pot with a cot in a park In a park where the peach-blossoms blew, Where the lovers eloped in the dark, Lived, died and were changed into two Bright birds that eternally flew Through the boughs of the may, as they sang; ’T is a tale was undoubtedly true In the reign of the Emperor Hwang."

"Andrew Lang's marvelous Tales of Troy and Greece...fired my imagination as a child, in an unforgettable way."

"Among the various forms of science which are reaching and affecting the new popular tradition, we have reckoned Anthropology. Pleasantly enough, Anthropology has herself but recently emerged from that limbo of the unrecognised in which Psychical Research is pining."

"If indeed there be a god in heaven."

"Politicians use statistics in the same way that a drunk uses lamp-posts—for support rather than illumination."

"There’s a joy without canker or cark, There’s a pleasure eternally new, ’T is to gloat on the glaze and the mark Of china that’s ancient and blue."

"They hear like ocean on a western beach The surge and thunder of the Odyssey."

"Tho' the world could turn from you, This, at least, I learn from you: Beauty and Truth, tho' never found, are worthy to be sought, The singer, upward-springing, Is grander than his singing, And tranquil self-sufficing joy illumes the dark of thought. This, at least, you teach me, In a revelation: That gods still snatch, as worthy death, the soul in its aspiration."

"I, who loved and knew you, In the city that slew you, Still hunger on, and thirst, and climb, proud-hearted and alone:Serpent-fears enfold me, Syren-visions hold me, And, like a wave, I gather strength, and gathering strength, I moan; Yea, the pale moon beckons, Still I follow, aching, And gather strength, only to make a louder moan, in breaking!"

"“O Balder, he who fashion’d us, And bade us live and move, Shall weave for Death’s sad heavenly hair Immortal flowers of love. “Ah! never fail’d my servant Death, Whene’er I named his name,— But at my bidding he hath flown As swift as frost or flame. “Yea, as a sleuth-hound tracks a man, And finds his form, and springs, So hath he hunted down the gods As well as human things! “Yet only thro’ the strength of Death A god shall fall or rise — A thousand lie on the cold snows, Stone still, with marble eyes. “But whosoe’er shall conquer Death, Tho’ mortal man he be, Shall in his season rise again, And live, with thee, and me! “And whosoe’er loves mortals most Shall conquer Death the best, Yea, whosoe’er grows beautiful Shall grow divinely blest.” The white Christ raised his shining face To that still bright’ning sky. “Only the beautiful shall abide, Only the base shall die!”"

"Their hearts and sentiments were free, their appetites were hearty."

"Along the melting shores of earth An emerald flame there ran, Forest and field grew bright, and mirth Gladdened the flocks of man. Then glory grew on earth and heaven, Full glory of full day! Then the bright rainbow's colours seven On every iceberg lay!In Balder's hand Christ placed His own, And it was golden weather, And on that berg as on a throne The Brethren stood together!And countless voices far and wide Sang sweet beneath the sky — "All that is beautiful shall abide, All that is base shall die."."

"Believing hath a core of unbelieving."

"I ask no more from mortals Than your beautiful face implies,— The beauty the artist beholding Interprets and sanctifies. Who says that men have fallen, That life is wretched and rough? I say, the world is lovely, And that loveliness is enough. So my doubting days are ended, And the labour of life seems clear; And life hums deeply around me, Just like the murmur here, And quickens the sense of living, And shapes me for peace and storm,— And dims my eyes with gladness When it glides into colour and form!"

"Even on the white English crags A few strong spirits, in a race that binds Its body in chains and calls them Liberty, And calls each fresh link Progress, stood erect With faces pale that hunger'd to the light."

"Lo, the book I hold here, In the city cold here !I hold it with a gentle hand and love it as I may; Lo, the weary moments! Lo, the icy comments! And lo, false Fortune's knife of gold swift-lifted up to slay!Has the strife no ending? Has the song no meaning?Linger I, idle as of old, while men are reaping or gleaning?"

"I saw the starry Tree Eternity Put forth the blossom Time."

"Upward my face I turn to you, I long for you, I yearn to you, The spectral vision trances me to utt'rance wild and weak; It is not that I mourn you, To mourn you were to scorn you, For you are one step nearer to the beauty singers seek. But I want, and cannot see you, I seek and cannot find you, And, see! I touch the book of songs you tenderly left behind you!"

"Full of a sweet indifference."

"Trotskyist (of strongly libertarian bent), all of whose (very good) works examine Left politics without sloganeering."

"What if capitalism is unsustainable, and socialism is impossible? We're fucked, that's what."

"When you’d lived long enough, she’d sometimes reflected, when certain habits had become ingrained no matter what refreshment of the neural pathways the immortality genes could bestow, ethics and etiquette became ever less distinct. Hitherto the involuntary equation had read one way, in disproportionate pangs of conscience over a small breach of manners. Now the terms had been inverted, and she felt over the Council majority’s horrible, criminal, potentially murderous mistake the sort of acute embarrassment that might have been appropriate for some ghastly faux pas. Dreadfully sorry, I’m such a ditz about these nuclear attack protocols..."

"I’m sure they’ll come up with all kinds of rationalizations, if the human precedent is anything to go by."