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2.

tle country he has left. That is the one
secret of the power of the Scot. No people, I think, since the
Ancient Greeks has been at once so tenacious of memories and loyalties,
and at the same time so readily adaptable to new conditions,
Nothing is too strange, nothing is too formidable, if you can link
it up with what you know and love.

Sometimes, in moments of despondency, I have a notion that
Scotland is changing, that Scotsmen are changing, that the Scotland
of today is very different from the country I knew when I was a boy.
That, I suppose, is a malady which attacks every conservative soul
as he watches the processes of time. But I comfort myself with the
reflection that there are certain things in our race which can never
change. We may cease to be Bible-reading and God-fearing; we may
cease to be logical; we may even cease, by a fortunate dispensation,
to be drouthy; but two things we will always be: far-wandering
and clannish. I do not think that any process of evolution will expel
from our blood the old instinct for adventure and enterprise.
We shall always be like saul looking for his father's asses with half
a hope that he may find a kingdom. And I think that we shall always
be clannish. We shall always cherish that warm and intimate sense
of kinship which is our peculiar glory.

There are many things to be said against us - how many
only a Scotsman knows. We are sometimes a little too proud of our
own things merely because they are our own. And I am afraid we may
also be charged sometimes with being too well satisfied, not only
with our own things, but with ourselves. (My father's story).

But, gentlemen, having conceded so much to the Devil's advocate, I am not