Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

330 SHIANT ISLES.
indolence. It is vain to talk of the industry of him who
will not be at the trouble to make his own habitation
better than that of his pigs and cattle. In the days of
Polydore Virgil, the houses of even the Low Country
Scots, were built ofthe branches of trees and clay, and the
door was a cow hide. What the people of Scotland were
then, may be found in history; and had their houses not
assumed a different complexion, they would have re-
mained in the same heroic and contented state still.
All these remarks, and many similar, may appear
trifling; they may appear censorious. They are neither
the one nor the other. Their only object is a hope of
increasing the happiness of these neglected and neglect-
ful people, by pointing out what they can do for them-
selves, and what can be done for them. There is no
aflfectation of philanthropy ; a virtue, as the Prince de
Ligne well says, so strange and rare, that we have been
obliged to invent a Greek term for it. It is vain to say,
that, not knowing these comforts, they do not feel their
want. The same argument would apply to any attempt
to raise man from his savage state, to teach him the arts
of civilization. The same argument would apply against
the giving a Highlander education ; to every thing. We
render them a service if we show them comforts which
they never knew ; and it is our duty to better the con-
dition of all, where it is in our power. Nor is it possible
to do this without pointing out the faults and the
defects. Those who are angry because such things are
pointed out, are of the race who would rather persist in
wrong than mend ;
because, to repent, or to change, is to
acknowledge a fault. If this " philanthropy" is destined
to add to my other crimes against this sensitive country,
it will be nothing new. The praise, as every one knows,
will make no impression on the other balance :
partly be-