Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

ness is with the farm ;
POLITENESS, 453
and, to the wife, are consigned all
the duties within doors. Thus, you see, I have tried to
defend my friends of the inns as well as I can : though,
as usual, I do not expect many thanks for a defence of
what they probably do not choose to acknowledge as a
fault.
The bounds between civility and politeness are so in-
definite, that T may as well end as I began, and complete
the episode which I owe to Meg- Dods. The most inat-
tentive traveller must have noticed a certain style in the
address and manners of a Highlander, of any and of
every rank, of which we have no example, either in the
Lowlands of Scotland or in England, even in conditions
of life far superior. He will be a bold moralist who shall
attempt to define vulgarity ; but every one knows what
it is, and where it is found, with all the nameless modifi-
cations and disguises which it assumes in every rank of
life. From this most abstruse and undefinable faculty, a
Highlander is free ; as far at least as it is possible for a
stranger to discover it. It must however be admitted,
that we cannot be very competent judges in this cause;
from want of sufficient intimacy vvith the language, man-
ners, and deportment of this people, in all their varieties,
and in all their minor and familiar relations among each
other. The appearance, such as it is presented to our
eyes, may be fallacious, however pleasing; yet I imagine
that the higher orders of Highlanders think pretty much
like ourselves on this subject. It is certain that we can
judge truly of this most base and disgusting quality, only
where we are familiar ; and that we ourselves have cer-
tain canons ofjudgment respecting it, which are the re-
sult of experience only. The vulgarity of a Londoner is,
to Londoners, far more appalling than that of a York-
shireman : and, possibly, the converse may hold true.
Assuredly, we discover no such property in a Turk or a