Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

454 POLITENESS.
Bedoueen Arab : yet it would be too much to say that it
does not exist, and that a porter on the quays of Con-
stantinople is not capable of shocking the feelings of a
three-tailed Pacha. We, "nous autres," can see it in a
Frenchman; less in a Spaniard; just in proportion as
our knowledge of the variety is most intimate. It is
equally difficult, and for similar reasons, to calculate on
the manners of ancient, or of rude nations. I need not
do more than allude to the remarks which I formerly
made on the etiquettes, as on the fidelity, of nations in a
low stage of civilization. We are as much puzzled with
the manners of the Homeric age, in a different way, as we
are with the politeness of the ancient Highlanders. Po-
liteness, -as we understand it, was not then the fashion
which, on the contrary, was to say whatever was thought,
to " call a spade a spade." Their very Gods squabble
and box. Yet nothing can exceed the formality of their
visits and their messages : there would have been a herald
and a " flourish of trumpets " to announce that Dame
Partlett had laid an egg, had Achilles expected one for
breakfast from the hen wife ofAgamemnon. But the sub-
ject would admit of an essay, and I must bethink myself
that it is not my affair.
Admitting it to be true to a great extent, among the
Highlanders, that they are free from vulgarity, as I be-
lieve it will unquestionably be found, it is not perhaps
very difficult to account for it ; and, if that account be a
true one, politeness must be classed among the expiring
virtues of this country. It is, apparently, the result of
the ancient system of clanship ; and ill-natured people
will attribute it to the servility consequent on that state of
things; which has descended even to our own days,
though the original bond between chief and people has
been completely sundered. But it bears few or none of
the marks of servility. The politeness of a Highlander
;