(a) I have been trying all my life to like Scotchmen, and am obliged to desist from the experiment in despair. They cannot like me and in truth, I never knew one of that nation who attempted to do it. There is something more plain and ingenuous their mode of proceeding . We know one another at first sight.
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course with spirits above you, instead of raising you up, keeps you down. Too frequent doses of original thinking from others restrain what lesser portion of that faculty you may possess of your own. You get entangled in another man's mind, even as you lose yourself in another man's grounds. You are walking with a tall varlet, whose strides out-pace yours to lassitude. The constant operation of such potent agency would reduce me, I am convinced, to imbecility. You may derive thoughts from others; your way of thinking, the mould in which your thoughts are cast, must be your own. Intellect may be imparted, but not each man's intellectual frame.
- As little as I should wish to be always thus dragged upward, as little (or rather still less) is it desirable to be stunted downwards by your associates. The trumpet does not more stun you by its loudness than a whisper teases you by its provoking inaudibility.
- In view of the personal dislike Carlyle formed for Lamb, it may be interesting to read Lamb's eccentric confession of incapacity to love Scotchmen, though too definite conclusions as to actual habit and experience should not be drawn from a playful, erratic, and humorous exercise of the kind.
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