Alan Breck Stewart on Education
Apr. 26th, 2007 04:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tree_and_leaf"Ye see, David man, they'll be Hieland folk. There'll be some Frasers, I'm thinking, and some of the Gregara; and I would never deny but what the both of them, and the Gregara in especial, were clever experienced persons. A man kens little till he's driven a spreagh of neat cattle (say) ten miles through a throng lowland country and the black soldiers maybe at his tail. It's there that I learned a great part of my penetration. And ye need nae tell me: it's better than war; which is the next best, however, though generally rather a bauchle of a business. Now the Gregara have had grand practice."
"No doubt that's a branch of education that was left out with me," said I.
"And I can see the marks of it upon ye constantly," said Alan. "But that's the strange thing about you folk of the college learning: ye're ignorant, and ye cannae see 't. Wae's me for my Greek and Hebrew; but, man, I ken that I dinnae ken them--there's the differ of it. Now, here's you. Ye lie on your wame a bittie in the bield of this wood, and ye tell me that ye've cuist off these Frasers and Macgregors. Why! Because I couldnae see them, says you. Ye blockhead, that's their livelihood."
... I've been re-reading 'Kidnapped' and 'Catriona', and am forcibly reminded of how much I love Alan Breck, for all his faults.
Not to mention the pithy analysis of homesickness:
" So we went east by the beach of the sea, towards where the salt-pans were smoking in by the Esk mouth. No doubt there was a by-ordinary bonny blink of morning sun on Arthur's Seat and the green Pentlands; and the pleasantness of the day appeared to set Alan among nettles.
"I feel like a gomeral," says he, "to be leaving Scotland on a day like this. It sticks in my head; I would maybe like it better to stay here and hing."
"Ay, but ye wouldnae, Alan," said I.
"No but what France is a good place too," he explained; "but it's some way no the same. It's brawer, I believe, but it's no Scotland. I like it fine when I'm there, man; yet I kind of weary for Scots divots and the Scots peat-reek." "
"No doubt that's a branch of education that was left out with me," said I.
"And I can see the marks of it upon ye constantly," said Alan. "But that's the strange thing about you folk of the college learning: ye're ignorant, and ye cannae see 't. Wae's me for my Greek and Hebrew; but, man, I ken that I dinnae ken them--there's the differ of it. Now, here's you. Ye lie on your wame a bittie in the bield of this wood, and ye tell me that ye've cuist off these Frasers and Macgregors. Why! Because I couldnae see them, says you. Ye blockhead, that's their livelihood."
... I've been re-reading 'Kidnapped' and 'Catriona', and am forcibly reminded of how much I love Alan Breck, for all his faults.
Not to mention the pithy analysis of homesickness:
" So we went east by the beach of the sea, towards where the salt-pans were smoking in by the Esk mouth. No doubt there was a by-ordinary bonny blink of morning sun on Arthur's Seat and the green Pentlands; and the pleasantness of the day appeared to set Alan among nettles.
"I feel like a gomeral," says he, "to be leaving Scotland on a day like this. It sticks in my head; I would maybe like it better to stay here and hing."
"Ay, but ye wouldnae, Alan," said I.
"No but what France is a good place too," he explained; "but it's some way no the same. It's brawer, I believe, but it's no Scotland. I like it fine when I'm there, man; yet I kind of weary for Scots divots and the Scots peat-reek." "
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-27 02:32 pm (UTC)Alan was the object of one of my earliest literary crushes, despite his smallpox scars. I suspect it probably used to be quite common among well-brought up Scottish girls (cf. the schoolgirl in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie who is clearly writing Self-insert-Mary-Sue/ Alan fanfic....)