Chapter 2

Scotch a reading nation--Hardships of students in old days--Homer in Scalloway--When education ends--Objects of chapter--Music--M.P.'s--Rural depopulation--Its causes--Emigration--Village halls--The moon--A lecture in Islay--Mental and material wealth--Real greatness--A Highland laird on literature--Varieties of chairmen--"Coming to the point"--Moral obligation--Compliment to Paisley--Oratory at Salen--Lecture in a dungeon--Surprises--A visit to the Borders--Tarbolton--Scotch language--Choice books--The essayists--A Banff theory--Goldsmith in Gaelic--_Biblia abiblia_--Favourites for the road--Horace--Shakespeare's Sonnets--Xenophon--French literature and journalism--Romance and Augustanism--Victorian writers--Celt and Saxon.