XIV THE SCOT BY ADOPTION

I have been told that there are two kinds of Scotchmen, and that it would be a mistake to confound them, or to suggest that they have any characteristics in common. One kind, and the best kind, I am assured, is the Highlander². The other—and the more disreputable kind—is the Scotchman of the Lowlands. I have met both sorts, and I have not been able to discover that there is much to choose between them. For all practical purposes the blood is identical. It may at one time have been of two distinct strains, but these appear to have become in a great measure fused, and the blend is not beautiful. I think it was Dr. Cunninghame Graham who said of a certain Scotch¹ peddler that he[187] looked like a cross between a low-class Indian and an ourang-outang that had somehow got itself baptised. This, no doubt, is a little severe. But a Scotchman does certainly make one feel that underneath³ his unsatisfactory and obviously imperfect civilisation⁴ the hairy simian⁵ sits and grins. Rouse him, thwart⁶ him, disappoint him, rally him, and suddenly your cross-eyed, sandy-haired, bandy-legged, but withal sleek⁷, smug, moralising man suddenly “bleezes,” and you perceive in him the ten thousand devils of an ancient and arboreal⁸ barbarity. Whether he be Highlander or Lowlander or mongrel, as he mostly is, it is just the same. He is Scotch and compounded for the most part of savage⁹. Like the converted Kroo-boy, he may at any time revert¹⁰ into his immemorial primalism and you can never be sure of him. Whether he hail from the Isles¹¹ or from the Lothians, the Scot is just the Scot, and there is nothing more to be said for him.

There is, however, a kind of Scot who,[188] while not of Scotch blood, has adopted the manners and habits of Caledonia, and is rather flattered if you take him for a true-born Scotchman. This type of creature usually owes his retrogression to the fact that he has married a Scotch wife. Of Scotchwomen as a body, I do not wish to say anything that will be considered ungallant. If one passes over their abnormal capacity for thrift¹², I suppose they are pretty much the same as other women. So far as I am aware I have not met more than a dozen Scotchwomen in my life. Two of them I have known intimately, and I have always thanked my stars that I was not married to either of them. But to return to our Scotchman by adoption¹⁴. Usually, as I say, he is married to a Scotchwoman. Before you arrive at a knowledge of this circumstance, you are inclined to wonder what is the matter with him. His style and proclivities¹⁵ have induced you to set him down for a Scotchman, yet you find that his Doric is bad, that he eats his porridge with sugar and takes his whiskey[189] with soda¹⁶, and that he was born in Gloucestershire. Also, he tells you frankly¹⁷ that his parents were not Scotch, and he adds, with a look of supreme¹⁸ satisfaction, “but my wife is.” And straightway he plunges¹⁹ into tender reminiscences of the days of his courtship, touches modestly upon the wealth and importance of his wife’s relations, hints at the fearful expense to which he was put by his many journeys North when he went a-wooing, and gurgles with a sickly smile that it was worth the trouble, and that he does not know “what he would do without her.” All of which is mightily²¹ interesting. If you pursue your investigations²² further, you will find that the man is perhaps a little more to pity than to blame. He has been compelled to become as Scotch as he knows how, willy-nilly. At the head of his table sits the daughter of Scotia—ruddy, chapped, and sharp of tongue; she looks down on things English, her husband included; her children are taught to remember that their grandfather is a provost and magnificent in the[190] jute line; she keeps her house in the Scotch manner, her servants are Scotch, her household linens²³ are Scotch, her beef is Scotch, and her whiskey is Scotch; her little boys wear tartan; tripe²⁴ is the great dish for supper, and her husband must eat oatmeal to the verge²⁵ of scrofula. Abroad, too, this man must be as Scotch as the best of them. In his place of business, Scotchmen protégés of his wife’s relations are the only ware¹³: he loathes²⁶ them, and they laugh at him behind his back, but he has to put up with them. On Saturdays they instruct him in the mysteries of “gowf”; on Mondays they tell one another what a “damned foozler” he is. His holidays are always spent in the Western Highlands; he is everlastingly²⁷ seeing his wife off to Aberdeen; he banks at the Bank of Scotland; he smokes the tobacco which has been so ably pushed into fame by Dr. J. M. Barrie; he believes that the Glasgow bailies know what they are about; his money, which has been scraped together on the Scotch principle, is doucely put away in Scotch ventures; and[191] altogether Scotland does very well out of him. The fact that he is a mean little man does not worry him. The practice and view of life which the lady of his affections has forced upon him is bringing him a due share of this world’s gear, and in that fact he takes consolation²⁸ for his attenuated²⁹ honesty, his lost manhood, and his lost nationality. This is one side of the picture and the brightest.

On the other side it were well for us not to look too closely. The Englishman who has been appropriated by a Scotch wife does not always succeed in profiting by the worldly wisdom with which his spouse³⁰ would imbue³¹ him. Then there is trouble. For a Scotchwoman who cannot report to her kindred in Scotland that her husband is “getting on” feels that she has been robbed of the prime joy of existence. Her contempt for the man who cannot win and grip siller eats into her soul, until she has no other sentiment left. Bit by bit she develops into a scold and a curtain-lecturer; the man who found her so fair by the Birks of Aberfeldey becomes a[192] furtive³² wanderer from her side, and it all ends in too much whiskey, recrimination, and execration³³. I know an Englishman of parts who has never earned enough money to be under the necessity of paying income tax. He is a man of small stature³⁴ and limp, and he has a great fear in his eyes. He is one of those men who might have done things and have omitted to do them. The gossip about him is that he is badly married. Once I saw his wife. She was a big, raw-boned Scotchwoman, with a heavy accent on her. It was New Year’s Eve, and she had evidently been “tasting.” At sight of me, out of the bigness of her Scotch hospitality, she proposed a “nep,” and half filled three glasses from a stone bottle. Then, with hand on hip²⁰, glass uplifted, and a blaze on her face, she cried: “Here’s tae us and to hell with the English.” We drank the toast in something of a silence. Later, when I was about to leave, my limp friend would have accompanied me to the door. But the mistress of his heart would have none of it. “Ye’ll awa’,” she said,[193] then, “to yer bed; yer friend is no’ that fou but he can find his ain way oot.” So that we shook hands and parted on the stair. The man had had twenty years of it. I understand him.

The idiot who takes to wearing kilts and speaking with an accent for the mere³⁵ sake of it is scarcely worth notice. But there are such people even outside Colney Hatch. What they see in the Scotch to admire to the point of spuriousness I cannot for the life of me make out. The garb³⁶ of old Gaul is, no doubt, very fetching from the point of view of the weak-minded, but of its effeminacy there can be no doubt. Really, it is a costume for small and pretty boys who are too young to be breeched. In view of its associations and of its innate³⁷ childishness,—not to say immodesty,—it is a great pity that any Englishman should go out of his way to wear it.

1 scotch   

n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的

参考例句：

• Facts will eventually scotch these rumours.这种谣言在事实面前将不攻自破。
• Italy was full of fine views and virtually empty of Scotch whiskey.意大利多的是美景，真正缺的是苏格兰威士忌。

2 highlander   

n.高地的人，苏格兰高地地区的人

参考例句：

• They call him the highlander, he is Rory McLeod! 他们叫他寻事者，他是罗瑞·麦克劳德！ 来自互联网

3 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

4 civilisation   

n.文明，文化，开化，教化

参考例句：

• Energy and ideas are the twin bases of our civilisation.能源和思想是我们文明的两大基石。
• This opera is one of the cultural totems of Western civilisation.这部歌剧是西方文明的文化标志物之一。

5 simian   

adj.似猿猴的；n.类人猿，猴

参考例句：

• Ada had a wrinkled,simian face.埃达有一张布满皱纹、长得像猿猴的脸。
• Curiosity is the taproot of an intellectual life,the most valuable of our simian traits.好奇是高智生命的根源，也是我们类人猿特征中最有价值的部分。

6 thwart   

v.阻挠，妨碍，反对；adj.横(断的)

参考例句：

• We must thwart his malevolent schemes.我们决不能让他的恶毒阴谋得逞。
• I don't think that will thwart our purposes.我认为那不会使我们的目的受到挫折。

7 sleek   

adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢

参考例句：

• Women preferred sleek,shiny hair with little decoration.女士们更喜欢略加修饰的光滑闪亮型秀发。
• The horse's coat was sleek and glossy.这匹马全身润泽有光。

8 arboreal   

adj.树栖的；树的

参考例句：

• Man was evolved from an ancestor that was probably arboreal.人大概是从住在树上的祖先进化而来的。
• Koala is an arboreal Australian marsupial.考拉是一种澳大利亚树栖有袋动物。

9 savage   

adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人

参考例句：

• The poor man received a savage beating from the thugs.那可怜的人遭到暴徒的痛打。
• He has a savage temper.他脾气粗暴。

10 revert   

v.恢复，复归，回到

参考例句：

• Let us revert to the earlier part of the chapter.让我们回到本章的前面部分。
• Shall we revert to the matter we talked about yesterday?我们接着昨天谈过的问题谈，好吗？

11 isles   

岛( isle的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• the geology of the British Isles 不列颠群岛的地质
• The boat left for the isles. 小船驶向那些小岛。

12 thrift   

adj.节约，节俭；n.节俭，节约

参考例句：

• He has the virtues of thrift and hard work.他具备节俭和勤奋的美德。
• His thrift and industry speak well for his future.他的节俭和勤勉预示着他美好的未来。

13 ware   

n.(常用复数)商品，货物

参考例句：

• The shop sells a great variety of porcelain ware.这家店铺出售品种繁多的瓷器。
• Good ware will never want a chapman.好货不须叫卖。

14 adoption   

n.采用，采纳，通过；收养

参考例句：

• An adoption agency had sent the boys to two different families.一个收养机构把他们送给两个不同的家庭。
• The adoption of this policy would relieve them of a tremendous burden.采取这一政策会给他们解除一个巨大的负担。

15 proclivities   

n.倾向，癖性( proclivity的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Raised by adoptive parents,Hill received early encouragement in her musical proclivities. 希尔由养父母带大，从小，她的音乐爱好就受到了鼓励。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Whatever his political connections and proclivities, he did not care to neglect so powerful a man. 无论他的政治关系和脾气如何，他并不愿怠慢这样有势力的人。 来自辞典例句

16 soda   

n.苏打水；汽水

参考例句：

• She doesn't enjoy drinking chocolate soda.她不喜欢喝巧克力汽水。
• I will freshen your drink with more soda and ice cubes.我给你的饮料重加一些苏打水和冰块。

17 frankly   

adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说

参考例句：

• To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说，我一点也不赞成这个主意。
• Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说，我不反对改革。

18 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

19 plunges   

n.跳进，投入vt.使投入，使插入，使陷入vi.投入，跳进，陷入v.颠簸( plunge的第三人称单数 )；暴跌；骤降；突降

参考例句：

• Even before he plunges into his program, he has his audience in his pocket. 他的节目甚至还没有出场，就已控制住了观众。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• 'Monseigneur, he precipitated himself over the hill-side, head first, as a person plunges into the river.' “大人，他头冲下跳下山坡去了，像往河里跳一样。” 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

20 hip   

n.臀部，髋；屋脊

参考例句：

• The thigh bone is connected to the hip bone.股骨连着髋骨。
• The new coats blouse gracefully above the hip line.新外套在臀围线上优美地打着褶皱。

21 mightily   

ad.强烈地；非常地

参考例句：

• He hit the peg mightily on the top with a mallet. 他用木槌猛敲木栓顶。
• This seemed mightily to relieve him. 干完这件事后，他似乎轻松了许多。

22 investigations   

（正式的）调查( investigation的名词复数 )； 侦查； 科学研究； 学术研究

参考例句：

• His investigations were intensive and thorough but revealed nothing. 他进行了深入彻底的调查，但没有发现什么。
• He often sent them out to make investigations. 他常常派他们出去作调查。

23 linens   

n.亚麻布( linen的名词复数 )；家庭日用织品

参考例句：

• All linens and towels are provided. 提供全套日用织品和毛巾。 来自辞典例句
• Linen, Table Linens, Chair Covers, Bed and Bath Linens. Linen. 采购产品亚麻布，亚麻布，椅子套子，床和沭浴亚麻布。 来自互联网

24 tripe   

n.废话，肚子, 内脏

参考例句：

• I can't eat either tripe or liver.我不吃肚也不吃肝。
• I don't read that tripe.我才不看那种无聊的东西呢。

25 verge   

n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• She was on the verge of bursting into tears.她快要哭出来了。

26 loathes   

v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的第三人称单数 )；极不喜欢

参考例句：

• He loathes the sight of crabs. 他看到蟹就恶心。 来自辞典例句
• Loathes this continually air all to bring the false society. 厌恶这连空气都带着虚伪的社会。 来自互联网

27 everlastingly   

永久地，持久地

参考例句：

• Why didn't he hold the Yankees instead of everlastingly retreating? 他为什么不将北军挡住，反而节节败退呢？
• "I'm tired of everlastingly being unnatural and never doing anything I want to do. "我再也忍受不了这样无休止地的勉强自己，永远不能赁自己高兴做事。

28 consolation   

n.安慰，慰问

参考例句：

• The children were a great consolation to me at that time.那时孩子们成了我的莫大安慰。
• This news was of little consolation to us.这个消息对我们来说没有什么安慰。

29 attenuated   

v.（使）变细( attenuate的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）变薄；（使）变小；减弱

参考例句：

• an attenuated form of the virus 毒性已衰减的病毒
• You're a seraphic suggestion of attenuated thought . 你的思想是轻灵得如同天使一般的。 来自辞典例句

30 spouse   

n.配偶(指夫或妻)

参考例句：

• Her spouse will come to see her on Sunday.她的丈夫星期天要来看她。
• What is the best way to keep your spouse happy in the marriage?在婚姻中保持配偶幸福的最好方法是什么？

31 imbue   

v.灌输(某种强烈的情感或意见)，感染

参考例句：

• He managed to imbue his employees with team spirit.他成功激发起雇员的团队精神。
• Kass is trying to imbue physics into simulated worlds.凯斯想要尝试的就是把物理学引入模拟世界。

32 furtive   

adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的

参考例句：

• The teacher was suspicious of the student's furtive behaviour during the exam.老师怀疑这个学生在考试时有偷偷摸摸的行为。
• His furtive behaviour aroused our suspicion.他鬼鬼祟祟的行为引起了我们的怀疑。

33 execration   

n.诅咒，念咒，憎恶

参考例句：

• The sense of wrongs, the injustices, the oppression, extortion, and pillage of twenty years suddenly and found voice in a raucous howl of execration. 二十年来所深受的损害、压迫、勒索、掠夺和不公平的对待，一下子达到了最高峰，在一阵粗声粗气的谩骂叫嚣里发泄出来。 来自辞典例句

34 stature   

n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材

参考例句：

• He is five feet five inches in stature.他身高5英尺5英寸。
• The dress models are tall of stature.时装模特儿的身材都较高。

35 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

36 garb   

n.服装，装束

参考例句：

• He wore the garb of a general.他身着将军的制服。
• Certain political,social,and legal forms reappear in seemingly different garb.一些政治、社会和法律的形式在表面不同的外衣下重复出现。

37 innate   

adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的

参考例句：

• You obviously have an innate talent for music.你显然有天生的音乐才能。
• Correct ideas are not innate in the mind.人的正确思想不是自己头脑中固有的。