Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland

This book is an absolute delight. I have made many visits to Scotland and this book from the early 1900s gives the modern visitor Railway travelling, too, is attended with some inconveniences in winter. The Glasgow-Inverness train, for example, may, on the coldest night of the year, break down at Dalnaspidal; and in such a case the passengers will have to sit, entertained by howling blasts, till a fresh engine comes up from Blair Atholl. What has struck me most in my travels by land and sea, is the extraordinary amount of happiness, geniality, and good humour that still exists in the world. There is a substantial amount of felicity in the majority of men. Every one knows the sentence of Emerson: Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of empires ridiculous. I like to give concrete examples of philosophic maxims, and I should particularise Emerson's dictum thus: Bard Macdonald of Trotternish, Skye, whose only cow came near being impounded by the Congested Districts Board in order to pay for the price of seed-potatoes furnished to him by the said Board, having good health, makes the pomp of empires ridiculous three hundred and sixty-five days every year.