A DREAM COME TRUE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 276, 20 November 1926, Page 21

A DREAM COME TRUE.

DAYS IN EDIh^URGH. A CITY WITH A SOUL. IN THE SCOTT COUNTRY. (By PILGRIM.) It is with some sense of guilt that 1 turn to Edinburgh, for I fear that in allotting it two days and one evening I put myself perilously near the American tourist who tries to "do" the Louvre in thirty minutes. Two days, however, was all I could spare, and I tliink that, thanks to the splendid hospitality of a family to whom I had an introduction, I made the most of it. My introduction to the city itself was not the happiest, for I had to spend an hour or two finding quarters at the height of the tourist season. I was fortunate enough, just when I was getting anxious, to find a room in a modest hotel in a quiet street, where I was much happier than I would have been in one of those great caravanserais to which one is generally recommended. I am old-fashioned enough not to value greatly crowded entrance halls and glittering door-keepers, and not to like music at meals. At this place of mina they dined at midday, and put on "high tea" in the evening—a sipn that I was in a truly Scottish household. Also there was a Bible in my bedroom. True, it was used to prop up the mirror, but there it was; outside Canada, where an evangelistic body places a Bible in every hotel bedroom, 1 have never found a room so furnished. Edinburgh's Beauty. Edinburgh is all that it is said to be. No other British city that I saw on my travels is so distinctive in its topography, its architecture, and its general atmosphere. It is a city with a soul, and a oul to be easily discerned. Princes Street, with its splendid width, and its view over the gardened ravine to the towering majesty of the Castle and the lofty grey line of High Street, which runs down irorn the Castle entrance, is perhaps the most impressive thoroughfare in Britain. They told mc it was not what it had been; that the hand of the modern builder had spoiled it; Vut surely enough beauty and grandeur remain to satisfy everybody. It is rich in monuments to illustrious Scots, and its literary atmosphere is strong. The monument to Scott is perhaps the most satisfying of all the literary memorials in the kingdom. The disproportionate amount of fuss the Scots make over Burns has always irritated mc, but here at least justice has been done to the greater man. Edinburgh is beautiful and majestic. The grey stone of which most of the buildings are made gives it a dignity and character of its own. The configuration of the city is extraordinarily interesting. The old town was built on the ridge running down from the Castle, and the position of the Castle itself is superb. It seems almost too perfect to be real. The walls are so high and steep and frowning, and the only possible point of attack is where the Castle faces High Street. The view looking over the city into the distance is wonderful. There are the waters of the Forth, the grim eminence of Arthur's Sea-t, the Pentland and Lammennuir Hills, all the beautiful variety of a countryside that is closely farmed, and in the foreground the grey masses of the city buildings, spread over deeply scarred surface. I was fortunate enough to see Edinburgh in the late summer, when the crops had just been cut or were ready for cutting, and the view looking southward over the green and gold countryside —touched here and there with blue—was very lovely. At night there is another kind of loveliness. The lights of Princes StreeJ, seen from the other side of the ravine, add fresh strokes to the picture of romance that Edinburgh presents. The Castle and Holyrood. The place is steeped in history. I w r ill not weary you with a description of the Castle or of Holyrood, and a catalogue of their associations. The Castle is one of the sights of "Home" that should on no account be missed. Every stone— save, perhaps, those of the barracks, which architecturally are a blot— breathes history and romance, and the view over Edinburgh and its surroundings is marvellous. The morning I was there the place was filled with tourists from South America. Their speech was Greek to mc, but it sounded more pleasant than the accent of so many travellers from the more important America. After seeing the Castle we explored High Street and the Cannongate, and went on to Holyrood. The high stone houses on each side of these streets i are impressive to look at, but go I through narrow doorways into the closes and you will find that this is a slum ' area. These closes are far from inviting, but one wonders whether they were much more so in the old days of occupation by the nobility. Romance says much about fine clothes and swords, but little about sanitation. Holyrood did not detain us long. Architecturally the most interesting thing there is the ruined chapel. We saw the apartments of Mary Queen of Scots, and the place where Rizzio was stabbed and where his body lay. Poor Mary! She had her faults, but just consider the crowd of blackguards among whom she had to live! It was a bloody time, and men both honest and kind were as rare as mercy in the jungle. A Scott Pilgrimage. For my second day I chose a run to the Tweed Valley. I am an unrepentant lover of Scott, and I felt that I could not be so near his beloved Abbotsford and Melrose without seeing them. I made the trip from Edinburgh in the most pleasant conditions, in a car with two artists, one the son of my host, who were highly responsive to the charm of the scenery. The drive confirmed an impression I had received the previous day, that the Lowlands are somewhat unfortunately named. I had thought of them as, in contrast with the Highlands, flat and rather dull. They are, of course, . much lower than the Highlands, but they . are neither flat nor dull. The country through which we drove —by way of ; Peebles and Galashiels (and my guid<: , told mc the story of the Peebles man who said, after visiting London, give hira Peebles for pleasure) —was hilly and , most beautiful. Some of the stretches - of tree-shaded road were equal in love- , liness to the finest in England. The Tweed Valley, where the clear stream f ripples along between wooded slopes, ( explained Scott's passion. Abbotsfoid, which he built in his ambition to play ( the laird, is superfcly situated on the side of the valley: from it you look out on a wealth of meadow and wood. Here, ] with the murmur of the waters in his | ears, Scott died. J Abbotsford and Melrose. 1 The mansion has long been a place j * of pilgrimage. I met the South American J tourists again, there, and once more ' wondered what they made of what they ' •aw. Surely Scott would appeal strongly 1

• to the romantic in the Latin-American; i at any rate they would put him higher • than the estimate of some present-day , Britons—a somewhat superior E. Phillips ! Oppenheim. Certain rooms are preserved ) as they were in Scott's day, crammed • with his books and other belongings, and • he who has been moved by "Ivanhoe," i "Rob Roy," "Old Mortality," and "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," cannot—even when he is shepherded round with a \ crowd —pass unmoved through the very ', home of this towering and lovable . genius. You understand Scott better for seeing Abbotsford; you feel that your , intimacy with the vast and brilliant L world of his imagining is closer and deeper. The pink ruins of Melrose, which like I so many similar places in Britain suffered ; sadly at the hands of vandals who needed l stone, are exquisite, but its surroundings are not the best. I take it that the hotel , which stands right up against this miracle in stone was not there when . . Scott wrote about the beauties of the place. Dry burgh Abbey seemed to mc just as beautiful in itself, and its setting is perfect. You approach it from the road through a tunnel of beech trees, with a moss-covered stone wall on your right, and the ruins are embowered in a lovely park. Here, in the ruins, Scott is buried, and unless it is contended that the Highlands would have been more appropriate, what more fitting resting- . place could have been chosen? The beauty of these fragmentary arches wrought by men who worked for the glory of God, stands for the past that , he championed so nobly, and the setting is of the kind that he loved and that inspired so much of his finest work. With Scott romance and tradition were more than diversions; they were part of his ! philosophy of life, and he used them ; like a trumpet on which to blow "soulanimating strains." Scottish Art. I would like to add a word or two about Scottish art. My host was a son of a famous artist named MacTaggart, of whom I had never heard, and I believe my ignorance has been shared by most of my readers. My host's house was full of his father's pictures, and I was surprised and delighted at their quality. I 6ay surprised not only because I had never seen pictures of the sea done in quite the same broad way, but also because I learnt that the artist had worked on these lines as far back as the i 'eighties. Indeed, working independently, he evolved methods similar to those of ' the French impressionists, influI ence on art has been so profound and wide. I saw in Edinburgh a centenary exhibition of Scottish art, in which specimens of the work of all the Scottish schools had been collected. In this MacTaggart was represented. All this gave mc new ideas about Scottish painting, and I mention it not only to draw attention to a great painter who is little known outside his own country —I gathered that he still awaits due recognition in England—but to enlighten those who, like myself, have been sadly ignorants of the achievements of Scottish art in general. We are too apt to have our ideas of British art formed from London. I wonder if there are any specimens of MacTaggart's work in New Zealand, either in galleries or in private hands. If any collectors are so fortunate they may be interested to know that his reputation stands very high, and that his pictures command high prices.