There is, for a humorous lecturer, no
better audience in the world than a Scotch audience. The old standing
joke about the Scotch sense of humour is mere nonsense. Yet one
finds it everywhere.
"So you're going to try to take humour up to Scotland," the most
eminent author in England said to me. "Well, the Lord help you.
You'd better take an axe with you to open their skulls; there is
no other way." How this legend started I don't know, but I think
it is because the English are jealous of the Scotch. They got into
the Union with them in 1707 and they can't get out. The Scotch
don't want Home Rule, or Swa Raj, or Dominion status, or anything;
they just want the English. When they want money they go to London
and make it; if they want literary fame they sell their books to
the English; and to prevent any kind of political trouble they take
care to keep the Cabinet well filled with Scotchmen. The English
for shame's sake can't get out of the Union, so they retaliate by
saying that the Scotch have no sense of humour. But there's nothing
in it. One has only to ask any of the theatrical people and they
will tell you that the audiences in Glasgow and Edinburgh are the
best in the British Isles--possess the best taste and the best
ability to recognise what is really good.
The reason for this lies, I think, in the well-known fact that the
Scotch are a truly educated people, not educated in the mere sense
of having been made to go to school, but in the higher sense of
having acquired an interest in books and a respect for learning.
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