Wallace, Burns, Stevenson; appreciations . something greater ingreat men than their talents ; for the mostconsummate talents in themselves will notmake a great man. There is in them, besidestheir talent, their spirit, their character, thatmagnetic fluid, as it were, that enables them toinfluence vast bodies of their fellow-men, whichmakes them a binding and stimulating poweroutside the circle of their own personal fascin-ation. That Wallace had this power we haveabundant evidence. He was the first to riseand to face the oppressor. It was he who setthe heather on fire. It was he who inspired th
Wallace, Burns, Stevenson; appreciations . something greater ingreat men than their talents ; for the mostconsummate talents in themselves will notmake a great man. There is in them, besidestheir talent, their spirit, their character, thatmagnetic fluid, as it were, that enables them toinfluence vast bodies of their fellow-men, whichmakes them a binding and stimulating poweroutside the circle of their own personal fascin-ation. That Wallace had this power we haveabundant evidence. He was the first to riseand to face the oppressor. It was he who setthe heather on fire. It was he who inspired themen and the events which followed. For,gentlemen, after all, what Wallace in his ownperson effected and achieved is as nothing towhat he created and bequeathed behind him—the fixed resolve of undying patriotism, thepassionate unquenchable determination of free-dom, the men who were to emulate and imitatehimself. Without him, in face of the formidablefoe they had to face, the Scots might neverhave rallied for defence at all. Bruce might. NATIONAL WALLACE MONUMENT, STIRLING. SIR WILLIAM WALLACE. 21 never have stood forth, and Bannockburn mightnot have been fought. Scotland might havebecome a remote and oppressed or neglecteddistrict, without a name or a history or a friend;and the centuries of which we are so proud, cen-turies so full of energy and passion and dramatichistory, might have passed silently and heedlesslyover a dark and unknown province. Wallace wasin truth the champion who stood forth andprevented this, who asserted Scotland as anindependent country, who made, or remade, theScots as a nation. It is for this that we Scots-men must put him in the highest place. It is forthis that we venerate his name, now that the darkand bloody memories of his time are memories,and nothing more. It is for this that wehonour him when his foes are our nearest anddearest friends. And, gentlemen, can we notcondense the truth about Wallace even morecompactly than this ? Sir, there are
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