Albyn; Or, Scotland and the Future

“Sr James George Frazer, a Scotsman by birth, is the author of the immense , a collection of anthropological studies. The author's methods of correlation have been as crude and unregulated as his industry and the cultivation of his erudition have been immense. The confusion of savage and primitive states of culture commenced by Tylor and his school has been carried to excess in the works of Sr J.G. Frazer. From the point of view of the social historian attempting to disentangle the story of man's coming and growth upon this planet he is one of the most calamatous phenomena in modern research: he has smashed in the ruin of pre-history with a coal hammer, collected every brick disclosed when the dust has settled on the debris, and then labelled the exhibits with the assiduous industry of a literary ant. His pleasing literary style in that labelling is in unorthodox English.””

— Hugh MacDiarmid

“The chief Literary Lights which modern Scotland claims to light up the scene of her night are in reality no more than the commendable writers of the interesting English county of Scotshire.””

— Hugh MacDiarmid

“Braid Scots is still in most Scottish communities (in one or other Anglicised modification) the speech of bed and board and street and plough, the speech of emotional ecstasy and emotional stress. But it is not genteel. It is to the bourgeoisie of Scotland coarse and low and common and loutish, a matter for laughter, well enough for hinds and the like, but for the genteel to be quoted in vocal inverted commas... But for the truly Scots writer it remains a real and haunting thing, even while he tries his best to forget its existence and to write as a good Englishman.””

— Hugh MacDiarmid

“I like the thought of a Scots Republic with Scots Border Guards in saffron kilts - the thought of those kilts can awake me to joy in the middle of the night. I like the thought of Miss Wendy Wood leading a Scots Expeditionary Force down to Westminster the reclaim the Scone Stone: I would certainly march with that expedition myself in spite of the risk of dying of laughter by the way. I like the thought of a Scots Catholic kingdom with Mr. Compton Mackenzie Prime Minister to some disinterred Jacobite royalty, and all the Scots intellectuals settled out on the land on thirty-acre crofts, or sent to St Kilda for the good of their souls and the nation (except the hundreds streaming over the border in panic flight at sight of the Scotland of their dreams).””

— Hugh MacDiarmid