Edinburgh Quotes

So far Kat has been through all the Wa's she could think of, but Hale hadn't admitted to being Walter or Ward or Washington. He'd firmly denied both Warren and Waverly. Watson had prompted him to do a very bad Sherlock Holmes impersonation throughout a good portion of a train ride to Edinburgh, Scotland. And Wayne seemed so wrong she hadn't even tried. Hale was Hale. And not knowing what the W's stood for had become a constant reminder to Kat that, in life, there are some things that can be given but never stolen. Of course, that didn't stop her from trying.

For those who like that sort of thing," said Miss Brodie in her best Edinburgh voice, "That is the sort of thing they like.

This is a city of shifting light, of changing skies, of sudden vistas. A city so beautiful it breaks the heart again and again.

If London was an alien city, Edinburgh was another planet

It seemed to him a very Edinburgh thing. Welcoming, but not very.

You ought to know, you were my best friend. You were. I know you loved me. I loved you. No one should have gone through what we went through, but we did. And it kills me to think of it. But I didn't love you like you loved me. I don't hate you for that. It just makes me sorry, that there isn't someone else who could love you better. I know when you think about how I went, you'll get it. I was always uneasy about being alive. The idea of being dead makes me feel clear. When I think of it. It makes me think peace, peace, peace. It makes me happy. I am looking forward to it, to the absence of everything. And so I want you to be happy for me, that this is better for me. That I found what I needed. I know you won't be. But it's the last thing I want. You happy.

Persons of good sense, I have since observed, seldom fall into disputation, except lawyers, university men, and men of all sorts that have been bred at Edinburgh.

Edinburgh could be bleak, but Aberdeen really took the pish. A life could be wasted waiting for the sky tae change fae grey tae blue.

It was Begbie who ensured he could never return. He had done what he wanted to do. He could now never go back to Leith, to Edinburgh, even to Scotland, ever again. There, he could not be anything other than he was. Now, free from them all, for good, he could be what he wanted to be. He'd stand or fall alone. This thought both terrified and excited him as he contemplated life in Amsterdam.

My marriage to Jamie had been for me like the turning of a great key, each small turn setting in the intricate fall of tumblers within me. Bree had been able to turn that key as well, edging closer to the unlocking of the door of myself. But the final turn of the lock was frozen--until I had walked into the print shop in Edinburgh, and the mechanism had sprung free with a final, decisive click.

Half a capital and half a country town, the whole city leads a double existence; it has long trances of the one and flashes of the other; like the king of the Black Isles, it is half alive and half a monumental marble.

Hate is love on fire, set out to burn like a flare on the side of the road. It says, stop here. Something terrible has happened. Envy is like, the skin you're in burns. And the salve is someone else's skin.

The main question to a novel is -- did it amuse? were you surprised at dinner coming so soon? did you mistake eleven for ten? were you too late to dress? and did you sit up beyond the usual hour? If a novel produces these effects, it is good; if it does not -- story, language, love, scandal itself cannot save it. It is only meant to please; and it must do that or it does nothing.

Studies have found that creative people have an especially high tolerance for ambiguity. I suspect this holds true for places of genius as well. Cities such as Athens and Florence and Edinburgh created atmospheres that accepted, and even celebrated, ambiguity.

There is light suddenly everywhere, the light of your life speaking to you. What it tells you is almost the same as what happened. Never mind that almost isn’t good enough; it’s all you have.

If I had to pick two words to describe Edinburgh, I would tell you that it's majestic and beautiful. Really, really old, but somehow more alive than any other place I've ever been.

It meant that Crowley had been allowed to develop Manchester, while Aziraphale had a free hand in the whole of Shropshire. Crowley took Glasgow, Aziraphale had Edinburgh (neither claimed any responsibility for Milton Keynes,* but both reported it as a success).

I’m a rather useless insomniac viscount, but”—he gestured at Minerva—“my companion here is a brilliant geologist. There’s a symposium, you see. We need to get to Edinburgh by tomorrow, so she can present her findings about giant lizards and possibly alter our understanding of the world’s natural history.

It seemed there was an announcement every five minutes from the mythical conductor, imparting sagacious gems such as "large items should be placed in the overhead luggage racks", or that "passengers should report any unattended items to the train crew as soon as possible". I wondered at whom these pearls of wisdom were aimed; some passing extraterrestrial, perhaps, or a yak herder from Ulan Bator who had trekked across the steppes, sailed the North Sea, and found himself on the Glasgow-Edinburgh service with literally no prior experience of mechanized transport to call upon?

There is a kind of gaping admiration that would fain roll Shakespeare and Bacon into one, to have a bigger thing to gape at; and a class of men who cannot edit one author without disparaging all others.

In no particular order: baked goods, Colin Farrell's eyebrows, and the thighs of rugby players everywhere. And to the city of Edinburgh, where a love story was born.

My mum always said you get more fun at a Glasgow stabbing than an Edinburgh wedding.

Irene gasped. "Have you taken leave of your senses, Stuart?" she hissed. "Have you?" Stuart closed his eyes. "No," he said. "Au contraire." It was strong language for the Edinburgh New Town, but he had to say it. "Don't au contraire me," said Irene. But it was too late. He had.

Edinburgh suited Ann; she liked the tall, dignified buildings of grey stone, the short days that sank into street-lamped evenings at five o'clock, and the dual personality of the city's main street, which on one side had glittering shops and on the other the green sweep of Princes Street Gardens.

We're all what we are because of circumstances larger than we are.

The attendance of that brother was now become like the attendance of a demon on some devoted being that had sold himself to destruction

Edinburgh is a great big black bastard of a city where there are ghosts of all kinds.

Edinburgh is alive with words.

She felt something missing in her soul. It wasn't until she landed in Edinburgh that she realized that missing piece was the wild, mystical land.

An exaltation of spirit lifted me, as it were, far above the earth and the sinful creatures crawling on its surface; and I deemed myself as an eagle among the children of men, soaring on high, and looking down with pity and contempt on the grovelling creatures below.

For a girl without a job, or hobbies, or any kind of social life, Emma’s schedule was remarkably crowded. Dieting, walking, worrying, writing, exercising, surviving – all of these things ate into a day that might have offered endless possibilities had Emma not felt obliged to fill her great unfenced acres of spare time with the kind of trivial concerns and ridiculous compulsions that her doctors had been trying for years to clear from her head. This habit shone most brightly every Tuesday, when she took her place by the living-room window to await the arrival of her care team from Edinburgh. No matter what was going on around her or within her head, she arrived by the window on the stroke of noon every single week. The team never arrived before half past one.

Conchpore is real. It is as real as Malgudi, Brahmpur, Lilliput or Macondo. And also as real as San Francisco, Madurai, Edinburgh, Gaborone or Tokyo. You know that fictional towns exist. You visit them all the time.

The world won’t leave things be. It’s always injecting endings into beginnings. Leaves tweezer themselves from these weeping willows. Leaves fall into the lake and dissolve into slime. Where’s the sense in that? Mum and Dad fell in love, had Julia, had me. They fall out of love, Julia moves off to Edinburgh, Mum to Cheltenham, and Dad to Oxford with Cynthia. The world never stops unmaking what the world never stops making. But who says the world has to make sense?

There is a part of you, you see now, that is reckless. A part of you that still always wants to die but never really wants to go after it. So it makes mistakes instead. Or it says, when trouble comes in and has lemonade, I wonder what this will look like. If I sit still. If I do nothing.

Three weeks was apparently time enough to fall in love, but not long enough to fall out of love. Meg had this unfortunate truth drummed into her head each morning when she woke, hoping this would be the day that she forgot about Alex, this would be the day she could get on with her life and put Edinburgh behind her. She grimaced. Three weeks, three years, it didn’t make a difference. She would remember. Everything.

Be that as it may, we were--and no doubt, still are--held under scrutiny, with that whole Phoenix Society brouhaha. It is imperative we remain on our best behaviour, a feat that you did not exactly manage effortlessly with your shenanigans in Edinburgh.

Edinburgh has history the way cats have bad breath.

I haven’t even been here an hour and already, Edinburgh is the city of my dreams.

I need a list of every den of iniquity in the city of Edinburgh,” I blurt out.

A park in London. A patio in Prague. A tea room in Edinburgh.

Edinburgh, the first city we went to for the show, was damp and gray, a city of old stones and hidden paths, it's history right on the surface.

I am reading Ian Rankins book Doors Open and am enjoying his dark Edinburgh narrative will rate soon once I have read it. I am also a fan of Jane Austen and have visited her Museum House in Chawton, Hampshire every year for the last three years. My Favourite book is Sense and Sensibility.

A new concept of god: “something not very different from the sum total of the physical laws of the universe; that is, gravitation plus quantum mechanics plus grand unified field theories plus a few other things equaled god. And by that all they meant was that here were a set of exquisitely powerful physical principles that seemed to explain a great deal that was otherwise inexplicable about the universe. Laws of nature…that apply not just locally, not just in Glasgow, but far beyond: Edinburgh, Moscow…Mars…the center of the Milky Way, and out by the most distant quarters known. That the same laws of physics apply everywhere is quite remarkable. Certainly that represents a power greater than any of us.

Plenty of people were writing novels; in fact, if one did a survey in the street, half of Edinburgh was writing a novel, and this meant that there really weren't enough characters to go round. Unless, of course, one wrote about people who were themselves writing novels. And what would the novels that these fictional characters were writing be about? Well, they would be novels about people writing novels.

The Hawk hired fifty harpers and jesters and taught them new songs. Songs about the puny fairy fool who had been chased away from Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea by the legendary Hawk. And being such a legend in his own time, his tales were ceded great truth and staying power. The players were delighted with the epic grandeur of such a wild tale. When they had rehearsed to perfection the ditties and refrains portraying the defeat of the fool, the Hawk sent them into the counties of Scotland and England. Grimm accompanied the group of players traveling to Edinburgh to help spread the tale himself, while Hawk spent late hours by the candle scribbling, crossing out and perfecting his command for when the fool came. Sometimes, in the wee hours of the morning, he would reach for his set of sharp awls and blades and begin carving toy soldiers and dolls, one by one.

Edinburgh seduces with her ancient buildings. She pours alcohol or food down the throats of anyone passing, dangles her trinkets, leaves pockets bare. She's a pickpocket. The best kind of thief, one you think of - most fondly.

Once he was stuck just outside Edinburgh on a train for four hours, because of an electrical fault. “You saw straightaway which people would eat you,” he told me, “without any hesitation, if you were stuck on a lifeboat together.

Into no other city does the sight of the country enter so far; if you do not meet a butterfly, you shall certainly catch a glimpse of far-away trees upon your walk; and the place is full of theatre tricks in the way of scenery.  You peep under an arch, you descend stairs that look as if they would land you in a cellar, you turn to the back-window of a grimy tenement in a lane:—and behold! you are face-to-face with distant and bright prospects.  You turn a corner, and there is the sun going down into the Highland hills.  You look down an alley, and see ships tacking for the Baltic.

Did you ever see a bee lying drunk on a rose? Lost in the petal, so close you can't see its tiny burrowing. In this way, I hang as I can. As close as I can.

Sheets of sleet hurtled themselves against the windows, clattering like the tapping of devilish fingers upon the glass.

Can't afford to put myself in some sort of ideological straightjacket. That's for losers.

Everything is already moving so very fast, but you need a great deal more speed than this to escape the earth's gravitational pull. Seven miles per second. More fuel, please.

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit,’ sir.

Prayer is the heart's sincere desire, Uttered or unexpressed,

Doing something when it is hard, because it is the right thing to do, matters more than doing it when it's easy. The world needs light now more than ever.

At the time, most bodies worked on by anatomists were cold indeed. They were brought to Edinburgh from all over Britain -- some came by way of the Union Canal. The resurrectionists -- body-snatchers -- pickled them in whisky for transportation. It was a lucrative trade." "But did the whisky get drunk afterwards?" Devlin chuckled. "Economics would dictate that it did.

Quite a few vampires, especially the elders, regarded those who creep through graveyard shadows in batwing capes and fingerless black gloves as an Edinburgh gentleman might look upon a Yankee with a single Scots grandparent who swathes himself in kilts and tartan sashes, prefaces every remark with quotes from Burns or Scott and affects a fondness for bagpipes and haggis.

Join us. Play the game. It will bring you an untold number of rewards and you will finally have some direction and purpose in your lives. Take control of yourselves and those around you. Bend them to your will and all worldly pleasures will be yours...

If the wedding was wanted at Melrose—and Buccleuch, as Hereditary Bailie of the Abbey lands, had fewer objections than usual to any idea not his own—then the congregation had to come armed, that was all. The Scotts and their allies, the twenty polite Frenchmen from Edinburgh, the Italian commander with the lame leg, had left their men at arms outside with their horses, the plumed helmets lashed to the saddlebows; and if there were a few vacant seats where a man from Hawick or Bedrule had ducked too late ten days before, no one mentioned it.

We'll get into the plane and you'll have a cup of coffee, even a sip of brandy is permissible. And you'll think. Think hard. So hard I can hear your brains creaking. And it will be very good if by the time we reach Edinburgh you already know how to get the Crown of All Things. Because we don't have any time to spare. Only twelve hours until the bomb goes off." "You bastard," I said. "No, I'm a highly effective personnel manager," Edgar said, with a smile.

Unlike most biographers it is here I leave Messrs. Burke and Hare, at the peak of their glory. Why destroy such an artistic effect by requiring them to languish along to the end of their lives, revealing their defects and their deceptions? We need only remember them, mask in hand, walking abroad on foggy nights. For their end was sordid like so many others. One of them, it appears, was hanged and Dr. Knox was forced to quit Edinburgh. Mr. Burke left no other works.

Nor are the earth, water, and other elements, examined by ARISTOTLE, and HIPPOCRATES, more like to those, which at present lie under our observation, than the men, described by POLYBIUS and TACITUS, are to those, who now govern the world.

Dari Profesor Charlotte ia bisa belajar tentang kekuatan fokus. "Sejak masih remaja, ketika teman-temanku lebih suka belajar menyanyi dan menari, aku tidak. Aku tidak ikut-ikutan mereka. Aku sudah punya cita-cita yang jelas. Kukatakan pada diriku, aku harus jadi profesor di The University of Edinburgh. Aku mulai belajar bahasa asing dengan serius. Salah satu teman sekolahku ketika itu berasal dari Irak. Dia gadis yang cantik dan baik. Ayahnya pengajar di Baghdad University sedang menyelesaikan Ph.D. bidang Kimia di The University of Edinburgh. Aku belajar bahasa Arab darinya. Aku belajar cerita seribu satu malam dengan bahasa Arab darinya. Sejak itu saya tertarik dengan dunia Arab. Dan aku fokus mendalaminya. Kini keinginan saya menjadi kenyataan. Kau lihat Fahri, aku sudah jadi Profesor di The University of Edinburgh.

My grandfather knows about hauntings, it occurs to me now. Here was where he knew his sisters, here was what he remembered, every day, in his Imperial school, as the Japanese grammar spread inside him, as he learned the language of the people who took his sisters and destroyed them. All his thoughts come to him in Japanese first, his dreams in Japanese also... I think of how every single thing he says in Korean comes across a pause where the Japanese is stilled and the Korean brought forward. Each part of speech a rescue

He smiles at me, and it is a knock on my chest, as if he had reached out and rapped it. My chest opens, my heart admits him.

The quiet around her seems to make the focus of her prettiness sharper, the air's stillness focuses her in the eye. As if talking might make it harder to see someone.

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

The prison of the mind is greater than my real actual prison.

And Edinburgh. He was proud of Edinburgh too, and of Scotland; and why not? Why should one not be proud of one's country - for a change?

A nudist? In Edinburgh? Does he realise what parallel we’re on?

And then I awoke, and just as Auden did when he awoke from his dream of the croquet match, I felt that I had been vouchsafed a vision. It was a feeling of utter elation and goodwill—in other words, a feeling of agape. I felt bathed in the warm, golden glow of this feeling. Some year later my wife and I were having dinner with psychiatrist friends in an Edinburgh restaurant. The talk turned to dreams, and I recounted my dream. Unfortunately, as I did so, there was a lull in the conversation at nearby tables, with the result that others heard what I had to say. At the end there was silence. Then one of the psychiatrists said: “I know what your dream is about.” A pin could have been heard to drop. “Mrs. MacGregor is your mother.

The storm is a glazier. Then fog passes through, touches the cold trees to add to the ice already there. Here the wind spins glass from the water it has stolen off the sea and the lakes, off the hair on my head and the breath out of my mouth, the storm takes the water from us all everywhere, to make of a mountain range a stained-glass depiction of a saint no one knows.

This Henry lived in Edinburgh, making him inaccessible and giving her something to do on the weekends — 'Oh, just flying up to Scotland, Henry's taking me fishing,' which is the kind of thing she imagined people doing in Scotland — she always thought of the Queen Mother, incongruous in mackintosh and waders, standing in the middle of a shallow brown river (somewhere on the outskirts of Brigadoon, no doubt) and casting a line for trout.

After walking the Royal Mile, we visit Edinburgh Castle. Overlooking the city from the grassy hilltop of the Castle Rock, the fortress itself looks as though it has been carved from the very stone upon which it sits. It is powerful yet elegant, lavish yet wholly inviting to anyone fortunate enough to find themselves standing at the castle gate. These are doors and walls and windows that have seen kings and queens, saints and sinners, voyagers from all corners of the world. And now us.

I have been reading about the Neutron Bomb. I want to be like that, radiant and deadly, a ghost of an impact, to pass through walls, to kill everyone, in flight among the empty houses, punching through molecules like a knife through a paper bag.

When I was a boy and I sang, my voice felt to me like a leak sprung from a small and secret star hidden somewhere in my chest and whatever there was about me that was fragile disappeared when my mouth opened and I let the voice out. We learned, we were prisons for our voices. You could want to try and make sure the door was always opened... We weren't something struck to make a tone. We were strike and instrument both. If you can hold the air and shake it to make something, you learn, maybe you can make anything. Maybe you can walk out of here on this thin, thin air.

Sandy felt warmly towards Miss Brodie at these times when she saw how she was misled in her idea of Rose. It was then that Miss Brodie looked beautiful and fragile, just as dark heavy Edinburgh itself could suddenly be changed into a floating city when the light was a special pearly white and fell upon one of the gracefully fashioned streets. In the same way Miss Brodie's masterful features became clear and sweet to Sandy when viewed in the curious light of the woman's folly, and she never felt more affection for her in her later years than when she thought upon Miss Brodie silly.

Brentwood stands on that fine and wealthy slope of country, one of the richest in Scotland, which lies between the Pentland Hills and the Firth. In clear weather you could see the blue gleam-like a bent bow, embracing the wealthy fields and scattered houses of the great estuary on one side of you; and on the other the blue heights, not gigantic like those we had been used to, but just high enough for all the glories of the atmosphere, the play of clouds, and sweet reflections, which give to a hilly country an interest and a charm which nothing else can emulate. Edinburgh, with its two lesser heights - the Castle and the Calton Hill - its spires and towers piercing through the smoke, and Arthur's Seat lying crouched behind, like a guardian no longer very needful, taking his repose beside the well-beloved charge, which is now, so to speak, able to take care of itself without him - lay at our right hand. From the lawn and drawing-room windows we could see all these varieties of landscape. The colour was sometimes a little chilly, but sometimes, also, as animated and full of vicissitude as a drama. I was never tired of it. Its colour and freshness revived the eyes which had grown weary of arid plains and blazing skies. It was always cheery, and fresh, and full of repose. ("The Open Door")

Miss Fields," said a servant, stepping into the room and closing the door, "There is a visitor for you. Are you in?" Clare blinked. "Yes, obviously." "Ah. Miss Fields, I should advise -- you may be in without being 'in', if you prefer," he said, offering her a tray. There was a calling card on it; Arthur Conan Doyle, Edinburgh.

From this height the sleeping city seems like a child's construction, a model which has refused to be constrained by imagination. The volcanic plug might be black Plasticine, the castle balanced solidly atop it a skewed rendition of crenellated building bricks. The orange street lamps are crumpled toffee-wrappers glued to lollipop sticks.

After his sisters were taken away, the Japanese occupying force sent my grandfather to Imperial Schools. My first language is Japanese, he tells me. English far away. Sometimes, right after he told me, I would look at him and wonder what it felt like, to have the print of your enemy all the way inside you, right into the way you shaped your thoughts.

Let us remember that we are all in the same condition as Abraham. Our circumstances are all in opposition to the promises of God. He promises us immortality: yet we are surrounded by mortality and corruption. He declares that He accounts us just: yet we are covered with sins. He testifies that Her is propitious and benevolent towards us: yet outward signs threaten His wrath. What then are we to do? We must close our eyes, disregard ourselves and all things connected with us, so that nothing may hinder or prevent us from believing that God is true. Calvin's Commentaries: The Epistles of Paul The Apostle to the Romans and to the Thessalonians, eds. David W Torrance and T. F. Torrance (Edinburgh, 1961), p. 99.

Nothing is ‘wrong’ with me, Dan. What’s wrong with you? she said in the same eerily quiet voice, dark eyes fixated on Dan, as she breathed heavily.

The slick concrete reflected the facades of the work weary - grey, cracked and old, but more importantly, trodden upon.

The dumbest question is one that is never asked.

Sometimes, I think I know what my grandparents were listening for. Sound waves don't ever go away. Not one sound goes away. The wave simply expands, infinitely. The sound remains. Imagine a cosine arc the size of Jupiter, and that might be the size of the wave of the last thing Peter ever said. I'd need an ear the size of another solar system to hear him again.

I had the luxury of knowing what I wanted to do. So I just sat on the bed and came up with a plan for myself: "I have to go to the Edinburgh Fringe. But I don't have the confidence to do a production there because I've never gone before, and I don't even know how to get there or what to do once I get there. So I will just act as if I do have the confidence to go to the Edinburgh Fringe. I'll just borrow confidence from a future version of myself. Once I've been to the Edinburgh Fringe and performed a show there, then I will have the confidence to go to the Edinburgh Fringe. I will go to the bank manager of confidence (in some part of my brain) and I will borrow that confidence from the future, and then I can wear it like a cloak, and I will talk to everyone with this confidence." It was out there as a concept, but it worked.

Once I had a wild fling on an otherwise boring weekend holiday in Edinburgh, with a guy I met who turned out to be a psychiatrist. He agreed with me, after hours and hours of our naked cavorting in a hotel, that I was a sex addict; although he did stress he wouldn’t change me for the world. It turned him on that I was so sexual, and we turned a dull weekend in a grey city into something wonderful for the two of us. So, what was the problem?

It is hard to bring paedophile rings to justice. Thankfully it does happen. Perhaps the most horrific recent case came before the High Court in Edinburgh in June 2007. It involved a mother who stood by and watched as her daughter of nine was gang-raped by members of a paedophile ring at her home in Granton, in the north of Edinburgh. The mother, Caroline Dunsmore, had allowed her two daughters to be used in this way from the age of five. Sentencing Dunsmore to twelve years in prison judge, Lord Malcolm, said he would take into account public revulsion at the grievous crimes against the two girls. He told the forty-three-year-old woman: 'It is hard to imagine a more grievous breach of trust on the part of a mother towards her child.' Morris Petch and John O'Flaherty were also jailed for taking part in raping the children. Child abuse nearly always takes place at home and members of the family are usually involved.

From Venice to Rome, Paris to Brussels, London to Edinburgh, the Ambassadors watched, long-eared and bright-eyed. Charles of Spain, Holy Roman Emperor, fending off Islam at Prague and Lutherism in Germany and forcing recoil from the long, sticky fingers at the Vatican, cast a considering glance at heretic England. Henry, new King of France, tenderly conscious of the Emperor's power and hostility, felt his way thoughtfully toward a small cabal between himself, the Venetians and the Pope, and wondered how to induce Charles to give up Savoy, how to evict England from Boulogne, and how best to serve his close friend and dear relative Scotland without throwing England into the arms or the lap of the Empire. He observed Scotland, her baby Queen, her French and widowed Queen Mother, and her Governor Arran. He observed England, ruled by the royal uncle Somerset for the boy King Edward, aged nine. He watched with interest as the English dotingly pursued their most cherished policy: the marriage which should painlessly annex Scotland to England and end forever the long, dangerous romance between Scotland and England. Pensively, France marshalled its fleet and set about cultivating the Netherlands, whose harbours might be kind to storm-driven galleys. The Emperor, fretted by Scottish piracy and less busy than he had been, watched the northern skies narrowly. Europe, poised delicately over a brand-new board, waiting for the opening gambit.

The drinking dens are spilling out There's staggering in the square There's lads and lasses falling about And a crackling in the air Down around the dungeon doors The shelters and the queues Everybody's looking for Somebody's arms to fall into And it's what it is It's what it is now There's frost on the graves and the monuments But the taverns are warm in town People curse the government And shovel hot food down The lights are out in the city hall The castle and the keep The moon shines down upon it all The legless and asleep And it's cold on the tollgate With the wagons creeping through Cold on the tollgate God knows what I could do with you And it's what it is It's what it is now The garrison sleeps in the citadel With the ghosts and the ancient stones High up on the parapet A Scottish piper stands alone And high on the wind The highland drums begin to roll And something from the past just comes And stares into my soul And it's cold on the tollgate With the Caledonian Blues Cold on the tollgate God knows what I could do with you And it's what it is It's what it is now What it is It's what it is now There's a chink of light, there's a burning wick There's a lantern in the tower Wee Willie Winkie with a candlestick Still writing songs in the wee wee hours On Charlotte Street I take A walking stick from my hotel The ghost of Dirty Dick Is still in search of Little Nell And it's what it is It's what it is now Oh what it is What it is now

In the eighteenth century, the Scottish Enlightenment focused attention on Glasgow and Edinburgh as centres of intellectual activity. The Scottish Enlightenment was an intellectual movement which originated in Glasgow in the early eighteenth century, and flourished in Edinburgh in the second half of the century. Its thinking was based on philosophical enquiry and its practical applications for the benefit of society ('improvement' was a favoured term). The Enlightenment encompassed literature, philosophy, science, education, and even geology. One of its lasting results was the founding of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1768-71). The effects of the Scottish Enlightenment, especially in the second half of the century, were far-reaching in Britain and Europe. The philosophical trends ranged from the 'common-sense' approach of Thomas Reid to the immensely influential works of David Hume, notably his Treatise of Human Nature, published in 1739. Here, his arguments on God, and the cause and effect of man's relationship with God, are far ahead of their time in the philosophical debate in Britain: .... ... Adam Smith's book The Wealth of Nations (1776) was probably the most important work on economics of the century, revolutionising concepts of trade and prophesying the growing importance of America as 'one of the foremost nations of the world'. By a remarkable coincidence, the book was published in the very same year as the American Declaration of Independence.

The original castle back in Edinburgh was the seat of Scottish nationalism. It symbolized everything to the diehard believers. Despite all the changes and defeats they endured, the castle stood solid at the center of their capital. They waited for generations for the Scottish nation to be properly reborn after their Bonnie Prince was lost. There were times when the cause seemed impossible, or even cursed; they regained their independence from the English only to lose it again right away with the formation of Federal Europe.

The last year had been a series of wrong turns, bad choices, abandoned projects. There was the all-girl band in which she had played bass, variously called Throat, Slaughterhouse Six and Bad Biscuit, which had been unable to decide on a name, let alone a musical direction. There was the alternative club night that no-one had gone to, the abandoned first novel, the abandoned second novel, several miserable summer jobs selling cashmere and tartan to tourists. At her very, very lowest ebb she had taken a course in Circus Skills until it transpired that she had none. Trapeze was not the solution. The much-advertised Second Summer of Love had been one of melancholy and lost momentum. Even her beloved Edinburgh had started to bore and depress her. Living in a her University town felt like staying on at a party that everyone else had left, and so in October she had given up the flat in Rankellior Street and moved back to her parents for a long, fraught, wet winter of recriminations and slammed doors and afternoon TV in a house that now seemed impossibly small.

To the enormous majority of persons who risk themselves in literature, not even the smallest measure of success can fall. They had better take to some other profession as quickly as may be, they are only making a sure thing of disappointment, only crowding the narrow gates of fortune and fame. Yet there are others to whom success, though easily within their reach, does not seem a thing to be grasped at. Of two such, the pathetic story may be read, in the Memoir of A Scotch Probationer, Mr. Thomas Davidson, who died young, an unplaced Minister of the United Presbyterian Church, in 1869. He died young, unaccepted by the world, unheard of, uncomplaining, soon after writing his latest song on the first grey hairs of the lady whom he loved. And she, Miss Alison Dunlop, died also, a year ago, leaving a little work newly published, Anent Old Edinburgh, in which is briefly told the story of her life. There can hardly be a true tale more brave and honourable, for those two were eminently qualified to shine, with a clear and modest radiance, in letters. Both had a touch of poetry, Mr. Davidson left a few genuine poems, both had humour, knowledge, patience, industry, and literary conscientiousness. No success came to them, they did not even seek it, though it was easily within the reach of their powers. Yet none can call them failures, leaving, as they did, the fragrance of honourable and uncomplaining lives, and such brief records of these as to delight, and console and encourage us all. They bequeath to us the spectacle of a real triumph far beyond the petty gains of money or of applause, the spectacle of lives made happy by literature, unvexed by notoriety, unfretted by envy. What we call success could never have yielded them so much, for the ways of authorship are dusty and stony, and the stones are only too handy for throwing at the few that, deservedly or undeservedly, make a name, and therewith about one-tenth of the wealth which is ungrudged to physicians, or barristers, or stock-brokers, or dentists, or electricians. If literature and occupation with letters were not its own reward, truly they who seem to succeed might envy those who fail. It is not wealth that they win, as fortunate men in other professions count wealth; it is not rank nor fashion that come to their call nor come to call on them. Their success is to be let dwell with their own fancies, or with the imaginations of others far greater than themselves; their success is this living in fantasy, a little remote from the hubbub and the contests of the world. At the best they will be vexed by curious eyes and idle tongues, at the best they will die not rich in this world’s goods, yet not unconsoled by the friendships which they win among men and women whose faces they will never see. They may well be content, and thrice content, with their lot, yet it is not a lot which should provoke envy, nor be coveted by ambition.

character. And I’ll tell you, it outweighed anything I’d ever done.” “What had she done?” I ask. “Shoplifting,” says Tam. There is a silence. “People have their own little guilt trips,” says Tam. “They look around. ‘Who’s a beast? Who’s a pedo?’ Now it’s on my record for the rest of my life. If I want to go into business, I have to state that I was done for lewd and libidinous. Gross indecency. People think, ‘Oh my God! He must have been crawling about in a nursery.’” “Can I ask about the boys who live here?” I say. “What do they do?” “They clean up,” he replies, a little sharply. “They feed the dogs. They take them for walks. They help me with my property business. They are eighteen years of age, and I don’t have a relationship with them. You can interview them until the cows come home. Maybe I just like nice people floating about. We don’t have orgies. There’s no swinging from the chandeliers. Even if there was,” he adds, “it would be legal.” Tam believes he was targeted because of his fame, because he was a celebrity Svengali. He blames his arrest, then, on the pop business. And now he is out of it. He has become a property millionaire, with forty flats in Edinburgh’s

He went on thus to call over names celebrated in Scottish song, and most of which had recently received a romantic interest from his own pen. In fact, I saw a great part of the border country spread out before me, and could trace the scenes of those poems and romances which had, in a manner, bewitched the world. I gazed about me for a time with mute surprise, I may almost say with disappointment. I beheld a mere succession of gray waving hills, line beyond line, as far as my eye could reach; monotonous in their aspect, and so destitute of trees, that one could almost see a stout fly walking along their profile; and the far-famed Tweed appeared a naked stream, flowing between bare hills, without a tree or thicket on its banks; and yet, such had been the magic web of poetry and romance thrown over the whole, that it had a greater charm for me than the richest scenery I beheld in England. I could not help giving utterance to my thoughts. Scott hummed for a moment to himself, and looked grave; he had no idea of having his muse complimented at the expense of his native hills. "It may be partiality," said he, at length; "but to my eye, these gray hills and all this wild border country have beauties peculiar to themselves. I like the very nakedness of the land; it has something bold, and stern, and solitary about it. When I have been for some time in the rich scenery about Edinburgh, which is like ornamented garden land, I begin to wish myself back again among my own honest gray hills; and if I did not see the heather at least once a year, I think I should die!

Sappho isn't really meant to be read. It's meant to be sung and there were dances for the songs, also. Sappho was a performance artist, and now she exists as a textual project. She was saved by her critics, and by people who wrote of her in letters to each other. As the morning sun lathers the pool through the long windows and stripes the opposite walls in gold, I look at the fragment translations. She's paper, too. A paper poet for a paper boy. People claim to be translating her but they don't, really, they use her to write poems from as they fill in the gaps in the fragments. A duet. She may have meant for these to be solos but they're duets now, though the second singer blends in with the first. The first singer in this case is offstage, like in the old days of stars who couldn't sing, a real singer hidden behind a curtain, which is the velvet drape of history.

Philip revealed his carefully cloaked emotions when he wrote to his mother-in-law, "Cherish Lilibet? I wonder if that word is enough to express what is in me." He declared that his new wife was "the only 'thing' in this world which is absolutely real to me, and my ambition is to weld the two of us into a new combined existence that will not only be able to withstand the shocks directed at us but will also have a positive existence for the good

Baron, Baroness Originally, the term baron signified a person who owned land as a direct gift from the monarchy or as a descendant of a baron. Now it is an honorary title. The wife of a baron is a baroness. Duke, Duchess, Duchy, Dukedom Originally, a man could become a duke in one of two ways. He could be recognized for owning a lot of land. Or he could be a victorious military commander. Now a man can become a duke simply by being appointed by a monarch. Queen Elizabeth II appointed her husband Philip the Duke of Edinburgh and her son Charles the Duke of Wales. A duchess is the wife or widow of a duke. The territory ruled by a duke is a duchy or a dukedom. Earl, Earldom Earl is the oldest title in the English nobility. It originally signified a chieftan or leader of a tribe. Each earl is identified with a certain area called an earldom. Today the monarchy sometimes confers an earldom on a retiring prime minister. For example, former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan is the Earl of Stockton. King A king is a ruling monarch. He inherits this position and retains it until he abdicates or dies. Formerly, a king was an absolute ruler. Today the role of King of England is largely symbolic. The wife of a king is a queen. Knight Originally a knight was a man who performed devoted military service. The title is not hereditary. A king or queen may award a citizen with knighthood. The criterion for the award is devoted service to the country. Lady One may use Lady to refer to the wife of a knight, baron, count, or viscount. It may also be used for the daughter of a duke, marquis, or earl. Marquis, also spelled Marquess. A marquis ranks above an earl and below a duke. Originally marquis signified military men who stood guard on the border of a territory. Now it is a hereditary title. Lord Lord is a general term denoting nobility. It may be used to address any peer (see below) except a duke. The House of Lords is the upper house of the British Parliament. It is a nonelective body with limited powers. The presiding officer for the House of Lords is the Lord Chancellor or Lord High Chancellor. Sometimes a mayor is called lord, such as the Lord Mayor of London. The term lord may also be used informally to show respect. Peer, Peerage A peer is a titled member of the British nobility who may sit in the House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament. Peers are ranked in order of their importance. A duke is most important; the others follow in this order: marquis, earl, viscount, baron. A group of peers is called a peerage. Prince, Princess Princes and princesses are sons and daughters of a reigning king and queen. The first-born son of a royal family is first in line for the throne, the second born son is second in line. A princess may become a queen if there is no prince at the time of abdication or death of a king. The wife of a prince is also called a princess. Queen A queen may be the ruler of a monarchy, the wife—or widow—of a king. Viscount, Viscountess The title Viscount originally meant deputy to a count. It has been used most recently to honor British soldiers in World War II. Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery was named a viscount. The title may also be hereditary. The wife of a viscount is a viscountess. (In pronunciation the initial s is silent.) House of Windsor The British royal family has been called the House of Windsor since 1917. Before then, the royal family name was Wettin, a German name derived from Queen Victoria’s husband. In 1917, England was at war with Germany. King George V announced that the royal family name would become the House of Windsor, a name derived from Windsor Castle, a royal residence. The House of Windsor has included Kings George V, Edward VII, George VI, and Queen Elizabeth II.