DOI issue:
No. 33 (December, 1895)
DOI article:Armour, Margaret: Edinburgh as a sketching ground: illustrated by W. Brown MacDougall$nElektronische Ressource
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17295#0184
Edinburgh as a Sketching Ground
in your pocket, and soon the Paris Salon
will be gory with the Black Dinner of
the Douglass, or the Execution of Montrose,
and its walls will be the unworthy setting of
some gay scene of courtier and dame, or
perhaps an antiquarian study of the reed
huts that preluded stone and mortar.
But though the Castle may be one's alpha
and omega, there are the full complement
of letters between. Scarcely a bit of the Old
Town but can be made to pose for its portrait:
some steep, converging alley, up which the
sharp-lined shadows move; some reckless
arrangement of chimneys, black with the
" reek " and decrepit with the gales of cen-
turies, leaning trustfully against the sky from
their thirteen-storied pedestals ; or interiors
of faded magnificence where beneath armo-
rial bearings poor folk sup their porridge,
oblivious of the proud past in sordid thought
for the morrow.
Town Councillor, Dean of Guild, or how-
" .SYMSON THE PRINTER'S HOUSE "
BY W. BROWN MACDOUGALL
"QUEEN MARY'S BATH" BY W. BROWN MACDOUGALL
ever the philanthropic Goth names himself, is, of
course, busy here, as elsewhere, making the world
sanitary and unsightly. Everywhere the old
house, its tell-tale face graven with the wrinkles
of time, is vanishing before the new "flat."
Street booths are a thing of the past, and the
hands of lovers clasp no more from projecting
upper stories. But luckily the general style of
building is too solid easily to fall a prey to
" improvements." Most of the masonry is as
sturdy to-day as when it harboured the blue-
blood of Scotland, and the retainers of princes
lounged on the worn flagstones. If walls had
but tongues as well as ears, what tragic historians
they would be ! How weird the love-vows they
would whisper of hearts long ages entombed,
and how thrillingly the drama of the past would
pierce our banal mood !
With material like this all round, you can im-
agine how one's sketch-book gets filled, while, as
regards subjects for larger treatment, the only
trouble is selection. There is the house of
the immortal John Knox, waiting to be made
more immortal still by your brush ! It is a
strong three-storied building, curiously chim-
neyed and gabled. The legend in front runs,
" Lufe God above al, and yovr Mcht-bour as
vi se/f»—of more pacific import than the
face of the Reformer in his stone effigy over
the door. He looks like a hater of sinners
169
in your pocket, and soon the Paris Salon
will be gory with the Black Dinner of
the Douglass, or the Execution of Montrose,
and its walls will be the unworthy setting of
some gay scene of courtier and dame, or
perhaps an antiquarian study of the reed
huts that preluded stone and mortar.
But though the Castle may be one's alpha
and omega, there are the full complement
of letters between. Scarcely a bit of the Old
Town but can be made to pose for its portrait:
some steep, converging alley, up which the
sharp-lined shadows move; some reckless
arrangement of chimneys, black with the
" reek " and decrepit with the gales of cen-
turies, leaning trustfully against the sky from
their thirteen-storied pedestals ; or interiors
of faded magnificence where beneath armo-
rial bearings poor folk sup their porridge,
oblivious of the proud past in sordid thought
for the morrow.
Town Councillor, Dean of Guild, or how-
" .SYMSON THE PRINTER'S HOUSE "
BY W. BROWN MACDOUGALL
"QUEEN MARY'S BATH" BY W. BROWN MACDOUGALL
ever the philanthropic Goth names himself, is, of
course, busy here, as elsewhere, making the world
sanitary and unsightly. Everywhere the old
house, its tell-tale face graven with the wrinkles
of time, is vanishing before the new "flat."
Street booths are a thing of the past, and the
hands of lovers clasp no more from projecting
upper stories. But luckily the general style of
building is too solid easily to fall a prey to
" improvements." Most of the masonry is as
sturdy to-day as when it harboured the blue-
blood of Scotland, and the retainers of princes
lounged on the worn flagstones. If walls had
but tongues as well as ears, what tragic historians
they would be ! How weird the love-vows they
would whisper of hearts long ages entombed,
and how thrillingly the drama of the past would
pierce our banal mood !
With material like this all round, you can im-
agine how one's sketch-book gets filled, while, as
regards subjects for larger treatment, the only
trouble is selection. There is the house of
the immortal John Knox, waiting to be made
more immortal still by your brush ! It is a
strong three-storied building, curiously chim-
neyed and gabled. The legend in front runs,
" Lufe God above al, and yovr Mcht-bour as
vi se/f»—of more pacific import than the
face of the Reformer in his stone effigy over
the door. He looks like a hater of sinners
169