IT is difficult for one nation to perfectly understand another, and there is a certain quality of the Scots' intellect which is apt to try the patience of an Englishman. It is said that an Englishman was once so exasperated by the arguing by a Scot, who took the opposite side on every subject from the weather to politics, that at last he cried out in despair: “You will admit at least that two and two make four,” to which the delighted Scot replied with celerity, “I'll admit naething, but I'm willing to argue the proposition.” It is not recorded whether the Scot escaped alive, but it is hardly possible to believe that he was not assaulted. You may be the most conciliatory of people, and may even be cleansed from all positive opinions--one of those people who are said to be agreeable because they agree with everybody; and yet a thoroughbred Scot will in ten minutes or less have you into a tangle of prickly arguments, and hold you at his mercy, although afterwards you cannot remember how you were drawn from the main road into the bramble patch, and you are sure that the only result was the destruction of your peace of mind for an afternoon. But the Scot enjoyed himself immensely, and goes on with keen zest to ambush some other passenger. What evil spirit of logic has possessed this race? an English person cannot help complaining, and why should any person find his pleasure in wordy debate? From his side of the Tweed and of human nature the Scot is puzzled and pained by the inconsequence and opportunism of the English mind. After a Scot, for instance, has proved to his Southern opponent that some institution is absolutely illogical, that it ought never to have existed, and ought at once to be abolished, and after the Scot pursuing his victorious way of pure reason, has almost persuaded himself that a thing so absurd never has existed, the Englishman, who has been very much bored by the elaborate argument, will ask with a monstrous callousness whether the institution does not work well, and put forward with brazen effrontery the plea that if an institution works well, it does not matter whether it be logical or not. Then it is that a Scot will look at an Englishman in mournful silence and wonder upon what principle he was created. The traveller no sooner crosses the border from the genial and irresponsible South than he finds himself in a land where a nation forms one huge debating society, and there is a note of interrogation in the very accent of speech. When an English tourist asked his driver what was the reason of so many religious denominations in Scotland, and the driver, looking down upon a village with six different kirks, answered, “Juist bad temper, naething else,” he was indulging his cynicism and knew very well that he was misinforming the stranger.