Scotch Beauties.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1866, 21 June 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

Scotch Beauties.

Tbbt are a wiry and hard-enduring rather than a musoularly massive race, though here and there the Scandinavian physique isfound to prevail. In the island o! Lewis it is odd to note how in the north, where the names of the villages and mountains have Norse terminations (host and bhal), the population is of the stalwart tall, fair-haired, Scandinavian type, while the smaller, black-haired or red haired Celt occupies the southern half of the island, in which the names of the streams and mountains and lakes are exclusively Celtic. The handsomest man I have ever seen was a boatman on the west of Skye, the calm and serene dignity of whose face seemed more suggestive of Leonardo da Vinoi than of herring fishing ; and the handsomest woman I ever caw was a young married lady who, some years ago, happened to be travelling in the Clansman, and whose gently modulated English indicated an Inverness origin. When a Highland girl, even of the peasant class, is pretty (and the phenomenon is not of very rare occurrence,) the prettiness is of a refined and intellectual type ; the forehead high, the eyes clear, full and contemplative, the mouth fine, and the expression of the face gentle and yet firm. Wordsworth never forgot the beauty of the Highland girl he saw at Inversnaid. Indeed, it is said he had to recur to that fount of inspiration when he wished to pay a poetical compliment to his wife. For the rest, the way in which an educated Highland young lady speaks "English is one of the most delightful thingsr in the vrorld, though no doubt she would be very much surprised, and even indignant, if she were told she had any accent at all. — William Black, in Harper's Magazine.