center from which Scott's vast influences
radiated. The traditions of Burns overshadowed Southwestern Scotland and
the memories of Scott seem to be indentified with the cities, the
villages, the solitary ruins, the hills and vales of the eastern coast.
We note as we pass along Princess Street, one of the finest
thoroughfares in Britain, the magnificent monument to the great
author--the most majestic tribute ever erected to a literary man--a
graceful Gothic spire, towering two hundred feet into the sky. The city
is full of his memories. Here are many of the places he celebrated in
his stories, his haunts for years, and the house where he retired after
financial disaster to face a self-chosen battle with a gigantic debt
which he might easily have evaded by a mere figment of the law.

However, one can hardly afford to take from a motor tour the time which
should rightly be given to Edinburgh, for the many attractions of the
Athens of the North might well occupy a solid week. Fortunately, a
previous visit by rail two years before had solved the problem for us
and we were fairly familiar with the more salient features of the city.
There is one side-trip that no one should miss, and though we had once
journeyed by railway train to Melrose Abbey and Abbottsford House, we
could not forego a second visit to these famous shrines and to Dryburgh
Abbey, which we had missed before. Thus again we had the opportunity of
contrasting the motor car and the railway train. I remembered distinctly
our former trip to Melrose by rail. It was on a Saturday afternoon
holiday when crowds of trippers were leaving the city, packed in the
uncomfortable compartments like sardines in a box--not one in a dozen
having a chance to sit. We were driven from Melrose to Abbottsford House
at a snail's pace, consuming so much time that a trip to Dryburgh Abbey
was out of the question, though we had left Edinburgh about noon. By
motor, we were out of the city about three o'clock, and though we
covered more than eighty miles, we were back before lamp-lighting time.
The road to Dryburgh Abbey runs nearly due south from Edinburgh, and the
country through which we passed was hardly so prosperous looking as the
northeastern section of Scotland--much of it rather rough-looking
country, adapted only for sheep-grazing and appearing as if it might be
reclaimed moorland.

The tomb of Walter Scott is in Dryburgh Abbey, and with the possible
exception of Melrose it prob