Note 89 — THE BOOK OF THE DEAN OF LISMORE.

Hospitality was one of the highest qualifications of a Celtic chief. Ossian never fails to sing the generous, open-handed hospitality of his father Finn. Till a late period the same feature of character distinguished the Scottish Highlander, although modern civilisation is fast uprooting it, and overlaying the character of the simple Highlander with the selfishness peculiar to itself. Even now, in most part of the Highlands, the door of a hut is never closed by day,—a practice said to originate in the universal sense of the ready reception due to the wayfarer and the stranger. Is the seven sides of Fingal’s house an orientalism?