A heroic Wallace, quartered on the scaffold, cannot hinder that his Scotland become, one day, a part of England: but he does hinder that it become, on tyrannous unfair terms, a part of it; commands still, as with a god's voice, from his old Valhalla and Temple of the Brave, that there be a just real union as of brother and brother, not a false and merely semblant one as of slave and master.

If the union with England be in fact one of Scotland's chief blessings, we thank Wallace withal that it was not the chief curse.

Scotland is not Ireland: no, because brave men rose there, and said, "Behold, ye must not tread us down like slaves; and ye shall not,--and cannot!" Fight on, thou brave true heart, and falter not, through dark fortune and through bright.

The cause thou fightest for, so far as it is true, no farther, yet precisely so far, is very sure of victory.

The falsehood alone of it will be conquered, will be abolished, as it ought to be: but the truth of it is part of Nature's own Laws, cooperates with the World's eternal Tendencies, and cannot be conquered.
The _dust_ of controversy, what is it but the _falsehood_ flying off from all manner of conflicting true forces, and making such a loud dust-whirlwind,--that so the truths alone may remain, and embrace brother-like in some true resulting-force! It is ever so.