LANCE CORPORAL ARTHUR MCDONALD LAWRIE BARRIE
CAMERON HIGHLANDERS
3RD JULY 1917 AGE 20
BURIED: BRANDHOEK MILITARY CEMETERY, FRANCE
This inscription has the ring of Braveheart about it, and strangely enough it turns out to have a connection with William Wallace. The phrase appears in Book One of the Scottish philosopher and writer Thomas Carlyle's Past and Present:
"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."
However, like many of the inscriptions in this project, the person who chose it, in this case Arthur Barrie's mother, could have been completely unaware of the connection. The phrase was popularly in use to describe historical figures, for example Abraham Lincoln, or heroes in romantic novels. But, the Scottish connection is very strong in the family of Edinburgh based Arthur McDonald Lawrie Barrie, who served and died in the Cameron Highlanders, that I have a feeling that perhaps Mrs Barrie did know her Carlyle.