The little white rose of Scotland which smells sharp and sweet and breaks the heart

As part of its rather odd Call Yourself British campaign The Daily Telegraph has sent the novelist Andrew O’Hagan to tour the country and take its temperature. There’ll be plenty to say about this over the next few days. But, beginning in Edinburgh, O’Hagan writes:

Despite the work of centuries, an intellectual Enlightenment, an Industrial Revolution, the formation and decline of Empire, and two world wars, Scotland still feels nervous of its relationship with England, the same nervousness that Defoe objected to and hoped might     have come to an end as he walked up the High Street in the 1720s. But to make that journey today is to fall into step with the revival of an old song: when will the Union be over? I arrived in Edinburgh with what might be called a natural resistance to the conditions of that song. Britain is a small series of islands; we have achieved much together; and to be a unity, while retaining our distinctive character, seems to me a beautiful idea.