LITERARY STYLE 279 



experience of a single individual can count for little 

 in an estimate of this kind ; but for what it may 

 be worth, I gladly avail myself of this opportunity 

 to state mine. It was Hugh Miller's Old Red Sandstone 

 that first revealed to me the ancient history that might 

 lie concealed in the hills around me, and the meanings 

 that might be hidden in the commonest stones beneath 

 my feet. I had been interested in such objects, as 

 boys are apt to be who spend much of their time 

 in the open country. But it was that book which 

 set me on the path of intelligent inquiry. And this 

 experience must doubtless have been shared by many 

 thousands of his readers, who never saw his living 

 face and who never became geologists. 



I have alluded to the excellence of his literary style 

 — a characteristic which unfortunately is only too rare 

 among writers in science. There can be little doubt 

 that this feature of his work will constitute one of 

 its claims to perpetual recognition. His early and 

 wide acquaintance with our literature enabled him to 

 intersperse through his pages many an apposite quota- 

 tion and felicitous allusion. He had set before himself 

 as models the best prose writers of the previous 

 century, and the influence of Goldsmith upon him is 

 especially notable. He thus acquired the command 

 of pure, idiomatic and forcible language, wherein to 

 clothe the arguments which he wished to enforce, to 

 describe the landscapes which had imprinted them- 

 selves like photographs on his memory, and to present 

 restorations of ancient lands and seas which his poetic 

 temperament and powerful imagination called up be- 

 fore his eyes. Moreover, he had a keen sense of 



