The Rambles of an Idler 



faith on the extraordinarily learned; for, oc- 

 casionally, it has proved that, like the unco' 

 good, they fail us when we least expect it. This 

 feeling has no reference to learning or good- 

 ness per se; but the fallibility of humanity 

 must never be a forgotten factor. Knowledge 

 in excess of our own magnifies its possessor; 

 and we measure his strength by the exagger- 

 ated outlines of this supposed giant. But, 

 when the hour of test comes, and, eager to 

 profit by reason of his superior knowledge, we 

 are all expectation, how grievously disappointed 

 we may find ourselves at its close if not long 

 before the interview is ended ! 



Geologists are given to coming this way, at 

 times, and, with a majestic sweep of the hand 

 and piercing glance of the eye, tell us, in terms 

 too clear to be misconstrued, what we already 

 know; or else inform us, with scarcely less em- 

 phasis, what we know to be not true. It may be 

 easy to read the riddle of the rocks ; but here we 

 have only sand and gravel, and of the floods 

 and local cataclysms that arranged and re-ar- 

 ranged it all, and the intervening periods of 

 quiescence when the sun baked the mud, and, 

 again reduced it to sand and water, perhaps 



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