ix.] THE SAVAGE A CHILD. 213 



as a boy were the stones which St. Kevern threw 

 after St. Just when the latter stole his host's chalice 

 and paten, and ran away with them to the Land's End. 

 Why not ? Before we knew anything about the action 

 of icebergs and glaciers, that is, until the last eighty 

 years, that was as good a story as any other ; while 

 how lifelike these boulders are., let a great poet 

 testify ; for the fact has not escaped the delicate eye 

 of Wordsworth : 



As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie 

 Couched on the bald top of an eminence ; 

 Wonder to all who do the same espy, 

 By what means it could thither come, and whence, 

 So that it seems a thing endued with sense; 

 Like a sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf 

 Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself. 



To the civilised poet, the fancy becomes a beautiful 

 simile ; to a savage poet, it would have become a ma- 

 terial and a very formidable fact. He stands in the 

 valley, and looks up at the boulder on the far-off fells. 

 He is puzzled by it. He fears it. At last he makes 

 up his mind. It is alive. As the shadows move over 

 it, he sees it move. May it not sleep there all day, and 

 prowl for prey all night ? He had been always afraid 

 of going up those fells ; now he will never go. There 

 is a monster there. 



Childish enough, no doubt. But remember that the 

 savage is always a child. So, indeed, are millions, as 

 well clothed, housed, and policed as ourselves children 

 from the cradle to the grave. But of them I do not 

 talk ; because, happily for the world, their childishness 

 is so overlaid by the result of other men's manhood ; 



