HIS SOCIAL POSITION. 341 



from the National Schools would have been abhorrent to 

 him ; but no limit can be set to the decision with which 

 he would have forbidden the inculcation of distinctive 

 denominational tenets by National schoolmasters. 



Socially his position was fully established. The 

 words of Miss D unbar, that the day was coming when 

 his country's greatest would court his acquaintance, had 

 been literally fulfilled, and there was no circle in Edin- 

 burgh or in London which would not have felt itself 

 honoured by his presence. In the communications 

 addressed to him by men of rank or reputation, it was 

 assumed as a matter of course that his place was among 

 the intellectual aristocracy of his time, and that he was 

 one of those whose acquaintance conferred distinction. 

 Again and again did the Duke of Argyll solicit the 

 honour of a visit from Miller, resting his hope of a 

 favourable reply, not on his own aristocratic birth, but 

 on community of scientific interests and pursuits. The 

 difficulty was to overcome that feeling on the part of 

 Miller which we found himself describing as diffidence, 

 but which is, perhaps, insufficiently characterized by 

 the term; a feeling which partook little of self-dis- 

 trust, and still less of haughty coldness, but consisted 

 principally in a shy and sensitive reserve, a conscious- 

 ness that his mental instruments could work perfectly 

 only in their own placid atmosphere. He was totally 

 devoid of ambition to shine in mixed and fashionable 

 society. On the whole I should say that the word 

 ' shyness ' most correctly describes the quality in Hugh 

 Miller which led him inexorably though courteously 

 to decline invitations like that of the Duke of Argyll. 



He was not a man to have many intimate friends, 

 and few indeed of those whom he knew subsequently to 

 coming to Edinburgh did he take to his heart with that 



