36 THE BOY. 



evening, almost every meteoric tint of anger, from fiery 

 red to a sombre thundrous brown, and from sombre 

 brown to doleful black/ 



All these things were seen by Hugh Miller as he 

 stood on the threshold of the cave, or looked out from 

 within through its rock-hewn telescope ; but it was not 

 the Hugh Miller of twelve years who saw them ; it was 

 the Hugh Miller of fifty who was transported by imagin- 

 ation to stand again in the entrance of the cave, or 

 gaze again from its interior, and to see ' what the eye 

 brought with it the means of seeing/ It was as if 

 Turner at fifty had taken it into his head to paint the 

 first sunset on which he had looked with boyish delight, 

 and in so doing had thrown upon the canvas the science 

 and subtlety of a life spent in the observation of nature. 



