124 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



seemed dense purple clouds, which, though motionless 

 in the calm, the first sea-breeze might sweep away. 

 Towards the south my eye was caught by two gigantic 

 mountains, which, as if emulous of each other, towered 

 above the rest, like the contending chiefs of a divided 

 people ; while towards the east I beheld a scene of terri- 

 ble ruin and sublime disorder, mountain piled upon 

 mountain, and ravine intersecting ravine. All my 

 faculties of reason and imagination seemed at first as if 

 frustrated and held down by some superior power ; the 

 magnitude of the scene oppressed me ; I felt as if in 

 the presence of the Spirit of the Universe ; and the 

 apology of the Jewish spies recurred to me, " We were 

 as grasshoppers before them." ; 



This was written when Miller was twenty-seven. 

 It is remarkable for the absence of all geological allu- 

 sion, and for the strong human element in the imagery. 

 When he had lived for another quarter of a century he 

 again described the scene, and the pencil is now in the 

 firm hand of a master. But so completely has the geo- 

 logical interest taken possession of him that he throws it 

 back into a period prior to that at which it exerted any 

 powerful influence upon his mind, and makes the imagin- 

 ative boy of twenty look through the eyes of the scien- 

 tific man of fifty. Here is the scene as he rendered it 

 for the last time : 



' How exquisitely the sun sets in a clear, calm sum- 

 mer evening over the blue Hebrides ! Within less than 

 a mile of our barrack there rose a tall hill, whose bold 

 summit commanded all the Western Isles, from Sleat in 

 Skye, to the Butt of the Lewis. To the south lay the 

 trap islands ; to the north and west the gneiss ones. 

 They formed, however, seen from this hill, one great 

 group, which, just as the sun had sunk, and sea and sky 



