56 MEMORIAL TRIBUTE 



have been a profound lover of Nature in its largest 

 sense. In clear, nervous prose it reveals a fine poetic 

 vein. He uses his word -palette like a landscape 

 painter. There are passages in this book which for 

 splendid yet sober description will compare not un- 

 favourably with some of the finest passages in Modern 

 Painters, and it must be remembered that Mac- 

 Gillivray's book was written, though not published, 

 before Ruskin had surprised the world. Take, for 

 instance, MacGillivray's splendid apostrophe to the 

 upper reach of the Dee as seen from the old bridge 

 at Invercauld, or his word-picture of the sunset over 

 the moor of Glen-Gairn, or, again, for the effect of 

 sound to which MacGillivray was peculiarly sensitive, 

 listen to a wind -storm raging among the pines of 

 Beallach Bhui, or, greatest of all, to the echoing and 

 re-echoing of the peals of thunder in the corries of 

 Ben Muick Dhui. In these numerous passages Mac- 

 Gillivray tells us that his descriptions were written in 

 his note-book on the spot and at the moment, quick 

 and vivid, thus showing his truly artistic spirit and 

 his impressionable nature. In his drawings for the 

 book we can see also how completely he combined 

 his geological knowledge with a painter's feeling. In 

 the very last words which flowed from his pen, at 

 the close of his fine preface, he describes his ideal 

 naturalist when he says "If the Valley of the Dee 

 has many a time been traversed by the wise and the 

 learned, the man of science and the man of wit, the 

 poet, the painter, and the tourist, it is equally in- 



