To Mountain Tarn 



a less interesting mode, and with a change of one 

 of the combatants. We hide it from others by a 

 sort of common understanding ; and from our- 

 selves because we would rather feel virtuous. 



While we settle our differences with our fellow 

 carnivores, the ungulates are not spared. They 

 can have no opinion to offer in favour of the 

 change. It can make very little difference to 

 them who eats, so long as they are eaten. An 

 Englishman dearly loves his dinner. A Scots- 

 man does not like to be without. It is our 

 infirmity. We all eat. There is no harm. We 

 were made that way. We should all be less open 

 to criticism if we did not strike an attitude ; and 

 compound for the sins of our mouth by the length 

 of our face. In the rough-and-tumble past, we 

 have somehow come out at the top. Had we 

 been under, we might have seen from another 

 point of view. The advantage of a little imagina- 

 tion is, that it helps us to see ourselves from the 

 outside. 



One, well known in London, got into a by- 

 path in Scotland. When wending his way up a 

 Highland glen he chanced to meet strange cattle 

 long-horned, shaggy- coated, some dun-coloured, 

 like the evening light along the slope of the hills, 

 some wan as a stormy gleam on the loch. They 

 were such as Rosa Bonheur would have delighted 

 to paint. To her, they would have been wel- 

 come, and looked friendly. In her, they would 



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