HOME LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE. 339 



Bible (so I say in Tenth Conversation, written in 1855). I 

 regard those chapters as I should a magnificent overture to a 

 grand opera. They open up the mind to great conceptions of 

 the glory and power of the Creator, but I never (since long ago, 

 baby days) looked on them as a literal history of what took 

 place. Creation is one of those deep things of God too far 

 sunk into the fathomless sea to be seen by man, or understood 

 or made plain by revelation to his language or senses. Now 

 and then we catch a flash of light from some half-revealed truth 

 out of the depths, and then 'tis gone again. (I think now of 

 those large luminous creatures that you see in the tropical sea, 

 flashing under the ship many fathoms below you, " fair as the 

 moon," and quite as apparently large.) But to speak of the 

 days of creation and what occurred on each day (as if we heard 

 the ticking of the dial-plate of time, and could watch the hands 

 slowly moving round), I think no more rational than it would 

 be to try and discover to ivhat music it was that the " morning 

 stars sang together." Let us by all means have the literal 

 interpretation of the text. Let us rejoice in any light it throws 

 on subjects that no language can express, and no brain of man 

 conceive; but there let us cease, and turn to Haydn's music. 

 So think I, and you will put me down as a heretic dreamer, and 



hand me over to the and , i.e., to the ingle-nook. 



You know who sits there ? " Riving sticks to roast the Duke," 

 as Burns has it. " My dear," says Wolff, " Dr. Harvey eats dust 

 (a nasty fellow) like the rattlesnake." Dr. H. replies, " True, 

 Master W., and you shake your rattle (like a child)." 



Now for Dr. Gatty. I have his letters about the lecture, and 

 of course I could not go before October ; I should hardly like 



coming close after (a popgun after an Armstrong battery). 



I am a very rumbly-tumbly speaker' without a particle of 

 eloquence. What little fancy I have flows only from my pen. 



