A Geologic Ramble on the Weald

A CHARACTERISTIC feature of the English landscape, about the time of Easter or Whitsuntide, is the company of rambling naturalists, or, as the proverbial peasant calls them, 14 naturals.” The call of the sportsman is no longer heard in the land ; the sharp crack of the gun and yelp of the hound have made way for these milder invaders of wood and field, who hunt with harmless hammers and magnifying - glasses, and bag only shells, plants, and fossils. The birds and beasts seem to recognize these friendly islanders, and Dame Nature to put on her prettiest frock for them. So, at least, it appeared on a recent holiday, when I had the pleasure of a two days' ramble on the Weald, in Sussex, with the Geological Association. The landscape was in its full glory: every road fringed, every field broidered, with wild flowers ; and the downs and commons were billowy with golden gorse, above which the skylarks ever chanted the song of Shelley, whose notes can never again be detached from theirs. They sang from dawn till evening, and as constantly the contralto of the blackbird responded from the woods. And all this beneath the sky’s blue crystal!

Our company numbered over twoscore, and included several ladies. It was under the joint direction of a local geologist of Hastings (Mr. Peyton) and Mr. Topley, who has gained wide fame by thoroughly mastering the geology of that unique part of England, the Weald, — his book thereon being a standard work. We all took third-class tickets from Charing Cross to Battle; for science is democratic, and no man must be hindered from coming because he was poor. Arrived at Battle, we began at the extreme surface of the Weald, namely, the mansion and picturesque gardens of the Duke of Cleveland. Then we looked over the field of the historic battle of Hastings. From a beautiful paved terrace, where stood Harold and his soldiers, we looked upon a meadow, nearly a mile wide, to the long, elevated ground where the Conqueror and his invading forces entrenched themselves. Half-way between shone the little river which “ ran blood,” its legend preserved through eight centuries by the red color of the iron mingling with the Wealden clay in the beds of such streams. The ferociously pious Norman William vowed to build a great church if he should conquer ; and there where he found the dead body of Harold, and took the fallen standard, he ordered the high altar to be set up. In this royal human sacrifice the Norman cross was planted; the Abbey grew around it, with its many buildings, and remained until Henry VIII. brought a severing channel between Britain and Rome, which wore on to the “ silver streak ” made permanent by the Reformation. The battle of Hastings was the last in which flint weapons were used even by the humblest soldiers ; where they were picked up are now some famous gunpowder mills. The Duchess of Cleveland came out to see us, and ordered that we should be shown not only the shells of the Abbey buildings as Henry VIII. left them, — the refectory, which escaped only because horses might be stabled where the monks were fed, and the kitchen, with lofty marble pillars, — but the ducal mansion, built in modern times behind the lofty and wide gray gateway. In the splendid library are portraits of the duke’s ancestors, charming and refined gentlemen and ladies, who, no doubt, were proud of tracing their pedigree to the victors of Hastings. Looking upon them, I remembered the terse criticism of Emerson : “ Twenty thousand thieves landed at Hastings. These founders of the House of Lords were greedy and ferocious dragoons, sons of greedy and ferocious pirates. They were all alike: they took everything they could carry; they burned, harried, violated, tortured, and killed, until everything English was brought to the verge of ruin. Such, however, is the illusion of antiquity and wealth that decent and dignified men now existing boast their descent from these filthy thieves, who showed a far juster conviction of their own merits by assuming for their types the swine, goat, jackal, leopard, wolf, and snake, which they severally resembled.” To geologists, however, William the Norman and his ferocious fauna are creatures of yesterday ; and when, being called on for a speech at our last dinner together, I quoted Emerson’s estimate, they accepted the description as true, and maintained that the better conqueror was our own William, namely, Mr. Topley, who had scientifically mastered every rock and stratum of that region, and was now leading his unarmed comrades into possession.

Impatient of such contemporary events as the battle of Hastings, our geologists were soon speeding through the country in vans. But once or twice we alighted on the road, and then began to rush frantically through hedges, across ditches and fences, and down steep places, — generally the jaggedest discoverable. Mr. William Topley is unquestionably a great geologist, but as a rural guide for a quiet saunterer I cannot conscientiously recommend him. So far as my experience went, if there was a thorny hedge to be crept through, thither-ward Topley led his flock ; and if a disagreeable lime-pit, Topley was seen in it, inducing others to put themselves into the same position. Of course one may gradually acquire an enthusiasm even for chalk gullies and whitened garments, but at first it seemed to my lay eyes that, though Topley was sometimes a suggestive name for panting climbers to utter, Bottomly would at others have been more appropriate for this last conqueror of Hastings (and, if I may say it without offense, despiser of restings). At one of our sudden disappearances the drivers of our vans gave us up, and drove on and around some miles, with the view of waylaying us on the other side of the woods and ravines in which we seemed lost. To walk would have taken much time, but fortunately we came across an engine connected with the gypsum works of the neighborhood ; it had a truck before and another behind it, which were speedily occupied. And here one might observe how some people, quite familiar with the facts and forces of a myriad years ago, require tuition concerning those of modern locomotion ; the evidence of this being the sooty appearance of those who had entered the open truck immediately behind the engine chimney, when there was room enough for all in the truck which was shoved. The master and workmen at the gypsum works, to which we were carried, were much more polite to the geologists than is usual in similar cases. This may have been partly due to the fact that this same association discovered the existence of gypsum at that point, where it had not before been suspected. The geological enterprise known as the Sub-Wealden Boring was begun in 1872 and continued to 1875, for the purpose of reaching Palæozoic rocks. A hollow bore with sharp saw-edges, whirled round from the top, was sent down into the earth 1905 feet, and a column was brought up in segments of that length. They pierced through calcareous shales (which quarrymen here call “ bastard blues ”) and limestones, and at 125 feet came to gypsum. The gypsum bed was found to be forty-three feet in thickness, of very pure quality. Fragments of the boring are still strewn about. Although it solved an important problem, to be mentioned hereafter, this pin-scratch on the face of the earth failed to probe the Palæozoic rocks, the secondary having been found of unexpected thickness ; but some interesting and obscure specimens of fossil plants and shells were brought up. At a depth of 1769 feet true coralline oölite, seventeen feet thick, was found resting on a bed of “ Oxford clay.”

Geology, never aiming at practical utility, is often surprised at finding itself made useful in the business of the world. Not long ago a landowner sold an estate, with a condition that if coal were found in it he should have half of the yield. Sure enough, the purchaser did find an anthracitic black substance which made excellent fuel, and began to sell it. But it was different from ordinary coal, and he refused to share it with the former landowner. A lawsuit followed, and it was decided against the plaintiff on geological testimony that, though quite as good as coal, it was not technically that substance. Geologists are often asked for opinions as to the probable metalliferous or mineralogical character of certain local strata. Until comparatively recent times the diviner held his place. Of course impostors of this class were driven by failures out of their pretense to discover particular metals and minerals, but they held out long on water, in this moist country. The last divining-rod of which I have heard in this region was exterminated by the ingenious device of a man of science. This diviner used to be paid for discovering the site of water, and it was pretty sure to be found if bored for far enough. Hearing that a credulous farmer was about to employ him, the scientist asked to accompany the search. After they had started, the scientist informed the farmer of the test he intended to apply, under promise of secrecy. He had filled his pockets with bits of a rock not found in that region, and wherever the rod gave a sign he slyly dropped a fragment of the same. When four or five spots had been indicated by the divining-rod, the scientist, feigning a genuine interest, requested the diviner to return on his steps, and point out the water-spots again. The impostor consented, but in each case his rod passed over the previous (marked) spots without a tremor, and indicated adjacent ones. The farmer perceived that the diviner was a humbug, and the superstition migrated to more congenial regions, such as the petroleum wells of America. Except about the gypsum works, however, the peasantry generally seemed to regard us as mild lunatics, kindly guided on an Easter excursion. At one point, where a dozen men were quarrying building-stone, the smiling pity on several of the bronzed faces revealed their potential relationship to classical Joe of Cumberland, who, employed by the “ jolly jist ” to fetch his large bags of precious stones next day to a hotel in the neighboring town, hit upon a plan for lightening his burden : Joe emptied the bags at starting, and refilled them from the turnpike just before reaching his destination. In a subsequent interview Joe remarked, “ I niver owder heard mair of t’ oald jolly jist, but I’ve offen thowte ther mun be parlish few steáns i’ his country, when he was sooa pleas’t at gittin two lāl bags full for ten shillin’, an’ sec a breakfast as that au’. It wad be a faymish job if fadder could sell o’ t’ steáns iv oor fell at five shillin’ a pwokeful, wad n’t it?”

At Battle, after a good dinner, paid for round the table, the party divided : some remaining to pass the night at the George, the rest going on to sleep at Hastings. At an early hour next morning we were all on Hastings beach, near by the old castle, whose chief interest lay in a certain geologic “ fault,” which its builders had utilized in completing their entrenchment. Here were groups, gazed upon by boatmen and fishermen with silent wonder, going about chipping rocks, examining shingle, gesticulating at the high cliff. Some girls and boys, whose white legs were shining in the surf, came out and hastened after us, scrutinizing the mysterious rocks which had been hammered. At the bottom of the cliff was a rock on which the waves of opposing ancient seas, striving like Norman and Saxon, had left their battle monument in the form of beautiful diamond-carvings. The children, following our eyes, discovered the wave-marks, and hastened over to the rock, sixty yards distant; but the sight which needed that perspective was gone, and mere roughnesses rewarded their search for reality beneath the beauty. Having climbed one hundred and fifty feet to the top of the cliff, we all reclined on its edge, to rest a little in the warm sunshine. We knew as little of the sanctity of the spot we were on as its geologic value was known to the nut-brown nymph of the place who confronted us. This sun-tanned beauty of seventeen came, with the usual gypsy tone, begging that we would buy photographs of Dripping Well, Ecclesbourne Glen, Lovers’ Seat. “ What is Lovers’ Seat ? ” inquired our chorus (rather younger than that of the Greeks). “ I ’ll tell you! ” she cried, and, sure-footed as a chamois, she leaped upon a rock overhanging the perilous precipice, and began her sing-song but not unmusical recital, in a hereditary tone which suggested that the same story might have been told there as long as the waves had beaten on the shingle. “ There were two lovers,” —so ran her runic romance. “ The lady’s name was Elizabeth Boys, and the gentleman’s Captain Charles Lamb, whose father was a timber merchant living at Rye, and ’er father a very rich country gentleman living at ’Awk’urst, Kent, who sent her to Fairlight place because he should not visit her. So one evening she was taking a walk on the top of this cliff, and waving a ’andkerchief to make known she was there. Captain Charles Lamb saw the signal, came on shore, and they met on the Lovers’ Seat. They kept meeting there for some time, and then got married at St. Clements Danes, in the Strand. After that he left his majesty’s service, and joined a pleasure yacht, and went cruising about the Isle of White. One very rough day, while steering the yacht, he was washed overboard and drowned. She was so brokenhearted she went back to her father, who would not ’ave hanything to say to her because she disobeyed him ; so she came to this place, stretched out both ’er harms, and gave a great leap from the rocks so ’igh to the sea so deep, saying, —

Instead of that a branch of a tree caught her, and that saved her life. The captain of the revenue cutter, who took her ’usbun’s place, saw her jump ; he ordered the men to lower the boat, and take ’er hoff. She was so grateful to the captain that they were married, and ’ad a large fam’ly, and lived ’appy ever hafter. And that ’appened in 1786, and that’s the true history of Lover’s Seat.” When the girl came to the lines of poetry and the wiggle-waggling shrimps, her voice quivered with emotion, and she felt after a handkerchief, which, no doubt for good reasons, was not forthcoming, and altogether was dramatic enough to obtain a considerable lot of pennies. The story has been evolved to get pennies. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Lamb, after her elopement, died before her husband, at the birth of her first child, a daughter, who married a clergyman named Ferris. How many myths of greater dignity began their development in minstrelsy inspired by penny-wisdom !

Descending to the beach we came to a good point for observation, and all sat down on the shingle. Dr. Busk and his daughters, who were staying at Hastings, Professor Tydemann, of the Geological Coast Survey, and some others had joined us, and we were now about fifty in all. Here, with a vast sweep of the curved cliffs in full view, we were to hear from Mr. Topley the full story of the Weald. Several persons, who had seen us in the distance, probably imagined us a company of the Salvation Army, and approached us ; but when they saw the outstretched maps, and heard some sentences of the sermon Topley was finding in stones, they retreated in a double-quick that did credit to Salvationist drilling. From his rock this clear-headed man, whose eye “ of large discourse ” seemed to have been evolved for geoscopic work, and whose mind had become a spiritual organ of the wonderful Weald, spoke to us for nearly an hour. No poem written in our time could surpass the sublimity of the history told in his simple speech.

The characteristic Wealden beds are, briefly, as follows : (1.) The Wadhurst clay, consisting of clay and shale about one hundred and twenty feet in thickness ; near the bottom, sand and sandstone, and then calcareous sandstone, with nodules of clay ironstone, and a band containing the tiny shell cyrena. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries this was the chief seat of the iron trade, but the last furnace was given up in 1828. (2.) The Ashdown sand, from three hundred and fifty to four hundred feet in thickness. This rocksand makes an important feature of the Hastings cliff; and about thirty feet from the top of it there is a bed of shale, twenty-five feet thick, named after the delicate little vegetable fossil found in it, endogenites erosa. (3.) The Fairlight clay, consisting of mottled clays, sands, and sandstones, over three hundred and fifty feet in thickness. (4.) The Purbeck beds, composed chiefly of shales with two series of limestone beds together four hundred feet in thickness. (Early in this century these Purbeck beds were extensively worked for lime ; but they have been abandoned because it is more economical to carry chalk-lime by railway.) Although, as has been said, the Sub-Wealden Boring failed of its main object (reaching the Palæozoic rocks), it revealed the fact that these Purbeck beds were not, as had been supposed, representatives of the true Wealden beds, but contained fossils not found in the others, namely, marine and brackish-water shells.

When that International Geological Commission, of which Mr. Topley is a member, has determined on a common terminology, the names just used may cease to be dry bones even for the lay apprehension; but the wonderful history that is in them will require more than scientific interpretation. As I lay on the shingle, listening to graphic descriptions of hills no longer existing, and rivers no longer flowing, I recalled one charmed summer day in the porch of Craigie House, when Agassiz was trying to persuade “ the sweet singer ” that he should become minstrel of the mighty forests primeval, which existed before any Evangeline, even anthropoid, wandered through them. Agassiz, beginning with laughter, became so unconsciously poetical that he had to defend himself against a demand in return to write the coming epic himself. It is perfectly true that one who should thoroughly explore this Wealden realm would find himself in the presence of conceptions whose vastness and sublimity provincialize the imaginary shapes of Dante and Milton. The eye beholds a mighty ocean, and even while it looks the ocean dries up and disappears, leaving its record in vast deposits hardened into rocks. A continent rises, is covered with plants and animals ; and now a great lake forms over it ; then the whole of it sinks, and again an ocean flows over all; presently once more the land emerges, to be denuded by the sea, planed by glaciers, and worn by rains, till every page in its history is laid bare.

On our first day inland, yet within sight of the sea, and amid manifold manifestations of the sea’s mad work up there, hundreds of feet above the sea level, we had all gathered bits of rocks studded with fresh-water shells. These fresh-water shells, found thickly overspreading a region two hundred by eighty miles, define geologically the Weald (Wald or Wold) of England. Similar fresh-water fossils (such as the tiny cyrena) you gather on the cliffs overhanging Hastings, and still they are framed amid clear traces of the working of the salt sea. And these fossils are the witnesses whose wondrous testimony concerning the shaping of the earth were rehearsed by their best interpreter, and opened vistas before the mind’s eye which made all conventional cosmogonies trivial.

On the coast of Hanover the same kinds of fresh-water fossils are found, and their path, many miles wide, may be traced far away into the depths of Germany. The other point on the continent where they appear is on the cliffs of Boulogne, and their wide bed stretches toward the south of France. In neither of these countries is there any river near the track of these freshwater shells, but plenty of traces of marine action. Yet long before any Channel had severed England from the Continent, two rivers, as large as the Rhine, flowed northward from France and Germany, and united to form a vast estuary or lake, whose bed is now known as the Weald. Since then the whole of this region has been submerged ; it became the bed of the sea, and over these freshwater deposits were piled up sands and chalks a mile thick. The earth itself rose and fell in tides, each of which must have required millions of years for its flowing or ebbing. From beneath the sea England emerged by immeasurably slow degrees, and as it did so the surf sawed and planed the cretaceous mass, even as it now undermines these white cliffs around us, and has compelled yon light-house to retreat thrice before its encroachments. Still rose the land formed under the sea, steadily went on its denudation, until at length was laid bare again these longentombed fresh-water forms of the estuary that had stood here in the unimaginable past. In regions around are the bones of wolves, elephants, bears, and other animals, which freely roamed to this part of the continent, but when severed by the sea from the mainland could not find here a habitat. There was no Channel tunnel; the winter was not so mild as this ; there was nobody to pity and shelter the poor Jumbos of that era: so they perished, many of them, it would seem, huddling in caves, where their teeth are found, the most lasting bone of every animal.

England is now again sinking under the sea. On the beach at Hastings one may see at low water remains of a submerged forest, — trunks of oak, yew, hazel. Bede records the great “ seaflood ” of 1014. In the Rye Records of this region is written, “ Be it remembered that in the year of Our Lord 1287, in the evening of St. Agath the Virgin, was the town of Winchelsea drowned, and all the lands between Climesden and the vocher of Hythe.” The high tides which submerged this forest still come, but they no longer find helpless animals or populations ; they beat against groins of stone. This lump of chalk called England will scratch many a black-board before it melts in the sea. There is something strangely mystical in the appearance of the great downs spreading inland from the white chalk cliffs which gave its name to Albion. They are like vast billows rising to their crests. They have a long gradual slope on one (and the same) side, and on the other a precipitous inward curved escarpment. The effect is that of a sea that has been suddenly solidified. And down on the beach the small rocks are found with similar incline on one side, and escarpment on the other. The high downs will be laid low some day; but to those who think in geologic time the placard of “ Danger,” set on the cliff’s edge, appeals to generations some millions of years ahead.

The majority of eyes that come to the seaside during the holidays are not bent upon geologic or other vistas. Of this fact I have just been reminded by the following effusion of a rambling Cantab, headed Morn by the Seaside: —

Were I writing for the Summer School of Philosophy at Concord, I should not despair of showing that the sonnet just quoted is a little shell characteristic of the last stratum of England, disclosing the transcendental effect of the Channel which severed this land from the continent. Cliff’s ever fortified against the sea produce a nation ever fortifying itself against the fluctuating world : this insular conservatism develops an insular genius, whose imagination rises only to its marine escarpment; and this large, general feature of English thought is represented in such small escarpments as the rheumatism which arrested my Cantab’s flight to Olympus. Q. E. D. The opposition of this nation to the Channel tunnel began a thousand years ago, when these people on the coast began to defend their cliffs from the sea, took a further step when they tried to beat back the Norman, and a longer step when they developed their conquerors into islanders like themselves. At the end of the series we find English genius, however bold and beautiful, rarely able completely to humanize itself. It is hardly able to follow a worldideal which turns English institutions into a detail. There are exceptions: Byron, Shelley, and some others escaped insularity by banishment ; Browning has measurably escaped by aid of Shelley and Italy; Swinburne, by a little French revolution of his own; and Dante Rossetti, by the loyalty of his Italian blood to the great Florentine seer, whose name he so worthily bore. But to the average English intellect all these cosmopolitan men are more or less failures. The song that wins the heart of England must be high and grand indeed, but it must terminate in “ God save the Queen,” or else wait until the waves of time have submerged the limits it does not respect.

A little way from here is a castle, associated in my mind with the man who, of all others that ever lived, illustrates the capacity and the limitations of the genius of this nation. It is Hurstmonceaux Castle, and the man I mean is Carlyle. This place, the ancient lordship and estate of Godwin, Earl of Kent, embattled by Sir Roger Fynes in Henry the Sixth’s time, passed on to be the inheritance of the late Archdeacon Hare. John Sterling, who had traveled with Hare in Germany, was appointed by him rector of Hurstmonceaux, and in June, 1834, entered upon his work. But, meanwhile, the master seated invisibly within Sterling was Carlyle. No doubt it was through him that the Hares also became warm friends of Carlyle. I have before me a charming letter written by Carlyle, which, as it has never been published, I may well insert here. It was written to Archdeacon Hare.

CHELSEA, December 20, 1840.

MY DEAR SIR, — Many thanks for the pamphlet and kind letter which have reached me this morning. In the former, as I glance over it, I already discover many things to be glad of; the latter is wholly a glad, welcome thing. We have an honorable printed “ Charge ” to the spiritual troops under your captaincy ; and then the written Charge to a poor non-soldado (alas!) of the guerrilla or moss - trooper species, — who hopes, nevertheless, that he perhaps fights on your side, too!

My expedition into Sussex grows ever the pleasanter to look back upon. It was transacted, as most of my journeys are, in a strange, preternatural humor, the fruit of sleeplessness, excitability, and nerves all torn to pieces ; so that the whole world looks to one, like what it partly is, a spectral vision, proscenium to Hades, and hardly differing in quality from that! Months after, this and the other clear, living figure, clear, beautiful scene, dawns out on you in quiet visibility of fact, all the lovelier for such environment. Uckfield, Cuckfield, Mayfield, Maresfield, — all these fields and strange, blue-green, sunny, shady places are henceforth portion of my private picture-gallery.

That you ask me back to Hurstmonceaux is very gratifying to me. Why should I not say to myself, Yes, this too is possible one day ? Your “ inhospitality ” remains forever memorable to me ; how I plumped in upon you, weary, out of the waste-howling labyrinthic night, and found — one waiting to devour me ! There are few things beautifuller in the world and its wayfarings than the like of that.

For several months past I sit here, perdu, in a little back room, sunk to the ears, or almost deeper, in Cromwelliana, Laudisms, Covenanterisms, — the dullest, dreadfullest stuff I ever engaged with in this world. The vapidest Moniteur of the French Year One was Homeric in comparison with these “ continents of cinders.” Ah me, aus dem wird Nichts, — except one’s own deliverance from it by and by ! Hurstmonceaux has no books on this subject. I find it difficult to get books ; and then wish almost it had been impossible.

Darley was here not very long since, but saw only my wife. He speaks of Hurstmonceaux as of Eldorado. Milnes¹ passed along towards France two weeks ago; he looks happier than ever, and even threatens to grow fat, — fatter than bard beseems. We hear occasionally of Sterling. I think of late years I have noticed a book lying in him, occasioning various pains and phenomena. Lucina be good to him, poor fellow !

Did you see a “ tragedy,” by Mrs. Gore, called Dacre of the South,² or some such thing, the scene of which is your castle, Hurstmonceaux ? It has nothing else remarkable. We are overrun with dramas at present, or “legitimate dramars,” as most of the authors call them here.

Will you commend me in all kindness of remembrance to your fair sister, begging for me some reciprocity, if that he possible.

All lies bound in its winding-sheet of ice and snow, and gray, moaning skies. Strange to think that the sun and the everlasting blue do exist and shine above it all!

Good be with you, in all senses of that word. Yours very truly,

T. CARLYLE.

So sweet were Carlyle’s relations with the clergyman with whom he was subsequently to contend for the dead body of Sterling! For the rest, the whole life formation of Carlyle is in this letter in miniature, — its gentle flowery slopes, its sharp, wild escarpments. Here is the intellectual mosstrooper equipped for heroic fight, but with no side yet to fight on short of the cold battle-fields of Cromwell and Laud, spectral as the phantoms of William and Harold beside him and Sterling, as they walked these cliffs, pondering problems of the universe. From his continents of cinders he must look to the bright castle halls and their happy circles, unhaunted by any demons of doubt, and as they cheerily beckoned him answer, “Yes, this too is possible one day!” But alas, when the day came the heart for it was gone. He sat in the aristocratic mansion beside the Mediterranean, his window overlooking groves of the orange and olive, able to see only one grave in a ruined abbey of Scotland, and a cold winding-sheet shrouding everything. An icier winding-sheet now wraps the memory of Carlyle; gray, moaning skies bend over the grave of his fame. It may be “ strange to think that the sun and the everlasting blue do exist and shine above it all,” yet so do I for one think and believe. It requires a long time to take in Jungfrau as a whole. Its silvery frettings, as seen from a distance, turn, when approached, to blanched desolations ; its precipices are perilous, its avalanches remorseless ; its brow is for the most part clouded. But down its sides forever flow cloud-distilled streams, that feed the meadows and flowers beneath ; and they who climb and patiently wait shall find the cloud part at the summit, commanding vistas of eternal beauty. And yet do I believe that while, as from this summit, the populations of the plains seem pigmies, even those on the hillocks small, there can be most clearly defined among them a Scottish peasant, who never outgrew his first rude home and village, whose heart never ascended with his intellect, and whose life will remain the most salient revelation of the spiritual prison-walls corresponding with these outlines of Britain. And this peasant is Carlyle himself, whose heart never left the village and the kirk where he lies buried, and whose joy was consumed like the moth of his own poem in the flame of his own genius. But the tender mythopœic processes of man will gradually raise Carlyle’s heart into harmony with his genius. When his intellectual negations and new affirmations, under which he groaned, have become invested with the religious sentiment and adorned by art, and the “ survivals ” he clung to fully fossilized, then these confused records of his life will be recombined. The small prejudices, ignorant judgments, and inherited heart superstitions of the individual Scotchman will be discharged by crystallization of the man. Many hearts and thoughts of men and women will add what he lacked, and he will become as heroic a figure as any he ever worshiped. But he will not be worshiped ; for in death he has released men from the illusions of his life. The end of the prophet of hero-worship has been to prove to the world that heroes are creations of their worshipers. Critical investigation knows the same to be true about all his heroes, save him who named England’s highest cliff. The greatest man was he of whom we know least; he left no “ reminiscences,” but said, “ Sweet friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear ! ”

Just as I had written these last words, a charming book reached me, A Poet’s Harvest Home, by William Bell Scott, — one of Emerson’s friends, — in which is the following : —

HERO-WORSHIP.

But I have rambled far from my scientific friends. The last I saw of them was when we all gathered at Hastings for our final dinner together, and thereafter made speeches of mutual felicitation on the good weather and the general success of our excursion. The rambles now ended, the scientists gave signs of hilarity such as might have justified Cumberland Joe’s word, “jolly jists.” We closed the day with a generous old-fashioned English dinner, enjoying which an invited guest, though not a scientific enthusiast, remarked, “ If this is geology, I like it! ” Our worthy host of Green’s Inn, who had done his very best for the large company, caught this remark, and it relieved him ; for he was mystified, and his face had grown a little red, as he had heard round the table such words as “ false beddings,” “ faults,” “ denudations,” and “ pudding stones.” The beds of his inn were faultless ; and the pudding contained no stones, but honest steak and kidneys. In the end the last trace of anxiety was cleared from his brow by fit compliments. In the evening, billiard tables were in requisition ; theatres were filled with unaccustomed faces ; and the splendid baths of Hastings were occupied by expert swimmers. Bright and early next morning we were all on the way to London. But could it be on the same railway as that by which we came? The return ticket said so, and the stations bore the same names ; yet to the eyes of one among the ramblers the landscape appeared to have suffered a seachange into something rich and strange : glaciers moved along the valleys, surf was sawing at the hill-tops, and over the bright mansions and spires of Tunbridge Wells had spread a vast translucent lake!

M. D. Conway.