His views have not been stationary.  To his old scorn for the idle of the earth had succeeded the surprise that overtook him at Balloch:  and he would now hold to his creed, yet not as rejecting his experience.  Some, he says, were made for use; others for ornament; but let these be so made, of a truth, and not such as find themselves merely thrust into exemption from labor.  Let each know his place, and take it, “For it is beautiful only to do the thing we are meant for.”  And of his friend urging Providence he can only, while answering that doubtless he must be in the right, ask where the limit comes between circumstance and Providence, and can but wish for a great cause, and the trumpet that should call him to God’s battle, whereas he sees

  “Only infinite jumble and mess and dislocation,
  Backed by a solemn appeal, ‘For God’s sake, do not stir there.’”
  And the year is now out. 
  “Philip returned to his books, but returned to his Highlands after.... 
  There in the bright October, the gorgeous bright October,
  When the brackens are changed, and heather blooms are faded,
  And, amid russet of heather and fern, green trees are bonnie,
  There, when shearing had ended, and barley-stooks were garnered,
  David gave Philip to wife his daughter, his darling Elspie;
  Elspie, the quiet, the brave, was wedded to Philip, the poet..... 
  So won Philip his bride.  They are married, and gone to New Zealand. 
  Five hundred pounds in pocket, with books and two or three pictures,
  Tool-box, plough, and the rest, they rounded the sphere to New Zealand. 
  There he hewed and dug; subdued the earth and his spirit.”
    —­pp. 52-55.

Among the prominent attributes of this poem is its completeness.  The elaboration, not only of character and of mental discipline, but of incident also, is unbroken.  The absences of all mention of Elspie in the opening scene and again at the dance at Rannoch may at first seem to be a failure in this respect; but second thoughts will show it to be far otherwise:  for, in the former case, her presence would not have had any significance for Hewson, and, in the latter, would have been overlooked by him save so far as might warrant a future vague recollection, pre-occupied as his eyes and thoughts were by another.  There is one condition still under which we have as yet had little opportunity of displaying this quality; but it will be found to be as fully carried out in the descriptions of nature.  In the first of our extracts the worlds are few, but stand for many.

    “Meaely glen, the heart of Lochiel’s fair forest,
  Where Scotch firs are darkest and amplest, and intermingle
  Grandly with rowan and ash;—­in Mar you have no ashes;
  There the pine is alone or relieved by birch and alder.”—­p. 22.

In the next mere sound and the names go far towards the entire effect; but not so far as to induce any negligence in essential details: