“Of course, of course,” replied Hugh, who very likely thought this too serious a way of speaking of poetry, and therefore, perhaps, rather an irreverent way of speaking of God; for he saw neither the divine in poetry, nor the human in God.  Could he be said to believe that God made man, when he did not believe that God created poetry—­and yet loved it as he did?  It was to him only a grand invention of humanity in its loftiest development.  In this development, then, he must have considered humanity as farthest from its origin; and God as the creator of savages, caring nothing for poets or their work.

They turned, as by common consent, to go down the hill together.

“Shall I take charge of the offending volume?  You will not care to finish it, I fear,” said Hugh.

“No, sir, if you please.  I never like to leave onything unfinished.  I’ll read ilka word in’t.  I fancy the thing ’at sets me against it, is mostly this; that, readin’ it alang wi’ Euclid, I canna help aye thinkin’ o’ my ain min’ as gin it were in some geometrical shape or ither, whiles ane an’ whiles anither; and syne I try to draw lines an’ separate this power frae that power, the memory frae the jeedgement, an’ the imagination frae the rizzon; an’ syne I try to pit them a’ thegither again in their relations to ane anither.  And this aye takes the shape o’ some proposition or ither, generally i’ the second beuk.  It near-han’ dazes me whiles.  I fancy gin’ I understood the pairts o’ the sphere, it would be mair to the purpose; but I wat I wish I were clear o’t a’thegither.”

Hugh had had some experiences of a similar kind himself, though not at all to the same extent.  He could therefore understand her.

“You must just try to keep the things altogether apart,” said he, “and not think of the two sciences at once.”

“But I canna help it,” she replied.  “I suppose you can, sir, because ye’re a man.  My father can understan’ things ten times better nor me an’ my mother.  But nae sooner do I begin to read and think about it, than up comes ane o’ thae parallelograms, an’ nothing will driv’t oot o’ my head again, but a verse or twa o’ Coleridge or Wordsworth.”

Hugh immediately began to repeat the first poem of the latter that occurred to him: 

     “I wandered lonely as a cloud.”

She listened, walking along with her eyes fixed on the ground; and when he had finished, gave a sigh of delight and relief—­all the comment she uttered.  She seemed never to find it necessary to say what she felt; least of all when the feeling was a pleasant one; for then it was enough for itself.  This was only the second time since their acquaintance, that she had spoken of her feelings at all; and in this case they were of a purely intellectual origin.  It is to be observed, however, that in both cases she had taken pains to explain thoroughly what she meant, as far as she was able.