CHAPTER V



They stwons, they stwons, they stwons, they stwons.
Scouring of the White Horse


'So' (wrote Ethel in her daily letter to her father) 'mine is at
present a maternal mission to Leonard, and it is highly gratifying.
I subscribe to all your praise of him, and repent of my ungracious
murmurs at his society. You had the virtue, and I have the reward
(the usual course of this world), for his revival is a very fresh and
pleasant spectacle, burning hot with enthusiasm. Whatever we do, he
overdoes, till I recollect how Wilkes said he had never been a
Wilkite. Three days ago, a portentous-looking ammonite attracted his
attention; and whereas he started from the notion that earth was
dirt, and stones were stones, the same all over the world, he has
since so far outstripped his instructors, that as I write this he is
drawing a plan of the strata, with the inhabitants dramatically
arranged, Aubrey suggesting tragic scenes and uncomplimentary
likenesses. His talent for drawing shows that Averil's was worth
culture. If our geology alarm Richard, tell him that I think it
safer to get it over young, and to face apparent discrepancies with
revelation, rather than leave them to be discovered afterwards as if
they had been timidly kept out of sight. And whether Hugh Miller's
theory be right or wrong, his grand fervid language leaves the