, could solve the problem where I sat, without an
Orrery.

"From the thing contemplated, I pass to the consideration of the
mind that contemplates. Oh! that wonderful Newton, respecting whom
the Frenchman inquired whether he ate and slept like other men! I
consider how one mind excels another; nay, how one man excels a
thousand; and, by way of illustration, I bethink me of the mode of
valuing diamonds. A single diamond that weighs fifty carats is
deemed more valuable than two thousand diamonds, each of which only
weighs one. My illustration refers exclusively to the native
powers; but may it not, I ask, bear also on the acquisition of
knowledge? Every new idea added to the stock already collected is a
carat added to the diamond; for it is not only valuable in itself,
but it also increases the value of all the others, by giving to
each of them a new link of association.

"The thought links itself on to another, mayhap less sound:--Do not
the minds of men of exalted genius, such as Homer, Milton,
Shakspere, seem to partake of some of the qualities of infinitude?
Add a great many bricks together, and they form a pyramid as huge
as the peak of Teneriffe. Add all the common minds together that
the world ever produced, and the mind of a Shakspere towers over
the whole, in all the grandeur of unapproachable infinity. That
which is infinite admits of neither increase nor diminution. Is it
not so with genius of a certain altitude? Homer, Milton, Shakspere,
were perhaps men of equal powers. Homer was, it is said, a beggar;
Shakspere an illiterate wool-comber; Milton skilled in all human
learning. But they have all risen to an equal height. Learning has
added nothing to the _illimitable_ genius of the one; nor has the
want of it detracted from the _infinite_ powers of the others. But
it is time that I go and prepare supper."

I visited the policies of Conon House a full quarter of a century after
this time--walked round the kiln, once our barrack--scaled the outside
stone-stair of the hay-loft, to stand for half a minute on the spot
where I used to spend whole hours seated on my chest, so long before;
and then enjoyed a quiet stroll among the woods of the Conon. The river
was big in flood: it was exactly such a river Conon as I had lost sight
of in the winter of 1821, and eddied past