reat ocean. A murmurous sound came up
from its shore.

We descended and seated ourselves on the short springy grass of a little
mound at the foot of one of the hills, where it sank slowly, like the
dying gush of a wave, into the hollowest centre of the little vale.

'Everything tends to the cone-shape here,' said Falconer,--'the oddest
and at the same time most wonderful of mathematical figures.'

'Is it not strange,' I said, 'that oddity and wonder should come so
near?'

'They often do in the human world as well,' returned he. 'Therefore it
is not strange that Shelley should have been so fond of this place.
It is told of him that repeated sketches of the spot were found on the
covers of his letters. I know nothing more like Shelley's poetry than
this valley--wildly fantastic and yet beautiful--as if a huge genius
were playing at grandeur, and producing little models of great things.
But there is one grand thing I want to show you a little further on.'

We rose, and walked out of the valley on the other side, along the lofty
coast. When we reached a certain point, Falconer stood and requested us
to look as far as we could, along the cliffs to the face of the last of
them.

'What do you see?' he asked.

'A perpendicular rock, going right down into the blue waters,' I
answered.

'Look at it: what is the outline of it like? Whose face is it?'

'Shakspere's, by all that is grand!' I cried.

'So it is,' said Andrew.

'Right. Now I'll tell you what I would do. If I were very rich, and
there were no poor people in the country, I would give a commission to
some great sculptor to attack that rock and work out its suggestion.
Then, it I had any money left, we should find one for Bacon, and one for
Chaucer, and one for Milton; and, as we are about it, we may fancy as
many more as we like; so that from the bounding rocks of our island, the
memorial faces of our great brothers should look abroad over the seas
into the infinite sky beyond.'

'Well, now,' said the elder, 'I think it is grander as it is.'

'You are quite right, father,' said Robert. 'And so with many of our
fancies for perfecting God's mighty sketches, which he only can finish.'

Again we seated ourselves and looked out over the waves.

'I have never yet heard,' I said, 'how you managed with that poor girl
that wanted to drown herself--on Westminster Bridge, I mean--that night,
you remember.'

'Miss St. John has got her in her own house at present.