It is a beautiful saying of Goldsmith that innocently to amuse the imagination in this dream of life is wisdom. Judged by this standard, the imaginative operations taking place in Duncan's brain, considering their effect on his happiness, cannot be pronounced either innocent or wise. To add ideal terrors to the prosaic hardships of a place like Uist is the very height of folly. And yet it is precisely in such bare and rough regions where man has to fight with nature as with a constant foe, that the unseen powers are believed to be most terrible. The _lutin_ of the smiling land of France is a mere capering trickster, and the "lubber fiend" of Milton's poem is pictured as an unpaid adjunct of the dairy. Duncan's "wee man up on the hill-side" is a permanent and unspeakable horror of the night. "_What is he doing there?_"[29] [29] Collins's long _Ode on Popular Superstitions in the Highlands of Scotland_, addressed to Home, author of _Douglas_, contains some excellent rhetorical passages. Speaking of the second-sighted seer, Collins represents him as one who "In the _depth of Uist's dark forest_ dwells." We may say of Uist what Lord Rosebery said of Caithness, that it is _entirely delivered from the contaminating influence of foliage_. The air one breathes there does not suffer deterioration by coming through any such _dark forest_ as Collins mentions: it blows from the Atlantic in an absolutely pure and strong condition. ST. KILDA. St. Kilda, the lonely and precipitous island, forty miles west of Lewis, which Boswell at one time thought of buying, has now, like so many other islands of the West, a well-furnished library from Paisley. I hope the minister of the place encourages the reading of the books, and does everything in his power to broaden the religious views of the people by healthy secular literature. A luckless inspector of schools crossed over once to examine the school of this island. His boat arrived late on Saturday, and was to leave again early on Monday. To suit his own convenience, the greatly-daring official proposed to examine the scholars on Sunday. Never was their such indignation among the islanders. What! examine the school on the first day of the week! Did the unhappy man wish the wrath of Heaven to fall in fire and brimstone on the island? The inspector was angrily hooted and denounced. Still, as he must needs return by his steamer, the islanders agreed to send their children immediately after Sunday was over, _i.e._, _the bairns were assembled at midnight_, and parts of speech were bandied about then in the visible darkness of the tiny school.