Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

IG8 ST. KII.D.U
ST. KILDA.
Gratian says that two things are necessary towards
a good history ; first, that the acts be well performed,
and next that they be well told. He had probably been
reading Adam Smith on the making of a pin ; and on
this principle of the division of labour must it have been,
that Macaulay wrote a voyage to that St. Kilda which he
never saw, and that Alexander longed for Homer to
celebrate his exploits. There have been two or three
double-headed soldiers indeed, such as Csesarand Xeno-
phon, who have managed to fight and write both. But
the principle is palpably a bad one ; nor is it possible that
any one, amid the confusion and hurry of thinking and
doing, can possibly know what he himself thought and
did, half so well as the man who, some nine or twenty
centuries after, comes to the task with leisure and time
for reflection, cool in his head and warm in his closet.
We are peculiarly ill judges of our own feelings and
opinions, because it is of the very essence of feeling to
absorb and pervert reason, and of opinions to run away
with it. Hence it is reasonable that Dr. Hawkesworth
should have felt Queen Oberea's flame and Sir Joseph's
frosts better than themselves did ; very reasonable indeed.
But as I can find no one to write my account of St. Kilda
for me, I must needs make the best of it that I can.
On approaching the landing* place, where a crowd
of people was ready to receive us, a tall and matron-
like female figure advanced before the rest, with an air
of mixed ^'ignity and command, hailing us with the