in large flakes, over house and church-steeple, away to the farthest end of the little wind-swept city. From the west, too, wind-currents find their way easily through it; that there is no stagnant air, and no close vapours, everywhere an openness, a skyey influence, and a ess of air all about. ach it from the south-from the hills that and the traveller sees it set in a framework sea, and wood; while the pilgrims of the mounting their last hill, halted at an *ill stands on the Hill of the King,1 knees at sight of the sacred spires, t length given them to behold flesh. Stand in the middle ST ANDREW BELL was born in tlaps of the sand-hills flashes the 27th of March 1753. ue of the bay-waves; you St Andrews is a place so fu deep-blue sea, which is new and old, town and country, and infinite sky. Skytianity, that one or two words mlooks; while the town The traveller on reaching it sees let down upon the fallen out of the ordinary track-hrine to the sons of the common world, and that he has cu lying place, which cannot be judged You meet standards we apply to villages, and towns, Xxperienced Such a cold stony hideousness of street, such a dred; of sky, alternately chills and depresses, or lifts and inspires him. Old ruins, rising up bare and gaunt into the heaven, long reaches of monotonous street, quiet fields looking suddenly in upon the town, a bay of the most changeful hues-sometimes black as night, at other times of a blue as deep as the Mediterranean, or A en the barred clouds he low sky, to touch with ening into the beyond. In neet towards the west over ere and there rifts and openliet lakes of soft light, in which pression-the true symbol to the ce that passes all understanding." of the streets, even now, is the ith century. Knubbly and rough, of a Continental town, they must have still are, trying to the feet of the enthusiim. Perhaps a cart slowly rumbles through of them once an hour, and this serves to intens the silence. Winds from the sea push in vast b in sudden gusts along the wide avenues; an storm sends the waves dashing into th that line the Scores,1 the white three 1 This word is a corruption of word for a steep cut-away cliff in large flakes, over house and church-steeple, away to the farthest end of the little wind-swept city. From the west, too, wind-currents find their way easily through it; so that there is no stagnant air, and no close vapours, but everywhere an openness, a skyey influence, and a largeness of air all about. Approach it from the south-from the hills that bound it—and the traveller sees it set in a framework of river, and sea, and wood; while the pilgrims of the middle ages, surmounting their last hill, halted at an iron cross which still stands on the Hill of the King,1 and, falling on their knees at sight of the sacred spires, thanked God that it was at length given them to behold the DIVINE with the eyes of flesh. Stand in the middle of the Links: between the gaps of the sand-hills flashes towards you the deep sunlit blue of the bay-waves; you feel on a platform ringed with deep-blue sea, which is itself again ringed with an outer and infinite sky. Skyborn of the sky the whole region looks; while the town itself seems a heavenly Jerusalem let down upon the nether earth to teach a higher doctrine to the sons of men. You meet The people are notoriously long-lived. old men and women whom, from their experienced looks, you might judge to be well over a hundred; and exhausted constitutions of seventy come here, renew their youth, enjoy their lives, and hold on happily till ninety. It is the strong dry air, the absorbing exercise of golf, the play of social amenity, that lift them out of depression and senility. For here there 1 Balrymont. |