where I come from, big mountains that seem to fill God's
infinity, and the big sea that goes to the end of the world. But
then these things are all shapeless and confused things, not made
in any familiar form. But to see the plain, square, human things
as large as that, houses so large and streets so large, and the
town itself so large, was like having screwed some devil's
magnifying glass into one's eye. It was like seeing a porridge
bowl as big as a house, or a mouse-trap made to catch elephants."

"Like the land of the Brobdingnagians," said Turnbull, smiling.

"Oh! Where is that?" said MacIan.

Turnbull said bitterly, "In a book," and the silence fell
suddenly between them again.

They were sitting in a sort of litter on the hillside; all the
things they had hurriedly collected, in various places, for their
flight, were strewn indiscriminately round them. The two swords
with which they had lately sought each other's lives were flung
down on the grass at random, like two idle walking-sticks. Some
provisions they had bought last night, at a low public house, in
case of undefined contingencies, were tossed about like the
materials of an ordinary picnic, here a basket of chocolate, and
there a bottle of wine. And to add to the disorder finally, there
were strewn on top of everything, the most disorderly of modern
things, newspapers, and more newspapers, and yet again
newspapers, the ministers of the modern anarchy. Turnbull picked
up one of them drearily, and took out a pipe.