When a boy nineteen years old, who had
just been admitted to the bar, says, "I trust, sir, like the Eagle,
I shall look down from lofty rocks upon the dwellings of man,"
we know who is speaking through that boy; we should recognize
that note anywhere. There be myriads of instruments in this
world's literary orchestra, and a multitudinous confusion of sounds
that they make, wherein fiddles are drowned, and guitars smothered,
and one sort of drum mistaken for another sort; but whensoever the
brazen note of the McClintockian trombone breaks through that fog
of music, that note is recognizable, and about it there can be no blur
of doubt.
The novel now arrives at the point where the Major goes home to see
his father. When McClintock wrote this interview he probably
believed it was pathetic.
The road which led to the town presented many attractions Elfonzo
had bid farewell to the youth of deep feeling, and was now wending
his way to the dreaming spot of his fondness. The south winds
whistled through the woods, as the waters dashed against the banks,
as rapid fire in the pent furnace roars. This brought him to
remember while alone, that he quietly left behind the hospitality
of a father's house, and gladly entered the world, with higher hopes
than are often realized. But as he journeyed onward, he was mindful
of the advice of his father, who had often looked sadly on the ground,
when tears of cruelly deceived hope moistened his eyes.
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