Our most innocent as well as our most lawful
DESIRES must often be denied us, that we may learn to sacrifice them
to a Higher will."
Remembering such admonitions with gratitude, Elfonzo was immediately
urged by the recollection of his father's family to keep moving.
McClintock has a fine gift in the matter of surprises; but as a
rule they are not pleasant ones, they jar upon the feelings.
His closing sentence in the last quotation is of that sort.
It brings one down out of the tinted clouds in too sudden and collapsed
a fashion. It incenses one against the author for a moment.
It makes the reader want to take him by this winter-worn locks,
and trample on his veneration, and deliver him over to the cold
charity of combat, and blot him out with his own lighted torch.
But the feeling does not last. The master takes again in his hand that
concord of sweet sounds of his, and one is reconciled, pacified.
His steps became quicker and quicker--he hastened through the PINY woods,
dark as the forest was, and with joy he very soon reached the little
village of repose, in whose bosom rested the boldest chivalry.
His close attention to every important object--his modest questions
about whatever was new to him--his reverence for wise old age,
and his ardent desire to learn many of the fine arts, soon brought
him into respectable notice.
One mild winter day, as he walked along the streets toward the Academy,
which stood upon a small eminence, surrounded by native growth
--some venerable in its appearance, others young and prosperous
--all seemed inviting, and seemed to be the very place for learning as
well as for genius to spend its research beneath its spreading shades.
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