of many of the comforts of life.  In this condition, he would frequently say to his father, “Have I offended you, that you look upon me as a stranger, and frown upon me with stinging looks?  Will you not favor me with the sound of your voice?  If I have trampled upon your veneration, or have spread a humid veil of darkness around your expectations, send me back into the world, where no heart beats for me—­where the foot of man had never yet trod; but give me at least one kind word—­allow me to come into the presence sometimes of thy winter-worn locks.”  “Forbid it, Heaven, that I should be angry with thee,” answered the father, “my son, and yet I send thee back to the children of the world—­to the cold charity of the combat, and to a land of victory.  I read another destiny in thy countenance—­I learn thy inclinations from the flame that has already kindled in my soul a strange sensation.  It will seek thee, my dear Elfonzo, it will find thee—­thou canst not escape that lighted torch, which shall blot out from the remembrance of men a long train of prophecies which they have foretold against thee.  I once thought not so.  Once, I was blind; but now the path of life is plain before me, and my sight is clear; yet, Elfonzo, return to thy worldly occupation—­take again in thy hand that chord of sweet sounds —­struggle with the civilized world and with your own heart; fly swiftly to the enchanted ground—­let the night-Owl send forth its screams from the stubborn oak—­let the sea sport upon the beach, and the stars sing together; but learn of these, Elfonzo, thy doom, and thy hiding-place.  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.