"Oh, a wild insanity of hopefulness. You
all have it. I dislike to talk about the sad future, and I wonder men at
the North are so blind."
He fell again to mere musings, a self-absorbed man, while John, attracted
by a squirrel's gambols and used to the rector's long silences, wandered
near by among the pines, with a vagabond mind on this or that, and
watching the alert little acrobat of the forest. As he moved about, he
recalled his first walks to the cabin with Leila and the wild thing he
had said one day--and her reply. One ages fast, at seventeen, and now he
wondered if he had been quite wise, and with the wisdom and authority of
a year and a half of mental growth punished his foolish boy-past with
severity of reproach. He had failed for a time to hear, or at least to
hear with attention, the low-voiced soliloquies in which Mr. Rivers
sometimes indulged. McGregor, an observant man, said that Rivers's mind
jumped from thought to thought, and that his talk had at times no
connective tissue and was hard to follow.
Now he spoke louder. "No one, John, no one sees that every new compromise
compromises principles and honour. Have you read any of the speeches of a
man named Lincoln in Illinois? He got a considerable vote in that
nominating convention."
"No, sir.
Pages:
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289