He noted not where the sun stood,
nor in what direction the tiny head-waters of the rivulets took their
course, nor how the moss grew on the trees. He traveled in the wood by
instinct, by some almost unexplainable gift which comes to the thing of
the woods. The wolf has it; the Indian has it; sometimes the white man of
to-day has it.
As he went Ab engaged in deeper and more sustained thought than ever
before in all his life. He was alone; new and strange scenes had enlarged
his knowledge and swift happenings had made keener his perceptions. For
days his entire being had been powerfully affected by his meeting with
Lightfoot at the Feast of the Mammoth and the events which had followed
that meeting in such swift succession. The tragedy of Oak's death had
quickened his sensibilities. Besides, what had ensued latest had been what
was required to make him in a condition for the divination of things. The
wise agree that much stimulant or much deprivation enables the brain
convolutions to do their work well, though deprivation gets the cleaner
end. The asceticism of Marcus Aurelius was productive of greater results
than the deep drinking of any gallant young Roman man of letters of whom
he was a patron. The literature of fasting thinkers is something fine. Ab,
after exerting his strength to the utmost for days, had not eaten of
flesh, and the strong influences to which he was subjected were exerted
upon a man still, practically, fasting.
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