“What it has done for me?”—­and he went slowly on, thinking half aloud, as if the idea were occurring for the first time.

“It touched me one soft summer day, before the earth became mildewed and famine-stricken.  I was a proud, wilful Axtell boy; all the family traits were written with a white-hot pen on me.  My will, my great high will, went ringing chimes of what I would do through the house where I was born, where my mother has just died, and I swung this right arm forth into the air of existence, and said, ’I will do what I will; men shall say I am a master in the land.’

“My father sent me away from home for education.  I walked with intrepid mind through the course where others halted, weary, overladen, unfit for burden.

“To gain the valedictory oration was one goal that I had said I would attain to.  I did.  That was nineteen years ago.  I came home in the soft, hot, August-time.  It was the close of the month.  The moon was at its highest flood of light.  I was at the highest tide of will-might.  That night, if any one had told me I could not do that which I had a wish to accomplish, I would have made my desire triumphant, or death would have been my only conqueror.  Oh! it is dreadful to have such a nature handed down from the dark past, and thrust into one’s life, to be battled with, to be hewn down at last, unless the lightning of God’s wrath cleaves into the spirit and wakes up the volcano, which forever after emits only fire and sulphur.  There’s yet one way more, after the lightning-stroke comes,—­something unutterable, something that canopies the soul with doom, and forever the spirit tries to raise its wings and fly away, but every uplifting strikes fire, until, singed, scorched, burnt, wings grow useless, and droop down, never more to be uplifted.”

Mr. Axtell drooped his arms, as if typical of the wings he had described.  Borne away by the excitement of his words, he stood straight up against the far-away sky, with the verdure of Norway-evergreens soothingly waving their green around him.  There was a magnificence of mien in the man, that made my spirit say—­

“The Deity made that man for great deeds.”

He glanced down at the grave once more, and resumed:—­

“I came home that August night.  The prairie of Time rolled out limitless before my imagination.  I built pyramids of fame; I laid the foundation of Babel once more, in my heart,—­for I said, ’My name shall touch the stars,—­my name!  Abraham Axtell!’ It is only written in earth, ground to powder, to-day.”

“An atom of earth’s powder may be a star to eyes vast enough to see the fulness that dwells therein, until to angelic vision our planet stands out a universe of starry suns, each particle of dust luminous with eternities of limitless space between,” I said, as he, pausing, stooped, and stirred the crisp grass, to outline his name there.

“All things are possible,” he murmured, “but the rending of my mantle of doom.”