But I was.
It was about the same season of the year, and
at near the same hour of the day, of my last visit.
The jays clamoured loudly, and the trees whispered
darkly, as before; and I somehow traced in the two
sounds a fanciful analogy to the open boastfulness
of Mr. Jo. Dunfer's mouth and the mysterious reti-
cence of his manner, and to the mingled hardihood
and tenderness of his sole literary production--the
epitaph. All things in the valley seemed unchanged,
excepting the cow-path, which was almost wholly
overgrown with weeds. When we came out into the
'clearing,' however, there was change enough. Among
the stumps and trunks of the fallen saplings, those
that had been hacked 'China fashion' were no
longer distinguishable from those that were cut
''Melican way.' It was as if the Old-World barba-
rism and the New-World civilization had reconciled
their differences by the arbitration of an impartial
decay--as is the way of civilizations. The knoll was
there, but the Hunnish brambles had overrun and
all but obliterated its effete grasses; and the patrician
garden-violet had capitulated to his plebeian brother
--perhaps had merely reverted to his original type.
Another grave--a long, robust mound--had been
made beside the first, which seemed to shrink from
the comparison; and in the shadow of a new head-
stone the old one lay prostrate, with its marvellous
inscription illegible by accumulation of leaves and
soil.
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