Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia by William Gilmore Simms
page 113 of 620 (18%)
of his companion, unlocked once more the treasurehouse of his good-humor
and volubility.

From the dialogue thus recommenced, we are enabled to take a farther
glance into the history of Forrester's early life. He was, as he phrased
it, from "old So. Ca." pronouncing the name of the state in the abridged
form of its written contraction. In one of the lower districts he still
held, in fee, a small but inefficient patrimony; the profits of which
were put to the use of a young sister. Times, however, had grown hard,
and with the impatience and restlessness so peculiar to nearly all
classes of the people of that state, Mark set out in pursuit of his
fortune among strangers. He loved from his childhood all hardy
enterprises; all employments calculated to keep his spirit from
slumbering in irksome quiet in his breast. He had no relish for the
labors of the plough, and looked upon the occupation of his forefathers
as by no means fitted for the spirit which, with little besides, they
had left him. The warmth, excitability, and restlessness which were his
prevailing features of temper, could not bear the slow process of
tilling, and cultivating the earth--watching the growth and generations
of pigs and potatoes, and listening to that favorite music with the
staid and regular farmer, the shooting of the corn in the still nights,
as it swells with a respiring movement, distending the contracted
sheaves which enclose it. In addition to this antipathy to the pursuits
of his ancestors, Mark had a decided desire, a restless ambition,
prompting him to see, and seek, and mingle with the world. He was fond,
as our readers may have observed already, of his own eloquence, and
having worn out the patience and forfeited the attention of all auditors
at home, he was compelled, in order to the due appreciation of his
faculties, to seek for others less experienced abroad. Like wiser and
greater men, he, too, had been won away, by the desire of rule and
DigitalOcean Referral Badge