It was otherwise with the effect of their meeting on Mordecai. For many winters, while he had been conscious of an ebbing physical life, and as widening spiritual loneliness, all his passionate desire had concentrated itself in the yearning for some young ear into which he could pour his mind as a testament, some soul kindred enough to accept the spiritual product of his own brief, painful life, as a mission to be executed. It was remarkable that the hopefulness which is often the beneficent illusion of consumptive patients, was in Mordecai wholly diverted from the prospect of bodily recovery and carried into the current of this yearning for transmission. The yearning, which had panted upward from out of over-whelming discouragements, had grown into a hope--the hope into a confident belief, which, instead of being checked by the clear conception he had of his hastening decline, took rather the intensity of expectant faith in a prophecy which has only brief space to get fulfilled in.

It was otherwise with the effect of their meeting on Mordecai. For many winters, he had been conscious both of ebbing physical life, and a widening spiritual loneliness. All his desire had concentrated in the yearning for some young ear into which he could pour his mind, some soul kindred enough to accept the spiritual product of his own brief, painful life. The yearning had grown into a hope - the hope into a confident belief, which, instead of being checked by his knowledge of his hastening decline, became an intense expectant faith as if in a prophecy which has only a brief time to be fulfilled.
