I say singular, for the extraordinary, under whatever form, had long had no slight interest for me: and I had discernment enough to perceive that yon was no common man.

Yet I went not near him, certainly not from bashfulness, or timidity, feelings to which I had long been an entire stranger.

Am I to regret this?
perhaps, for I might have learned both wisdom and righteousness from those calm, quiet lips, and my after-course might have been widely different.

As it was, I fell in with other queer companions, from whom I received widely different impressions than those I might have derived from him.

When many years had rolled on, long after I had attained manhood, and had seen and suffered much, and when our first interview had long been effaced from the mind of the man of peace, I visited him in his venerable hall, and partook of the hospitality of his hearth.