He stood like a magician controlling the phantoms which he had evoked . `` What ! '' muttered Walter Ludlow as he relapsed from fierce excitement into sullen gloom . `` Does Fate impede its own decree ? '' `` Wretched lady , '' said the painter , `` did I not warn you ? '' `` You did , '' replied Elinor , calmly , as her terror gave place to the quiet grief which it had disturbed . `` But I loved him . '' Is there not a deep moral in the tale ? Could the result of one or all our deeds be shadowed forth and set before us , some would call it fate and hurry onward , others be swept along by their passionate desires , and none be turned aside by the prophetic pictures . DAVID SWAN . A FANTASY . We can be but partially acquainted even with the events which actually influence our course through life and our final destiny . There are innumerable other events , if such they may be called , which come close upon us , yet pass away without actual results or even betraying their near approach by the reflection of any light or shadow across our minds . Could we know all the vicissitudes of our fortunes , life would be too full of hope and fear , exultation or disappointment , to afford us a single hour of true serenity . This idea may be illustrated by a page from the secret history of David Swan . We have nothing to do with David until we find him , at the age of twenty , on the high road from his native place to the city of Boston , where his uncle , a small dealer in the grocery line , was to take him behind the counter . Be it enough to say that he was a native of New Hampshire , born of respectable parents , and had received an ordinary school education with a classic finish by a year at Gilmanton Academy . After journeying on foot from sunrise till nearly noon of a summer 's day , his weariness and the increasing heat determined him to sit down in the first convenient shade and await the coming up of the stage-coach . As if planted on purpose for him , there soon appeared a little tuft of maples with a delightful recess in the midst , and such a fresh bubbling spring that it seemed never to have sparkled for any wayfarer but David Swan . Virgin or not , he kissed it with his thirsty lips and then flung himself along the brink , pillowing his head upon some shirts and a pair of pantaloons tied up in a striped cotton handkerchief .
The sunbeams could not reach him ; the dust did not yet rise from the road after the heavy rain XXXXX yesterday , and his grassy lair suited the young man better than a bed of down .
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