t
was as strong as ever with him. He tried to give his presentiment
direction by talking with the other passengers about a recent accident
to a lake steamer, in which several hundred lives were lost; there
had been a collision in rough weather, and one of the boats had gone
down in a few minutes. There was a sort of relief in that, but the
double action of the mind brought the same intolerable anguish again,
and he settled back for refuge under the shadow of his impenetrable
doom. This did not lift till he was well on his way from Albany to New
York by the Hudson River. The canal-boat voyage from Buffalo to Albany
had been as eventless as that to Toledo, and his lake steamer had
reached Buffalo in safety, for which it had seemed as if those lost in
the recent disaster had paid.

"He tried to pierce his heavy cloud by argument from the security in
which he had traveled so far, but the very security had its
hopelessness. If something had happened--some slight accident--to
interrupt it, his reason, or his unreason, might have taken it for a
sign that the obscure doom, whatever it was, had been averted.

"Up to this time he had not been able to connect his foreboding with
anything definite, and he was not afraid for himself. He was simply
without the formless hope that helps us on at every step, through good
and bad, and it was a mortal peril, which he came through safely while
scores of others were lost, that gave his presentiment direction. He
had taken the day boat from Albany, and about the middle of the
afternoon the boat, making way under a head-wind, took fire. The pilot
immediately ran her ashore, and her passengers, those that had the
courage for it, ran aft, and began jumping from the stern, but a great
many women and children were burned. My uncle was one of the first of
those who jumped, and he stood in the water, trying to save those who
came after from drowning; it was not very deep. Some of the women lost
courage for the leap, and some turned back into the flames,
remembering children they had left behind. One poor creature stood
hesitating wildly, and he called up to her to jump. At last she did
so, almost into his arms, and then she clung about him as he helped
her ashore. 'Oh,' she cried out between her sobs, 'if you have a wife
and children at home, God will take you safe back to them; you have
saved my life for my husband and little ones.' 'No,' he was conscious
of saying, 'I shall never see my wife ag