atom
and accident that can influence an event. They have their
days of good and evil fortune, and they have their agencies
that sway them to this side or to that. Chemistry shows us
that substances that resemble metals are decomposed by the
influence of light alone,--do not, then, despise the working
of that gleam that darts from a human eye and penetrates
within the very recesses of your brain.

"Be the theory true or false, the phenomena exercise a deep
influence over me, and I have never ceased to regard this
boy as one inextricably interwoven with myself and my own
fortunes; I felt a degree of dread at his contact, which all
my conscious superiority of mind and intellect could not
allay. In vain have I endeavored to reason myself out of
these delusions, but in the realm of imagination reason is
inoperative; as well might a painter try to commit to his
palette the fleeting colors of the rainbow. Shall I own to
you that in moments of illness or depression this terror
magnified itself to giant proportions, and a thousand wild
and incongruous fancies would fill my mind? I bethought me
of involving him in such difficulty that he would no longer
be at large; as a prisoner or an exile, I should never see
him more. Every snare I tried was a failure; the temptations
that were most adapted to his nature he resisted; the wiles
I threw around him he escaped from. Was there not a fate in
all this? Assuredly there was and is, Michel. I cannot tell
you the relief of mind I should feel if this boy had shared
the fate of your patriots, and that the great sea was to
roll between him and Europe forever. Twenty times a day I
think of Dirk Hatteraick's expression with respect to Brown:
'That boy has been a rock ahead of me all through life;' and
be assured that the characters of fiction are often powerful
teachers.

"And now to my narrative. The same note which requested my
visit at Verona begged of me, if I possibly could accomplish
it, to provide some English person who should sit up with
the sick youth and nurse him. I was not sorry to receive
this commission; I wished to learn more about this boy than
the confessional at such a time could teach; and could I
only find a suitable agent, this would not be difficult.
Chance favored me