ius is attached to
us from our birth by a film fine as gossamer, and which few of us escape
rupturing in the first years of youth, thus throwing ourselves at once
without chart or pilot upon the broad ocean of life. He, however, more
happily constituted, who feels the guidance of his guardian spirit,
recognizes the benefits of its care, and the admonitions of its
wisdom,--_he_ is destined to great things. Such men discover new worlds
beyond the seas, carry conquest over millions, found dynasties, and
build up empires; they whom the world regard as demigods having simply
the wisdom of being led by fortune, and not severing the slender thread
that unites them to their destiny. Was I, Potts, in this glorious
category? Had the lesson of the great moralist been such a warning to
me that I had preserved the filmy link unbroken? I really began to think
so; a certain impulse, a whispering voice within, that said, "Go on!"
On, ever onward! seemed to be the accents of that Fate which had great
things in store for me, and would eventually make me illustrious.

No illusions of your own, Potts, no phantasmagoria of your own poor
heated fancy, must wile you away from the great and noble part destined
for you. No weakness, no faint-heartedness, no shrinking from toil, nor
even peril. Work hard to know thoroughly for what Fate intends you; read
your credentials well, and then go to your post unflinchingly. Revolving
this theory of mine, I walked ever on. It opened a wide field, and my
imagination disported in it, as might a wild mustang over some vast
prairie. The more I thought over it, the more did it seem to me the real
embodiment of that superstition which extends to every land and every
family of men. We are Lucky when, submitting to our Good Genius, we
suffer ourselves to be led along unhesitatingly; we are Unlucky when,
breaking our frail bonds, we encounter life unguided and unaided.

What a docile, obedient, and believing pupil did I pledge myself to be!
Fate should see that she had no refractory nor rebellious spirit in me,
no self-indulgent voluptuary, seeking only the sunny side of existence,
but a nature ready to confront the rugged conflict of life, and to meet
its hardships, if such were my allotted path.

I applied the circumstances in which I then found myself to my theory,
and met no difficulty in the adaptation. Blondel was to perform a great
part in my future. Blondel was a symbol selected by fate to indicate a
ce