This influence had operated most powerfully upon her brother Pierre, a youth of mystical tendencies. Sensitive, full of refinement, quick and impatient as a thoroughbred, he had been one of Charon’s early associates—the only one who remained faithful to the end. Possessing keen artistic perceptions, he yet lacked power of execution. Few in the colony had either leisure or inclination for the cultivation of the fine arts, and Pierre Le Ber’s paintings were received by his contemporaries with an admiration untinged by criticism. His early training had predisposed him to aceticism, but his natural temperament, against which he battled with ceaseless resistance, inclined him to a sensuous delight in beauty, harmony, and brightness. His religion was that of the affections and sentiments; his imagination, warmed by the ardor of his faith, shaped the ideal forms of his worship into visible realities. He displayed a curious ingenuity in inventing torments for himself, wearing a belt covered with sharp points, whipping himself with a scourge of small cords until his shoulders were one great wound, playing at beggar, eating mouldy food, and performing the most repulsive and disagreeable offices in hospitals. More than once the rich merchant’s eldest son had been seen staggering through St. Paul Street with a lame beggar, whom he was bearing through the mud, seated on his back. As Jacques Le Ber de Senneville, the second son, was a man of the world of fashion and of courts, and Jean Le Ber du Chesne a man of action and energy, so Pierre was a dreamer of dreams, a beholder of visions.