I must give my pictures of the early part of my life, detached and phantasmagoria-like as they appear to the eye of memory. But yet I will supply as far as possible any links of connection which are afforded by that power which is to memory what the second rainbow, which we sometimes see, is to the first—the reflection of a reflection—I am not quite sure that that is philosophical—but it is a figure, and it is pretty—so let it stand, it will do for Boston—the power I speak of is commonly termed reminiscence—a shadow of remembrance which overtops the mountain, and is seen indistinctly after the prototype has sunk behind the steep—God bless me, I am getting into Boston again. Well, upon my life I will be sober, notwithstanding the sixteen gallon act. The catching a fish was my first great exploit in life, and I could evidently see that Father Bonneville paused and pondered over it, as was his character; for he was a very considerate and thoughtful man, by no means without powers of observation, and a great habit of reasoning _a priori_, which sometimes misled him a little. He made me tell him the whole story of the catching of the fish, and of how I had managed it. You may judge I dilated not a little, partly from the interest of the subject to myself, and partly from the difficulty which every child, and every novelist in three volumes, finds in clothing his thoughts in brief language. I found afterward that he had deduced his own conclusions from premises which I had afforded; and I am happy to say they were all favorable to me. He had deduced, I learnt, from my catching the rod before it fell into the water, that I possessed considerable quickness and presence of mind. He had inferred from the fact of my having got the line through my hands before I attempted to strain the rod, that there was a great deal of cautiousness and foresight in my disposition; and by the pains I had taken, and the labor I had undergone, without flinching, or growing rash or angry, he was led to believe that I was of a most persevering, undaunted, and resolute disposition. In a word, he learned to think me a being more deserving of care and cultivation than he had previously imagined; that I was not a mere baby to be taught his A B C in any science, and that there was a soil, beneath the green freshness of my youth, which might be cultivated to great advantage.