eternally crossing my path in life,--the relative of that Godfrey who was my early patron. I have already confessed to you, Michel, that I felt towards this youth in a way for which my calmest reason could render no account. Gamblers have often told me of certain antipathies they have experienced, and that the mere presence of an individual-- one totally unknown to them, perhaps--has been so ominous of ill-luck that they dare not risk a bet while he remained in the room. I know you will say that men who pass their lives in the alternation of hope and fear become the slaves of every shadow that crosses the imagination, and that they are sorry pilots to trust to. So they are, Michel; they art meanly minded, they are sordid, and they are low; their thoughts never soar above the card or the hazard table; they are dead to all emotions of family and affection; the very events that are convulsing the world are less audible to their ears than the ring of the dice-box; and yet, with all this--would you believe it?--they are deep in the mysteries of portents. Their intense study of what we call chance has taught them to combine and arrange and discipline every 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.