“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.