LITMIR.BIZ

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in his hand, he evinced scarcely any gratitude for my liberality, so totally was he engrossed by the idea that the horse was now his own, and that Fortune would no longer have any pretext for using him so severely as before.

      “‘I don’t know, – I cannot know,’ said he, ‘if fortune means to deal more kindly by me than heretofore, but I feel a sort of confidence in the future now; I have a kind of trustful courage as to what may come, that tells me no disaster will deter me, no mishap cast me down.’

      “These were his words as he arose to take his leave. Of his meeting with the pony I am afraid to trust myself to speak. It was such an overflow of affection as one might witness from a long absent brother on being once again restored to his own. I cannot say that the beast knew him, nor would I go so far as to assert that he did not, for certainly some of his old instincts seemed gradually to revive within him on hearing certain words; and when ordered to take a respectful farewell of me, the pony planted a foreleg on each of his master’s shoulders, and, taking off his hat with his teeth, bowed twice or thrice in the most deferential fashion. I wished them both every success in life, and we parted. As I took my evening’s stroll on the pier, I saw them embark for Ostend, the pony sheeted most carefully, and every imaginable precaution taken to insure him against cold. The man himself was poorly clad, and indifferently provided against the accidents of the voyage. He appeared to feel that the disparity required a word of apology, for he said, in a whisper: ‘It ‘ll soon furnish me with a warm cloak; it ‘ll not leave me long in difficulties!’ I assure you, my dear Crofton, there was something contagious in the poor fellow’s superstition, for, as he sailed away, the thought lay heavily on my heart, ‘What if I, too, should have parted with my good luck in life? How if I have bartered my fortune for a few pieces of money?’ The longer I dwelt on this theme, the more forcibly did it strike me. My original possession of the animal was accomplished in a way that aided the illusion. It was thus I won him on a hit of backgammon!”

      As I read thus far, the paper dropped from my hands, my head reeled, and in a faint dreamy state, as if drugged by some strong narcotic, I sank, I know not how long, unconscious. The first thing which met my eyes on awakening, was the line, “I won him on a hit of backgammon!” The whole story was at once before me. It was of Blondel I was reading! Blondel was the beast whose influence had swayed one man’s destiny. So long as he owned him, the world went well and happily with him; all prospered and succeeded. It was a charm like the old lamp of Aladdin. And this was the treasure I had lost. So far from imputing an ignorant superstition to the German, I concurred in every speculation, every theory of his invention. The man had evidently discovered one of those curious problems in what we rashly call the doctrine of chances. It was not the animal himself that secured good fortune, it was that, in his “circumstances,” what Strauff calls “die amringende Bege-benheiten” of his lot, this creature was sure to call forth efforts and develop resources in his possessor, of which, without his aid, he would have gone all through life unconscious.

      The vulgar notion that our lives are the sport of accident, – the minute too early or too late, the calm that detained us, the snow-storm that blocked the road, the chance meeting with this or that man, which we lay such stress on, – what are they in reality but trivial incidents without force or effect, save that they impel to action? They call out certain qualities in our nature by which our whole characters become modified. Your horse balks at a fence, and throws you over his head; the fall is not a very grave one, and you are scarcely hurt; you have fallen into a turnip-field, and the honest fellow, who is hoeing away near, comes kindly to your aid, and, in good Samaritan fashion, bathes your temples and restores you. When you leave him at last, you go forth with a kindlier notion of human nature; you recognize the tie “that makes the whole world kin,” and you seem to think that hard toil hardens not the heart, nor a life of labor shuts out generous sympathies, – the lesson is a life one. But suppose that in your fall you alight on a bed of choice tulips, you descend in the midst of a rich parterre of starry anemones, and that your first conscious struggles are met with words of anger and reproach; instead of sorrow for your suffering, you hear sarcasms on your horsemanship, and insults on your riding, – no sympathy, no kindness, no generous anxiety for your safety, but all that irritate and offend, – more thought, in fact, for the petals of a flower than for the ligaments of your knee, – then, too, is the lesson a life one, and its fruits will be bitter memories for many a year. The events of our existence are in reality nothing, save in our treatment of them. By Blondel, I recognized one of those suggestive influences which mould fate by moulding temperament. The deep reflecting German saw this: it was clear he knew that in that animal was typified all that his life might become. Why should not I contest the prize with him? Blondel was charged with another destiny as well as his.

      I turned once more to the letter, but I could not bear to read it; so many were the impertinent allusions to myself, my manner, my appearance, and my conversation. Still more insulting were the speculations as to what class or condition I belonged to. “He puzzled us completely,” wrote the priest, “for while unmistakably vulgar in many things, there were certain indications of reading and education about him that refuted the notion of his being what Keldrum thought, – an escaped counter-jumper! The Guardsman insisted he was a valet; my own impression was, the fellow had kept a small circulating library, and gone mad with the three-volume novels. At all events, I have given him a lesson which, whether profitable or not to him, has turned out tolerably well for me, If ever you chance to hear of him, – his name was Podder or Pedder, I think, – pray let me know, for my curiosity is still unslaked about him.” He thence went off to a sort of descriptive catalogue of my signs and tokens, so positively insulting that I cannot recall it; the whole winding up: “Add to all these an immense pomposity of tone, with a lisp, and a Dublin accent, and you can scarcely mistake him.” Need I say, benevolent reader, that fouler calumnies were never uttered, nor more unfounded slanders ever pronounced?

      It is not in this age of photography that a man need defend his appearance. By the aid of sun and collodion, I may, perhaps, one day convince you that I am not so devoid of personal graces as this foul-mouthed priest would persuade you. I am, possibly, in this pledge, exceeding the exact limits which this publication may enable me to sustain. I may be contracting an engagement which cannot be, consistent with its principles, fulfilled. If so, I must be your artist; but I swear to you, that I shall not flatter. Potto, painted by himself, shall be a true portrait. Meanwhile I have time to look out for my canvas, and you will be patient enough to wait till it be filled.

      Again to this confounded letter: —

      “There is another reason” (wrote Dyke) “why I should like to-chance upon this fellow.” (“This fellow” meant me.) “I used to fancy myself unequalled in the imaginative department of conversation, by the vulgar called lying. Here, I own, with some shame, he was my match. A more fearless, determined, go-ahead liar, I never met. Now, as one who deems himself no small proficient in the art, I would really like to meet him once more. We could approach each other like the augurs of old, and agree to be candid and free-spoken together, exchanging our ideas on this great topic, and frankly communicating any secret knowledge each might deem that he possessed. I’d go a hundred miles to pass an evening with him alone, to hear from his own lips the sort of early training and discipline his mind went through, – who were his first instructors, what his original inducements. Of one thing I feel certain: a man thus constituted has only to put the curb upon his faculty to be most successful in life, his perils will all lie in the exuberance of his resources; let him simply bend himself to believe in some of the impositions he would force upon others. Let him give his delusions the force acquired by convictions, and there is no limit to what he may become. Be on the lookout, therefore, for him, as a great psychological phenomenon, the man who outlied

      “Your sincerely attached friend,

      “Thomas Darcy Dyke.

      “P. S. I have just remembered his name. It was Potts; the villain said from the Pozzo di Borgo family. I ‘m sure with this hint you can’t fail to run him to earth; and I entreat of you spare no pains to do it.”

      There followed here some more impertinent personalities as clews to my discovery, which my indulgent reader will graciously excuse me if I do not stop to record; enough to say they were as unfounded as they were scurrilous.

      Another

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