ng the young man's eyes, the old gentleman
was ever and anon conscious of a disposition to recoil and shudder, and,
at the same time, felt impelled, by what resembled a magnetic
attraction, to gaze the harder. Did the very fact that some universal
human characteristic was omitted from this person's nature endow him
with an exceptional and peculiar power? There was an uncertainty, in
talking and associating with him, as to what he would do or say; an
ignorance of what might be his principles and points of view; an
impossibility of supposing him governed by common laws. Such, at least,
was the professor's fancy concerning him.

But again, turning his eyes to his pipe, or out of the window, was it
not fancy altogether? Beyond that he was unusually tall and broad across
the shoulders, and of a very intelligent cast of features, what was
there or was there not in this young man different from any other? He
had the muffled irregular voice, and alert yet unimpressible manner,
peculiar to deafness. But was there any thing more? The professor took
another look at him. He was reading, and certainly there were no signs
of any thing strange in his appearance, more than that, at such a time,
he should be reading at all. It was when speaking of his father that
the uncanny expression had been especially noticeable. "Suppose," said
Professor Valeyon to himself, "we try him on another subject."

"You've been educated at home, I understand," began he, from beneath his
heavy eyebrows.

"Oh, yes!" replied Bressant, shutting his book on his knee, and
returning the professor's look with one of exceeding keenness and
comprehensiveness. "Educated to develop faculties of body and mind, not
according to the ordinary school and college system." He drew himself
up, with an air of such marvelous intellectual and physical efficiency,
that it seemed to the professor as if each one of his five senses might
equal the whole capacity of a common man. And then it occurred to him
that he remembered, many years ago, having heard some one mention a
theory of education which aimed rather to give the man power in whatever
direction he chose to exercise it, than to store his mind with greater
or less quantities of particular forms of knowledge. The only faculty to
be left uncultivated, according to this theory, was that of human
love--this being considered destructive, or, at least, greatly
prejudicial, to progress and efficiency in any other direction. The