m 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 yo