You know I have a gift of
foreseeing and foretelling."
"This won't do for me, Guy; I know you too well to regard you as one
likely to be influenced by notions of this nature--you must put me on
some other scent."
"Why, so I would, Wat, if I were assured that I myself knew the precise
impulse which sets me on this work. But the fact is, my hate to the boy
springs from certain influences which may not be defined by name--which
grow out of those moral mysteries of our nature, for which we can
scarcely account to ourselves; and, by the operation of which, we are
led to the performance of things seemingly without any adequate cause or
necessity. A few reflections might give you the full force of this. Why
do some men shrink from a cat? There is an instance now in John Bremer;
a fellow, you know, who would make no more ado about exchanging
rifle-shots with his enemy at twenty paces, than at taking dinner; yet a
black cat throws him into fits, from which for two days he never
perfectly recovers.
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