probably makes discoveries among the stars by daylight. Wandering
along lonesome paths or in pathless forests, when I have come to
virgin fountains of which it would have been pleasant to deem myself
the first discoverer, I have started to find Monsieur du Miroir
there before me. The solitude seemed lonelier for his presence. I
have leaned from a precipice that frowns over Lake George, which the
French call nature's font of sacramental water, and used it in their
log-churches here and their cathedrals beyond the sea, and seen him
far below in that pure element. At Niagara, too, where I would
gladly have forgotten both myself and him, I could not help
observing my companion in the smooth water on the very verge of the
cataract just above the Table Rock. Were I to reach the sources of
the Nile, I should expect to meet him there. Unless he be another
Ladurlad, whose garments the depth of ocean could not moisten, it is
difficult to conceive how he keeps himself in any decent pickle;
though I am bound to confess that his clothes seem always as dry and
comfortable as my own. But, as a friend, I could wish that he would
not so often expose himself in liquor.

All that I have hitherto related may be classed among those little
personal oddities which agreeably diversify the surface of society,
and, though they may sometimes annoy us, yet keep our daily
intercourse fresher and livelier than if they were done away. By an
occasional hint, however, I have endeavored to pave the way for
stranger things to come, which, had they been disclosed at once,
Monsieur du Miroir might have been deemed a shadow, and myself a
person of no veracity, and this truthful history a fabulous legend.
But, now that the reader knows me worthy of his confidence, I will
begin to make him stare.