"If I were requested," says Leigh Hunt in his "Essay on Wit and Humor," "to name the book of all others which combines wit and humor under their highest appearance of levity with the profoundest wisdom, it would be 'Tristram Shandy,'" the chief work of Laurence Sterne, who was born in 1713, and died in 1768. The following story of LeFevre, drawn from that unique book, full of simple pathos and gentle kindness, presents, perhaps, the best picture of the character that names this chapter:
It was some time in the Summer of that year in which Dendermond was taken by the allies--which was about seven years before my father came into the country, and about as many after the time that my uncle Toby and Trim had privately decamped from my father's house in town, in order to lay some of the finest sieges to some of the finest fortified cities in Europe--when my uncle Toby was one evening getting his supper, with Trim sitting behind him at a small sideboard, the landlord of a little inn in the village came into the parlor, with an empty phial in his hand, to beg a glass or two of sack. "'Tis for a poor gentleman, I think, of the army," said the landlord, "who has been taken ill at my house four days ago, and has never held up his head since, or had a desire to taste any thing till just now, that he has a fancy for a glass of sack and a thin toast. 'I think,' says he, taking his hand from his forehead, 'it would comfort me.'"
"If I could neither beg, borrow, nor buy such a thing," added the landlord, "I would almost steal it for the poor gentleman, he is so ill. I hope in God he will still mend," continued he; "we are all of us concerned for him."
"Thou art a good-natured soul, I will answer for thee," cried my uncle Toby; "and thou shalt drink the poor gentleman's health in a glass of sack thyself--and take a couple of bottles, with my service, and tell him he is heartily welcome to them, and to a dozen more if they will do him good."
"Though I am persuaded," said my uncle Toby, as the landlord shut the door, "he is a very compassionate fellow, Trim, yet I can not help entertaining a very high opinion of his guest, too; there must be something more than common in him, that in so short a time should win so much upon the affections of his host." "And of his whole family," added the corporal, "for they are all concerned for him." "Step after him," said my uncle Toby; "do, Trim; and ask if he knows his name."
"I have quite forgot it, truly," said the landlord, coming back into the parlor with the corporal, "but I can ask his son again." "Has a son with him then?" said my uncle Toby. "A boy," replied the landlord, "of about eleven or twelve years of age; but the poor creature has tasted almost as little as his father; he does nothing but mourn and lament for him night and day; he has not stirred from the bedside these two days."
My uncle Toby laid down his knife and fork, and thrust his plate from before him, as the landlord gave him the account; and Trim, without being ordered, took them away without saying one word, and in a few minutes after brought him his pipe and tobacco.
"Stay in the room a little," says my uncle Toby. "Trim," said my uncle Toby, after he had lighted his pipeand smoked about a dozen whiffs. Trim came in front of his master and made his bow; my uncle Toby smoked on and said no more. "Corporal," said my uncle Toby. The corporal made his bow. My uncle Toby proceeded no farther, but finished his pipe. "Trim," said my uncle Toby, "I have a project in my head, as it is a bad night, of wrapping myself up warm in my roquelaure, and paying a visit to this poor gentleman." "Your honor's roquelaure," replied the corporal, "has not been had on since the night before your honor received your wound, when we mounted guard in the trenches before the gate of St. Nicholas; and, besides, it is so cold and rainy a night, that what with the roquelaure and what with the weather, 't will be enough to give your honor your death, and bring on your honor's torment in your groin." "I fear so," replied my uncle Toby; "but I am not at rest in my mind, Trim, since the account the landlord has given me. I wish I had not known so much of this affair," added my uncle Toby, "or that I had known more of it. How shall we manage it!" "Leave it, an 't please your honor, to me," quoth the corporal; "I'll take my hat and stick, and go to the house, reconnoitre, and act accordingly; and I will bring your honor a full account in an hour." "Thou shalt go, Trim," said my uncle Toby, "and here's a shilling for thee to drink with his servant." "I shall get it all out of him," said the corporal, shutting the door. My uncle Toby filled his second pipe; and, had it not been that he now and then wandered from the point, with considering whether it was not full as well to have the curtain of the tennaile a straight line as a crooked one, he might be said to have thought of nothing else but poor LeFevre and his boy the whole time he smoked it.
My uncle Toby had knocked the ashes out of his third pipe, when Trim returned and gave the following account:
"I despaired at first," said the corporal, "of being able to bring back your honor any kind of intelligence concerning the poor sick lieutenant." "Is he in the army, then?" said my uncle Toby. "He is," said the corporal. "And in what regiment?" said my uncle Toby. "I'll tell your honor," replied the corporal, "every thing straight forward, as I learnt it." "Then, Trim, I'll fill another pipe," said my uncle Toby, "and not interrupt thee till thou hast done; so sit down at thy ease, Trim, in the window-seat, and begin thy story again." The corporal made his old bow, which generally spoke as plain as a bow could speak it. "Your honor is good," and, having done that, he sat down as he was ordered, and began the story to my uncle Toby over again, in pretty nearly the same words.
"I despaired at first," said the corporal, "of being able to bring back any intelligence to your honor about the lieutenant and his son; for when I asked where his servant was, from whom I made myself sure of knowing every thing which was proper to be asked"--"That's a right distinction, Trim," said my uncle Toby. "I was answered, an please your honor, that he had no servant with him; that he had come to the inn with hired horses, which, upon finding himself unable to proceed (to join, I suppose, the regiment), he had dismissed the morning after he came. 'If I get better, my dear,' said he, as he gave his purse to his son to pay the man, 'we can hire horses from hence.' 'But, alas! the poor gentleman will never get from hence,' said the landlady to me, 'for I heard the death-watch all night long; and when he dies, the youth, his son, will certainly die with him, for he is broken-hearted already.'
"I was hearing this account," continued the corporal, "when the youth came into the kitchen to order the thin toast the landlord spoke of; 'but I will do it for my fathermyself,' said the youth. 'Pray let me save you the trouble, young gentleman,' said I, taking up a fork for the purpose, and offering him my chair to sit down upon by the fire, whilst I did it. 'I believe, sir,' said he, very modestly, 'I can please him best myself.' 'I am sure,' said I, 'his honor will not like the toast the worse for being toasted by an old soldier.' The youth took hold of my hand and instantly burst into tears."
"Poor youth," said my uncle Toby, "he has been bred up from an infant in the army, and the name of a soldier, Trim, sounded in his ears like the name of a friend; I wish I had him here."
"I never, in the longest march," said the corporal, "had so great a mind to my dinner as I had to cry with him for company. What could be the matter with me, an' please your honor?" "Nothing in the world, Trim," said my uncle Toby, blowing his nose; "but that thou art a good-natured fellow."
"When I gave him the toast," continued the corporal, "I thought it was proper to tell him I was Captain Shandy's servant, and that your honor (though a stranger) was extremely concerned for his father; and that if there was any thing in your house or cellar, ('and thou mightst have added my purse, too,' said my uncle Toby,) he was heartily welcome to it. He made a very low bow (which was meant to your honor), but no answer--for his heart was full--so he went upstairs with the toast. 'I warrant you, my dear,' said I, as I opened the kitchen door, 'your father will be well again.' Mr. Yorick's curate was smoking a pipe by the kitchen fire, but said not a word, good or bad, to comfort the youth. I thought it was wrong," added the corporal. "I think so, too," said my uncle Toby.
"When the lieutenant had taken his glass of sack andtoast, he felt himself a little revived, and sent down into the kitchen to let me know that in about ten minutes he should be glad if I would come upstairs. 'I believe,' said the landlord, 'he was going to say his prayers, for there was a book laid upon the chair by his bedside; and as I shut the door I saw his son take up a cushion.'
"'I thought,' said the curate, 'that you gentlemen of the army, Mr. Trim, never said your prayers at all.' 'I heard the poor gentleman say his prayers last night,' said the landlady, 'very devoutly, and with my own ears, or I could not have believed it.' 'Are you sure of it,' replied the curate. 'A soldier, an' please your reverence,' said I, 'prays as often (of his own accord) as a parson; and when he is fighting for his king and for his own life, and for his honor too, he has the most reason to pray to God of any one in the whole world.'" "'Twas well said of thee, Trim," said my uncle Toby. "'But when a soldier,' said I, 'an' please your reverence, has been standing for twelve hours together in the trenches up to his knees in cold water, or engaged,' said I, 'for months together in long and dangerous marches; harassed, perhaps, in his rear to-day; harassing others to-morrow; detached here; countermanded there; resting this night upon his arms; beat up in his shirt the next; benumbed in his joints; perhaps without straw in his tent to kneel on, he must say his prayers how and when he can, I believe,' said I, for I was piqued," quoth the corporal, "for the reputation of the army. 'I believe, an't please your reverence,' said I, 'that when a soldier gets time to pray, he prays as heartily as a parson, though not with all his fuss and hypocrisy.'" "Thou shouldst not have said that, Trim," said my uncle Toby, "for God only knows who is a hypocrite and who is not. At the great and general review of us all, corporal, at the day of judgment (and not till then), itwill be seen who has done their duties in this world and who has not; and we shall be advanced, Trim, accordingly." "I hope we shall," said Trim. "It is in the Scripture," said my uncle Toby, "and I will show it thee to-morrow. In the meantime, we may depend upon it, Trim, for our comfort," said my uncle Toby, "that God Almighty is so good and just a governor of the world, that if we have but done our duties in it, it will never be inquired into whether we have done them in a red coat or a black one." "I hope not," said the corporal. "But go on, Trim," said my uncle Toby, "with thy story."
"When, I went up," continued the corporal, "into the lieutenant's room, which I did not do till the expiration of the ten minutes, he was lying in his bed with his head raised up on his hand, with his elbow upon the pillow, and a clean white cambric handkerchief beside it. The youth was just stooping down to take up the cushion upon which I supposed he had been kneeling; the book was laid upon the bed, and as he rose, in taking up the cushion with one hand, he reached out his other to take it away at the same time. 'Let it remain there, my dear,' said the lieutenant.
"He did not offer to speak to me till I had walked up close to his bedside. 'If you are Captain Shandy's servant,' said he, 'you must present my thanks to your master, with my little boy's thanks along with them, for his courtesy to me, if he was of the Leven's,' said the lieutenant. I told him your honor was. 'Then,' said he, 'I served three campaigns with him in Flanders, and remember him; but 't is most likely, as I had not the honor of any acquaintance with him, that he knows nothing of me. You will tell him, however, that the person his good nature has laid under obligations to him, is one LeFevre, a lieutenant in Angus's; but he knows me not,' said he a second time,musing. 'Possibly, he may my story,' added he; 'pray tell the captain I was the ensign at Breda whose wife was most unfortunately killed with a musket-shot, as she lay in my arms in my tent.' 'I remember the story, an't please your honor,' said I, very well.' 'Do you so?' said he, wiping his eyes with his handkerchief; 'then well may I.' In saying this, he drew a little ring out of his bosom, which seemed tied with a black ribbon about his neck, and kissed it twice. 'Here, Billy,' said he. The boy flew across the room to the bedside, and, falling down upon his knee, took the ring in his hand, and kissed it, too; then kissed his father, and sat down upon the bed and wept."
"I wish," said my uncle Toby, with a deep sigh, "I wish, Trim, I was asleep."
"Your honor," replied the corporal, "is too much concerned. Shall I pour your honor out a glass of sack to your pipe?" "Do, Trim," said my uncle Toby.
"I remember," said my uncle Toby, sighing again, "the story of the ensign and his wife, with a circumstance his modesty omitted; and particularly well that he, as well as she, upon some account or other (I forget what), was universally pitied by the whole regiment; but finish the story thou art upon." "Tis finished already," said the corporal, "for I could stay no longer, so wished his honor good-night." Young LeFevre rose from off the bed and saw me to the bottom of the stairs; and, as we went down together, told me they had come from Ireland, and were on their route to join their regiment in Flanders. "But, alas," said the corporal, "the lieutenant's last day's march is over." "Then what is to become of his poor boy?" cried my uncle Toby.
It was to my uncle Toby's eternal honor, though I tell it only for the sake of those who, when cooped in betwixta natural and a positive law, know not, for their souls, which way in the world to turn themselves, that, notwithstanding my uncle Toby was warmly engaged at that time in carrying on the siege of Dendermond, parallel with the allies, who pressed theirs on so vigorously that they scarce allowed him to get his dinner, that, nevertheless, he gave up Dendermond, although he had already made a lodgment upon the counterscarp, and bent his whole thoughts-toward the private distresses at the inn, and that, except that he ordered the garden gate to be bolted up, by which he might be said to have turned the siege of Dendermond into a blockade, he left Dendermond to itself, to be relieved or not by the French king as the French king thought good, and only considered how he himself should relieve the poor lieutenant and his son.
That kind Being, who is a friend to the friendless, shall recompense thee for this.
"Thou hast left this matter short," said my uncle Toby to the corporal, as he was putting him to bed, "and I will tell thee in what, Trim. In the first place, when thou madest an offer of my services to LeFevre, as sickness and traveling are both expensive, and thou knewest he was but a poor lieutenant, with a son to subsist as well as himself out of his pay, that thou didst not make an offer to him of my purse, because, had he stood in need, thou knowest, Trim, he had been as welcome to it as myself."
"Your honor knows," said the corporal, "I had no orders." "True," quoth my uncle Toby, "thou did'st very right, Trim, as a soldier, but certainly very wrong as a man."
"In the second place, for which, indeed, thou hast the same excuse," continued my uncle Toby, "when thou offeredst him whatever was in my house, thou shouldst have offeredhim my house, too. A sick brother officer should have the best quarters, Trim, and if we had him with us, we could tend and look to him. Thou art an excellent nurse thyself, Trim, and what with thy care of him, and the old woman's, and his boy's and mine together, we might recruit him again at once and set him upon his legs."
"In a fortnight, or three weeks," added my uncle Toby, smiling, "he might march." "He will never march, an', please your honor, in this world," said the corporal. "He will march," said my uncle Toby, rising from the side of the bed with one shoe off. "An', please your honor," said the corporal, "he will never march, but to his grave." "He shall march," cried my uncle Toby, marching the foot which had a shoe on, though without advancing an inch, "he shall march to his regiment." "He can not stand it," said the corporal. "He shall be supported," said my uncle Toby. "He'll drop at last," said the corporal, "and what will become of his boy?" "He shall not drop," said my uncle Toby, firmly. "Ah, welladay, do what we can for him," said Trim, maintaining his point, "the poor soul will die." "He shall not die, by G--d," cried my uncle Toby.
Theaccusing spiritwhich flew up to heaven's chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in, and therecording angel, as he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word and blotted it out forever.
My uncle Toby went to his bureau, put his purse into his breeches pocket, and, having ordered the corporal to go early in the morning for a physician, he went to bed and fell asleep.
The sun looked bright the morning after to every eye in the village but LeFevre's and his afflicted son's; the hand of death pressed heavy upon his eyelids, and hardly could the wheel at the cistern turn round its circle when my uncleToby, who had rose up an hour before his wonted time, entered the lieutenant's room, and, without preface or apology, set himself down upon the chair by the bedside, and independently of all modes and customs, opened the curtain in the manner an old friend and brother officer would have done it, and asked him how he did; how he had rested in the night; what was his complaint; where was his pain, and what could he do to help him? and without giving him time to answer any one of the inquiries, went on and told him of the little plan which he had been concerting with the corporal, the night before, for him.
"You shall go home directly, LeFevre," said my uncle Toby, "to my house, and we'll send for a doctor to see what's the matter, and we'll have an apothecary, and the corporal shall be your nurse and I'll be your servant, LeFevre."
There was a frankness in my Uncle Toby, not the effect of familiarity, but the cause of it, which let you at once into his soul and showed you the goodness of his nature; to this, there was something in his looks, and voice, and manner superadded, which eternally beckoned to the unfortunate to come and take shelter under him; so that before my uncle Toby had half finished the kind offers he was making to the father, had the son insensibly pressed up close to his knees, and had taken hold of the breast of his coat and was pulling it toward him. The blood and spirits of LeFevre, which were waxing cold and slow within him, and were retreating to their last citadel, the heart, rallied back, the film forsook his eyes for a moment, and he looked up wishfully in my uncle Toby's face, then cast a look upon his boy, and that ligament, fine as it was, was never broken.
Nature instantly ebbed again; the film returned to its place; the pulse fluttered--stopped--went on--throbbed--stopped again--moved--stopped--shall I go on? No.
Imagine the figure of an old man, low in stature, squarely built, clumsily dressed, and standing on large feet. To this uncouth form, add a repulsive face, wrinkled, cold, colorless, and stony, with one eye dull and the other blind--a "wall-eye." His expression is that of a man wrapped in the mystery of his own hidden thoughts. He looks--
"Like monumental bronze, unchanged his look--A soul which pity never touched or shook--Trained, from his lowly cradle to his bier,The fierce extremes of good and ill to brookUnchanging, fearing but the charge of fear--A stoic of the mart, a man without a tear."
Such a man was Stephen Girard, one of the most distinguished merchants in the annals of commerce, and the founder of the celebrated Girard College in Philadelphia. Let us briefly trace his history and observe his character.
Girard was a Frenchman by birth, born in the environs of Bordeaux, in May, 1750, of obscure parents. His early instruction was very limited; and, being deformed by a wall-eye, he was an object of ridicule to the companions of his boyhood. This treatment, as is supposed by his biographer, soured his temper, made him shrink from society, and led him to live among his own thoughts rather than in mental communion with his fellows.
The precise cause of his leaving his native hearth-stone is unknown. The fact is certain that he did leave it, when only ten or twelve years old, and sailed, a poor cabin-boy, to the West Indies. This was his starting-point in life. Never had any boy a smaller capital on which to build his fortune. He went out from his unhappy home, ignorant, poor, unfriended, and unknown. That from such a cheerless beginning he should rise to the rank of a merchant prince must be accounted one of the marvels of human history.
His first step was to gain the confidence of his superiors, not so much by affability and courtesy--for of these social virtues he was never possessed--as by steady good conduct, fidelity to his employers, temperance, and studied effort to do his humble duties well. Whatsoever his hands found to do he did with his might. As a consequence, we find him, in a few years, in high favor with a Captain Randall, of New York, who always spoke of him as "my Stephen," and who promoted him from one position to another, until he secured him the command of a small vessel, and sent him on trading voyages between the ports of New York and New Orleans. That the poor cabin-boy should rise, by his own merits, in some six or seven years, to be the commander of a vessel was success such as few lads have ever won with such slender means and few helps as were within reach of young Girard.
When only nineteen, we find him in Philadelphia, driving a thrifty but quiet trade in a little shop in Water Street. Shortly after opening this store, his fancy was taken captive by a maiden of sixteen Summers, named Mary, but familiarly called Polly, Lum. She was a shipwright's daughter, a pretty brunette, who was in the habit of going to the neighboring pump, barefooted, "with her rich, glossy, black hair hanging in disheveled curls about herneck." Her modesty pleased him, her beauty charmed him, and, after a few months of rude courtship, he was married to her, in 1770.
His marriage, instead of carrying happiness into the home over which he installed his beautiful bride, only embittered two lives. It was a union of mere fancy on his side, and of self-interest on hers, not of genuine affection. Their dispositions were not congenial. She was ignorant, vulgar, slovenly. He was arbitrary, harsh, rude, imperious, unyielding. How could their lives flow on evenly together? It was impossible. The result was misery to both, and, as we shall see hereafter, the once beautiful Polly Lum ended her days in a mad-house--a sad illustration of the folly of premature, ill-assorted marriages.
Finding little at his fireside to move his heart, Girard gave his whole soul to business, now trading to San Domingo and New Orleans, and then in his store in Water Street. When the Revolutionary War began, it swept his commercial ventures from the ocean, but he, still bent on gain and indifferent as to the means of winning it, then opened a grocery, and engaged in bottling cider and claret. When the British army occupied Philadelphia, he moved this bottling business to Mount Holly, in New Jersey, where he continued until the American flag again floated over Independence Hall.
But times were hard and money scarce, and for awhile Girard added very little to his means. Yet his keen eye was sharply watching for golden opportunities, and his active mind busily thinking how to create or improve them. In 1780, circumstances made trade with New Orleans and San Domingo very profitable. He promptly engaged in it, and in two years doubled his resources.
Peace being restored, Girard, full of faith in the futureof his adopted country, leased a block of stores for ten years at a very low rent. The following year, while business still lay stunned by the blows it had received during the war, he obtained a stipulation from his landlord, giving him the right to renew his lease for a second ten years, if he chose to demand it, when the first one should expire. This was an act of judicious foresight. When, at the expiration of the first lease, he visited his landlord, that gentleman, on seeing him enter his counting-room, said:
"Well, Mr. Girard, you have made out so well by your bargain that I suppose you will hardly hold me to the renewal of the lease for ten years more."
"I have come," replied Gerard, with a look of grim satisfaction, "to secure the ten years more. I shall not let you off."
Nor did he. And the great profits he derived from that fortunate lease greatly broadened the foundation of his subsequently colossal fortune.
As yet, however, his wealth was very moderate, for in 1790, at the dissolution of a partnership he had formed with his brother who had come to America, his own share of the business amounted to only thirty thousand dollars. And yet, forty years later, he died leaving a fortune of ten millions.
It is sad; but may be profitable to know, that his happiness did not increase with his possessions. While his balance-sheets recorded increasing assets, his hearth-stone echoed louder and wilder echoes of discordant voices. He was jealous, arbitrary, and passionate; his unfortunate wife was resentful, fiery, and finally so furious that, in 1790, she was admitted as a maniac to an insane hospital, which she never left until she was carried to her grave, unwept and unregretted, twenty-five years after. Their only child hadgone to an early grave. Girard's nature must have been strangely perverted if he counted, as he seems to have done, the pleasure of making money a compensation for the absence of true womanly love from his cheerless fireside. His heart, no doubt, was as unsentimental as the gold he loved to hoard.
The terrible retribution which about this time overtook the slave-holders of St. Domingo, when their slaves threw off their oppressive yoke, added considerably to his rising fortunes. He happened to have two vessels in that port when the tocsin of insurrection rang out its fearful notes. Frantic with apprehension, many planters rushed with their costliest treasure to these ships, left them in care of their officers, and went back for more. But the blood-stained hand of massacre prevented their return. They and their heirs perished by knife or bullet, and the unclaimed treasure was taken to Philadelphia, to swell the stream of Girard's wealth. He deemed this a lucky accident, no doubt; and smothered his sympathies for the sufferers in the satisfaction he felt over the addition of fifty thousand dollars to his growing estate. It stimulated, if it did not beget, the dream of his life, the passion which possessed his soul, which was to acquire wealth by which hisnamemight be kept before the world forever. "Mydeedsmust be my life. When I am dead myactionsmust speak for me," he said to an acquaintance one day, and thus gave expression to his plan of life. There was nothing intrinsically noble in it. If the means he finally adopted bore a philanthropic stamp on their face, his motive was purely personal, and therefore low and selfish. What he toiled for was a name that would never die. He was shrewd enough to perceive that this end could be most surely gained by linking it with the philanthropic spirit of the Christianity which he detested. And hence arose his idea of founding Girard College.
Shortly after plucking the golden fruit which fell into his hands from the St. Domingo insurrection Girard enlarged his business by building several splendid ships and entering into the China and India trade. His operations in this line were managed with a spirit that indicated a true mercantile genius, and contributed greatly to the enlargement of his fortune.
He made these ships the visible expressions of his thoughts on religion and philosophy by naming them, after his favorite authors, theMontesquieu, theHelvetius, theVoltaire, and theRousseau. He thus defiantly assured the world that he was not only a skeptic, but that he also gloried in that by no means creditable fact.
Girard's life was filled with enigmas. He really loved no living soul. He had no sympathies. He would not part with his money to save agent, servant, neighbor, or relation from death. Nevertheless, when the yellow fever spread dismay, desolation, and death throughout Philadelphia, in 1793, sweeping one-sixth of its population into the grave in about sixty days, he devoted himself to nursing the sick in the hospital with a self-sacrificing zeal which knew no bounds, and which excited universal admiration and praise. His biographer accounts for this conduct, repeated on two subsequent visitations of that terrible fever, by supposing that he was naturally benevolent, but that his early trials had sealed up the fountains of his human feeling. A great public catastrophe broke the seal, the suppressed fountain flowed until the day of terror passed, and then with resolute will he resealed the fountain, and became a cold-hearted, selfish man again.
His selfish disregard for the claims of his dependents was shown, one day, when one of his most successful captains, who had risen from the humble position of apprenticeto the command of a fine ship, asked to be transferred to another ship. Girard made him no reply, but, turning to his desk, said to his chief clerk:
"Roberjot, make out Captain Galigar's account immediately."
When this order was obeyed and the account settled, he coolly said to the faithful officer:
"You are discharged, sir. I do not make the voyage for my captains, but for myself."
There was no appeal to be made from this unjust, arbitrary decision, and the man who had served him faithfully seventeen years left his counting-room to seek another employer.
Discourtesy was also a characteristic of this unlovely and unloving man. He never considered men'sfeelings, nor sought to give pleasure to others by means of the small courtesies of life. He had a farm in the suburbs of the city, and a garden at the back of his town residence. In both he cultivated beautiful flowers and rare fruits; but never, either to visitors or neighbors, did he offer gifts of either. Rich though he was, he sent the surplus to market. He once told a visitor he might glean strawberries from a bed which had been pretty thoroughly picked over. Returning from the lower part of the garden, he found the gentleman picking berries from a full bed. With a look of astonishment, and a voice of half-suppressed anger, he pointed to the exhausted, bed and said:
"I gave you permission only to eat from that bed."
Singular meanness! Yet, notwithstanding this narrow disposition, which ran like veins abnormally distended over nearly all his habits of life, he could, and did at times, do liberal things. But even in such things he was capricious and eccentric; as when a highly esteemed Quaker, namedCoates, asked him one day to make a donation to the Pennsylvania Hospital. He replied:
"Call on me to-morrow morning, Mr. Coates, and if you find me on a right footing, I will do something."
Mr. Coates called as requested, and found Girard at breakfast.
"Draw up and eat," said Girard.
Coates did so quite readily. The repast ended, he said, "Now we will proceed to business, Stephen."
"Well, what have you come for, Samuel?"
"Any thing thee pleases, Stephen," rejoined the Quaker.
Girard filled out and signed a check for two hundred dollars. Coates took it, and, without noting how much was the amount, put it in his pocket-book.
"What, you no look at the check I gave you!" exclaimed the merchant.
"No, beggars must not be choosers."
"Hand me back the check I gave you," demanded Girard.
"No, no, Stephen; a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," responded Coates.
"By George," exclaimed Girard, "you have caught me on theright footing."
He then drew a check for five hundred dollars, which he laid before the Quaker, saying: "Will you now look at it, Samuel!"
"Well, to please thee, Stephen, I will."
He did so, and then, at Girard's request, returned the first and went away triumphantly with the second check.
Skeptic though he was, Girard sometimes gave money to build churches, not because they werechurches, but because, as buildings, they contributed to the improvement of the city. To a brother merchant, who solicited aid towardbuilding a Methodist church, he once presented a check for five hundred dollars, saying:
"I approve of your motives, and, as the erection of such a building will tend to improve that quarter of the city, I am willing to assist in the furtherance of your object."
It happened that the church to which he thus contributed was subsequently sold to the Episcopalians, who proceeded to convert it into a Gothic structure at a very considerable outlay. They also waited on Girard soliciting a contribution. He handed them a check for five hundred dollars. The gentlemen solicitors looked blank, and intimated that he had made the mistake of omitting a cipher. He had given the "poor Methodists" that sum they pleaded; he surely must have intended to make his present gift five thousand. With this remark they handed back the check, requesting him to add the desired cipher.
"Ah, gentlemen, what you say? I have made one mistake? Let me see; I believe not; but if you say so I must correct it."
Thus saying, he took up the check, tore it to pieces, and added: "I will not contribute one cent. Your society is wealthy. The Methodists are poor, but I make no distinction. Yet I can not please you.... I have nothing to give for your magnificent church."
But, with all his offensive peculiarities, Girard continued to increase his wealth. His ships spread their sails on every sea and earned money for him in every great commercial port. In 1812 he founded the old Girard Bank, and added the rich profits of banking to the immense gains of his vast mercantile transactions. This new enterprise greatly enlarged the sphere of his influence, especially as in matters pertaining to the financial interests of the country and of the city of Philadelphia he manifested a degree of publicspirit which contrasted marvelously with his narrowness, meanness, and even inhumanity, in dealing with individual and private interests. He was certainly a patriotic man. Nevertheless, as his biographer demonstrates, he always contrived to make his patriotism tributary to the increase of his immense wealth. His magnificent purchases of United States securities in times of pecuniary disaster, though they contributed immensely to the credit of the government, were not wholly patriotic. They were, to his far-seeing mind, investments which were sure to pay. And he knew also that the very magnitude of his purchases would, by strengthening public confidence, insure the profitable returns he sought. Still, there is no room for doubting the sincerity of his attachment to the country of his adoption.
This fortunate accumulator of millions took very little from his hoards for the promotion of his personal ease and physical enjoyments. He lived in a plain mansion, simply furnished, and standing in the midst of warehouses, where the din of business, the rolling of heavy wheels, and the city's noisiest roar, constantly filled his ears. His table was plentifully but not luxuriously supplied. As he grew old it was extremely simple. He gave no parties, invited none to share his hospitality, except now and then an individual from whom he had reason for believing he could extract information which would be useful to him. He worked incessantly at his business, rising at three or four o'clock and toiling until after midnight. His keen eye inspected every department of his complicated business, from the discounting of a note to the building of a ship or the erection of a building. His only recreation was his garden, his farm at Passyunk, or the training of his birds. His life was coined into work. Its only real pleasure was derived from the accumulation of the money which was to make his name immortal.
In 1830 the sight of his eye grew so dim that it was both difficult and dangerous for him to grope his way along the familiar streets where he transacted business. But so obstinately self-reliant was he that he refused the aid of an attendant. He paid dearly for this obstinacy; for, one day as he was going home from his bank, he was knocked down by a wagon on a street-crossing. A gentleman, seeing him fall, rushed to his assistance. But before he could reach him the plucky old merchant was on his feet shouting, "Stop that fellow! stop that fellow!"
He was badly hurt. Nevertheless, he persisted in walking home. When his physician came his face was found to be seriously wounded. His right ear was almost entirely cut off. His eye was entirely closed. His entire system had received a violent shock, from which it never recovered. His wound healed, but from that time his body began to waste, his face grew thin, and his natural force began to abate. His strength was sadly impaired, and when, in December, 1831, he was attacked by a prevailing influenza, his worn-out system succumbed. The disease touched his powerful brain. He became first insane and then insensible, until, on the 26th of December, 1831, this old man of eighty-two rose from his bed, walked across his chamber, returned almost immediately to his bed, and then, placing his hand upon his burning head, exclaimed:
"How violent is this disorder! How very extraordinary it is!"
After this he lapsed into an unconscious condition, and while in this state, his naked soul passed into the presence-chamber of that Infinite One whose worship it had neglected, and whose existence it had boldly denied.
Thus ended that busy life, which began in poverty, and which had yielded its possessor a fortune often millions ofdollars. Surely, if wealth and the power it wields be the real crown of life, Stephen Girard must be accorded high rank among the mighty men who win magnificent victories over the adverse circumstances of an obscure birth. He sought riches, not as a miser who gloats with low delight over his glittering gold, but as a man ambitious to make his name imperishable. His ambition was satisfied. His ten millions, invested as directed in his will, which is itself a marvel of worldly wisdom, is accomplishing his life-long desire. So far as human foresight can perceive, Girard College will keep the name of this wonderful man before the eyes of men through the coming ages.
Nevertheless, we count this victor over the mighty obstacles which stand between a penniless cabin-boy and the ownership of millions a vanquished man. Bringing his life into the "light of the glory of God which shines from the face of Jesus Christ," we are compelled to pronounce it a miserable failure. We do not find either Christian faith or Christian morality in it. As to faith, he had none; for he was an atheist, and gloried in his disbelief of all revealed truth. As to morality, his biographer informs us that he was an unchaste, profane, passionate, arbitrary, ungenerous, unloving man. His apparent philanthropy was so veined with selfishness that it was rarely ever exhibited except under conditions which secured publicity. And even the college which perpetuates his name proclaims, by its prohibition ofreligiousinstruction, his hatred of "the only name given under heaven among men whereby we can be saved." It is true that his will enjoins instruction in morals; but it is heathen, not Christian, morality that he intended; and, if the letter and spirit of his remarkable will were strictly carried out, the graduates of Girard College would leave its walls as ill instructed in the principles of genuine moralityas were the disciples of Socrates or the followers of Confucius. The only roots on which pure morals can grow are faith in our heavenly Father and his divine Son, and love which is born of that precious faith. That faith is forbidden to be taught, and its divinely ordained teachers are prohibited entrance within the walls his unsanctified ambition built. Happily for the orphan boys who congregate there, thespiritof that antichristian will can not be executed in this Christian country. Itsletteris no doubt respected; but the ethics of the institution are not those of Voltaire, Rousseau, or Confucius, but of Jesus, whose life is the only "light of men." Hence, while his college may perpetuate his name, it will never cause mankind to love his character, nor to hope that he is one of that exalted host which ascended to heaven through much tribulation, and after washing their robes in the blood of the Lamb.--DR. WISE,in "Victors Vanquished," Cranston & Stowe, Cincinnati.
Our illusions commence in the cradle, and end only in the grave. We have all great expectations. Our ducks are ever to be geese, our geese swans; and we can not bear the truth when it comes upon us. Hence our disappointments; hence Solomon cried out that all was vanity, that he had tried every thing, each pleasure, each beauty, and found it very empty. People, he writes, should be taught by my example; they can not go beyond me--"What can he do that comes after the king?"
It is very doubtful whether, to an untried or a young man, the warnings of Solomon, or the outpourings of that griefful prophet whose name now passes for a lamentation, have done much good. Hope balances caution, and "springs eternal in the human breast." The old man fails, but the young constantly fancies he shall succeed. "Solomon," he cries, "did not know every thing;" but in a few years his own disappointments tell him how true the king's words are, and he cherishes the experience he has bought. But experience does not serve him in every case; it has been said that it is simply like the stern-lights of a ship, which lighten the path she has passed over, but not that which she is about to traverse. To know one's self is the hardest lesson we can learn. Few of us ever realize our true position; few see that they are like Bunyan's hero in the midst of Vanity Fair, and that all about them are snares, illusions, painted shows, real troubles, and true miseries, many trials and few enjoyments.
Perhaps the bitterest feelings in our life are those which we experience, when boys and girls, at the failures of our friendships and our loves. We have heard of false friends; we have read of deceit in books; but we know nothing about it, and we hardly believe what we hear. Our friend is to be true as steel. He is always to like us, and we him. He is a second Damon, we a Pythias. We remember the fond old stories of celebrated friendships; how one shared his fortune, another gave his life. Our friend is just of that sort; he is noble, true, grand, heroic. Of course, he is wonderfully generous. We talk of him; he will praise us. The whole people around, who laugh at the sudden warmth, we regard as old fogies, who do not understand life half as well as we do. But by and by our friend vanishes; the image which we thought was gold we find made of mere clay. We grow melancholy; we are fond of reading Byron's poetry; the sun is not nearly so bright nor the sky so blue as it used to be. We sing, with the noble poet--
"My days are in the yellow leaf,The flowers and fruits of love are gone;The worm, the canker, and the griefAre mine alone.!"
We cease to believe in friendship; we quote old saws, and fancy ourselves cruelly used. We think ourselves philosophic martyrs, when the simple truth is, that we are disappointed.
The major part of the misery in marriage arises from the false estimate which we make of married happiness. A young man, who is a pure and good one, when he starts in life is very apt to fancy all women angels. He loves and venerates his mother; he believes her better, purer far, than his father, because his school-days have taught him practicallywhat men are; but he does not yet know what women are. His sisters are angels too, and the wife he is about to marry, the best, the purest woman in the world, also an angel, of course. Marriage soon opens his eyes. It would be out of the course of nature for every body to secure an angel; and the young husband finds that he has married a woman of the ordinary pattern--not a whit better on the whole than man; perhaps worse, because weaker. The high-flown sentiment is all gone, the romantic ideas fade down to the light of common day. "The bloom of young desire, the purple light of love," as Milton writes in one of the most beautiful lines ever penned, too often pass away as well, and a future of misery is opened up on the basis of disappointment. After all, the difficulty to be got over is this--how is mankind to be taught to take a just estimate of things? Is it possible to put old heads upon young shoulders? Is not youth a perpetual state of intoxication? Is not every thing better and brighter far then than in middle life? These are the questions to be solved, and once solved we shall be happy; we shall have learnt the great lesson, that whatever is, is ordained by a great and wise power, and that we are therewith to be content.
A kindly consideration for others is the best method in the world to adopt, to ease off our own troubles; and this consideration is to be cultivated very easily. There is not one of those who will take up this book who is perfectly happy, and not one who does not fancy that he or she might be very much better off. Perhaps ten out of every dozen have been disappointed in life. They are not precisely what they should be. The wise poor man, in spite of his wisdom, envies the rich fool; and the fool--if he has any appreciation--envies the wisdom of the other. One is too tall, the other is too short; ill-health plagues a third, and a bad wifea fourth; and so on. Yet there is not one of the sorrows or troubles that we have but might be reasoned away. The short man can not add a cubit to his stature; but he may think, after all, that many great heroes have been short, and that it is the mind, not the form, that makes the man. Napoleon the Great, who had high-heeled boots, and was, to be sure, hardly a giant in stature, once looked at a picture of Alexander, by David. "Ah!" said he, taking snuff, with a pleased air, "Alexander was shorter than I." The hero last mentioned is he who cried because he had no more worlds to conquer, and who never thought of conquering himself. But if Alexander were disappointed about another world, his courtiers were much more so because they were not Alexanders. But the world would not have cared for a surplus of them; one was enough. Conquerers are very pleasant fellows, no doubt, and are disappointed and sulky because they can not gain more battles; but we poor frogs in the world are quite satisfied with one King Stork.
If we look at a disappointment as a lesson, we soon take the sting out of it. A spider will teach us that. He is watching for a fly, and away the nimble fellow flies. The spider upon this runs round his net to see whether there be any holes, and to mend them. When doing so, he comes upon an old body of one of his victims, and he commences again on it, with a pious ejaculation of "Better luck next time." So one of the greatest and wisest missionaries whom we have ever had, tried, when a boy, to climb a tree. He fell down, and broke his leg. Seriously lamed, he went on crutches for six months, and at the end of that time quietly set about climbing the tree again, and succeeded. He had, in truth, a reserve fund of good-humor and sound sense, saw where he failed, and conquered it. His disappointment was worth twenty dozen successes to him, and to the worldtoo. It is a good rule, also, never to make too sure of any thing, and never to put too high a price on it. Every thing is worth doing well; every thing, presuming you like it, is worth having. The girl you fall in love with may be silly and ill-favored; but what of that? she is your love. "'Tis a poor fancy of mine own to like that which none other man will have," says the fool Touchstone; but he speaks like a wise man. He is wiser than the melancholy Jacques in the same play, who calls all people fools, and mopes about preaching wise saws. If our young men were as wise, there would not be half the ill-assorted marriages in the world, and there would be fewer single women. If they only chose by sense or fancy, or because they saw some good quality in a girl--if they were not all captivated by the face alone, every Jill would have her Jack, and pair off happily, like the lovers in a comedy. But it is not so. We can not live without illusions; we can not, therefore, subsist without disappointments. They, too, follow each other as the night the day, the shade the sunshine; they are as inseparable as life and death.
The difference of our conditions alone places a variety in these illusions; perhaps the lowest of us have the brightest, just as Cinderella, sitting amongst the coals, dreamed of the ball and beautiful prince as well as her sisters. "Bare and grim to tears," says Emerson, "is the lot of the children I saw yesterday; yet not the less they hung it round with frippery romance, like the children of the happiest fortune, and would talk of 'the dear cottage where so many joyful hours had flown.' Well, this thatching of hovels is the custom of the country. Women, more than all, are the element and kingdom of illusion." Happy is it that they are so. These fancies and illusions bring forth the inevitable disappointments, but they carry life on with a swing. If every hovel-bornchild had sat down at his doorstep, and taken true stock of himself, and had said, "I am a poor miserable child, weak in health, without knowledge, with little help, and can not do much," we should have wanted many a hero. We should have had no Stephenson, no Faraday, no Arkwright, and no Watt. Our railways would have been unbuilt, and the Atlantic Ocean would have been unbridged by steam. But hope, as phrenologists tells us, lies above caution, and has dangerous and active neighbors--wit, imagination, language, ideality--so the poor cottage is hung round with fancies, and the man exists to help his fellows. He may fail; but others take up his tangled thread, and unravel it, and carry on the great business of life.
The constantly cheerful man, who survives his blighted hopes and disappointments, who takes them just for what they are--lessons, and perhaps blessings in disguise--is the true hero. He is like a strong swimmer; the waves dash over him, but he is never submerged. We can not help applauding and admiring such a man; and the world, good-natured and wise in its verdict, cheers him when he gains the goal. There may be brutality in the sport, but there can be no question as to the merit, when the smaller prizefighter, who receives again and again his adversary's knockdown blow, again gets up and is ready for the fray. Old General Blucher was not a lucky general. He was beaten almost every time he ventured to battle; but in an incredible space of time he had gathered together his routed army, and was as formidable as before. The Germans liked the bold old fellow, and called, and still call him, Marshal Forwards. He had his disappointments, no doubt, but turned them, like the oyster does the speck of sand which annoys it, to a pearl. To our minds, the best of all these heroes is Robert Hall, the preacher, who, after falling on the ground inparoxysms of pain, would rise with a smile, and say, "I suffered much, but I did not cry out, did I? did I cry out?" Beautiful is this heroism. Nature, base enough under some aspects, rises into grandeur in such an example, and shoots upwards to an Alpine height of pure air and cloudless sunshine; the bold, noble, and kindly nature of the man, struggling against pain, and asking, in an apologetic tone, "Did I cry out?" whilst his lips were white with anguish, and his tongue, bitten through in the paroxysm, was red with blood!
There is a companion picture of ineffaceable grandeur to this in Plato's "Phoedo," where Socrates, who has been unchained simply that he may prepare for death, sits upon his bed, and, rubbing his leg gently where the iron had galled it, begins, not a complaint against fate, or his judges, or the misery of present death, but a grateful little reflection. "What an unaccountable thing, my friends, that seems to be which men call pleasure; and how wonderful it is related to that which appears to be its contrary--pain, in that they will not both be present to a man at the same time; yet if any one pursues and attains the one, he is almost always compelled to receive the other, as if they were both united together from one head." Surely true philosophy, if we may call so serene a state of mind by that hackneyed word, never reached, unaided, a purer height!
There is one thing certain, which contains a poor comfort, but a strong one--a poor one, because it reduces us all to the same level--it is this: we may be sure that not one of us is without disappointment. The footman is as badly off as his master, and the master as the footman. The courtier is disappointed of his place, and the minister of his ambition. Cardinal Wolsey lectures his secretary Cromwell, and tells him of his disappointed ambition; but Cromwellhad his troubles as well. Henry the Eighth, the king who broke them both, might have put up the same prayer; and the pope, who was a thorn in Harry's side, no doubt had a peck of disappointments of his own. Nature not only abhors a vacuum, but she utterly repudiates an entirely successful man. There probably never lived one yet to whom the morning did not bring some disaster, the evening some repulse. John Hunter, the greatest, most successful surgeon, the genius, the wonder, the admired of all, upon whose words they whose lives had been spent in science hung, said, as he went to his last lecture, "If I quarrel with any one to-night, it will kill me." An obstinate surgeon of the old school denied one of his assertions, and called him a liar. It was enough. Hunter was carried into the next room, and died. He had for years suffered from a diseased heart, and was quite conscious of his fate. That was his disappointment. Happy are they who, in this world of trial, meet their disappointments in their youth, not in their old age; then let them come and welcome, not too thick to render us morose, but like Spring mornings, frosty but kindly, the cold of which will kill the vermin, but will let the plant live; and let us rely upon it, that the best men (and women, too) are those who have been early disappointed.