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Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman, a novel by William L. Stone |
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Chapter 6. How He Became A Merchant--And The Result |
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_ CHAPTER VI. HOW HE BECAME A MERCHANT--AND THE RESULT
Having thus "thrown physic to the dogs," the next important subject of consideration was the choice of some new occupation or pursuit, not of a professional character. His mother's project of making him a clergyman had been previously rejected, as stated in a former chapter. The decision might have been otherwise had the lot of our hero been cast in England, where the minor clergy of the establishment purchase their sermons already written to their hands, if they are able, or copy them from the moral essays of Doctor Johnson, or the more devotional writings of Hannah More, according to their tastes and feelings, if they are not. But such easy methods of pulpit preparation are not tolerated in this country, unless in respect of the youngest ecclesiastics; and even they are compelled to be exceedingly chary in the use even of the printed skeletons to be found in most Episcopal libraries--not venturing to let their people know of the existence of such "helps," much less that they are in the habit of cutting out their sermons by such patterns. Moreover, as for the preaching of other men's sermons outright, the Americans are such a reading people, that the detection of borrowed "thunder," is almost certain to follow its use. An instance in point was then fresh in the public mind, in which one of the most eloquent and popular pulpit orators in the land, had been arraigned before an ecclesiastical tribunal, on the charge of appropriating ad libitum to his own use and the behoof of his congregation the works of Barrow and Jeremy Taylor, Flavel and Massillon, Toplady and Tillotson. True, the depredator was endowed with powers of eloquence worthy of the great masters whose sermons he had the good taste to prefer to his own--delivering their breathing thoughts and burning words, with a deep-toned solemnity, and a splendor of elocution, which thrilled the bosoms, and alternately charmed the minds, and melted the hearts, of his devotional hearers. But the disguise of manner was not sufficient. There were those of his congregation who had read and remembered the works with which he was making so free; and although they were by no means the losers by the substitution of the kindling periods of the sound old divines for his own, yet the late Rev. Mr. Hooper soon found himself under the discipline of his clerical superiors. Shut out, therefore, from the pulpit, my friend Wheelwright had turned his attention to medicine, as being in his apprehension the next easiest of the learned professions; and now that he had relinquished the healing art, because he possessed neither the industry nor the capacity for acquiring it, some other method of earning a subsistence seemed to be necessary. Should it be the law? His resolution would have deserted him at the thought of mastering even the elementary treatises of Blackstone, and the sight of an ordinary law library would have appalled him. But employment he must have. He had cultivated a taste for style, and ease, and luxury, which it would require no inconsiderable means to indulge. He desired to cut a figure in the world, and to make money that he might do so; and he was anxious withal to select that occupation with which he might personally be the least occupied--in which he might indulge his inactive propensities with the least corporeal exertion--and by which he might realize the greatest profit. After duly weighing matters, therefore, and balancing the various considerations that occurred, with all appropriate gravity, he determined to engage in merchandise--a branch of business for which of all men he possessed the least possible fitness. His worthy parents, moreover, were thereunto consenting. Fond and unhappy people! They had never read the splendid philippic of Burke against the mercantile character, in which the indignant senator denounced the members of that enterprising occupation as having no altar but their counter, no Bible but their leger, and no God but their gold! Nor, (being neither prophets nor descendants of prophets,) could they foresee that another Burke was soon to illuminate this occidental hemisphere, by the blaze of his genius,--embodying in his own person half the wisdom of the whole nation of Rhode Island,--who should revive and indorse the dictum of the florid British rhetorician, and fix upon the name of the American merchant as fact, the fancy sketch first drawn by a brilliant but libellous imagination! Had it been otherwise, I am sure my friend would have been spared the toils and perplexities incident alike to the mercantile calling, whether dealing in foreign commerce by millions, or vending tape and buckram by the yard in Chatham-street or Albany. But it was written that Daniel was to be a merchant; and an opportunity was soon presented for purchasing the odds and ends of a fashionable fancy and jobbing concern in Albany. His father, moreover, who had by this time accumulated a snug property by his own honest calling--who knew little of the perils of the mercantile business, and still less of the skill and attention necessary for its successful prosecution, consented in an evil hour to become his indorser. The chief clerk of the concern, a young man by the name of John Smith, was continued in the establishment; new goods were bought in New-York in most enterprising quantities; and although both old and new were purchased at no small disadvantage, yet a plausible exterior, and a fair credit, enabled Mr. Wheelwright to drive a brisk, and, as he no doubt honestly thought, a thriving business. It was indeed true that the return of every six months found him somewhat deeper in debt. He was obliged to fill up the blanks in the notes which his kind parent had indorsed in advance, and by the quantity, for larger and yet larger sums, and occasionally to ask the name of some other friend, "just for form's sake," under that of his father. But his faithful clerk assured him that his capital was increasing, as the books would show, and that every thing was going on swimmingly. He took lodgings at the Tontine, like a gentleman of means; was free and liberal in his expenditures; invited his friends often to suppers of game and oysters, which invitations were but too often accepted;--and as he knew nothing of his own business, but continued to repose all confidence in his chief clerk--taking his assurances that all was well,--he supposed it was so, and began to fancy that he was actually becoming rich. It had ever been a common saying in his mouth, that "the world owed him a living," and he now verily believed that he had taken the wave of fortune at its flood, and was floating along triumphantly upon the spring-tide of wealth. Nor was he undeceived until the disclosure was too late for the salvation of his credit. His notes began to come round too fast to be promptly "lifted;" and just at the moment when a portion of his increased capital would have been exceedingly convenient, greatly to his surprise he was unable to find even that with which he had commenced. The consequence was frequent visits from the notary; and his indorsers began occasionally to receive an unceremonious call from those officious legal gentlemen, Messrs. John Doe and Richard Roe. At this stage of his unpromising mercantile career, the approaching catastrophe was hastened by a very grievous and untoward event. After having despatched a duck and a dozen of oysters at Bement's, he had scarcely composed himself to sleep before he was aroused by an alarm of fire, and astounded by the vociferations of a watchman under the window, who thundered in his ears that it was his own store that was now illuminating the venerable Dutch capital! Not an article escaped the ravages of "the devouring element," to quote the newspaper account of the following morning; and what was more melancholy still, his faithful clerk, who always slept in the store, was for the moment supposed to have perished in the flames! Morning came, however, and lo! Mr. John Smith, junior, was seen to emerge from the portal of a house, the fame whereof was no better than it should have been--it being none other than one of those places of which the wise man would have said, "the dead are there," and "the guests in the depths of hell." The residue of this section of Mr. Wheelwright's biography is soon told. With the flames of his store, were his fortunes for the time being extinguished; and his father soon afterward found himself to be as destitute of property as when he first entered the valley of the Mohawk, with only an adz, a pod-auger, and an axe upon his shoulder. The trusty clerk soon afterward sickened, even unto death, and in his last moments disclosed various delinquencies which had hastened his employer's ruin;--for all of which he was readily forgiven by the really kind-hearted man whom he had so deeply wronged, and from his penitence it is to be hoped he was also forgiven by Him against whom he had yet more grievously sinned. The merchants of New-York are proverbially liberal to unfortunate debtors; the tale of Mr. Wheelwright's misfortunes excited their lively sympathies; and they generously released him from all those obligations which neither he nor his indorsers could pay. And thus amid the frowns of adversity ended the mercantile career of the subject of this memoir. _ |
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