Waterbury evening Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1887-1895, 1891-01-07
CHAPTER /.
A TASTE OF RICHES.

1t is wonderful how little benefit some
men derive from a good morality and
sound philosophy. Defective observa-
ton leads the best philosophy astray,
and allows virtue to grope in vain for its
reward. The good man who avoids evil
only because he does not see its allure
ments, will also miss great deal which
is both desirable and permissible in this
world.
With so much by way of preface it
may be safe to say that the young man
who will now be introduced had led an
exemplary life without finding any sat
isfaction in it. He had taken for his
guiding rule the advice of Schiller that
happiness is to be found in the daily per-
formance of task of routine. 1t will
be remembered that the same eminent
gentleman advised writing with ones
feet in tub of ice water, but most of us
do not like it. There is, however, a
great deal of value in the routine idea,
but the trouble with it in practice is
that many people do not know what to
occupy themselves with after the daily
task is done.
William Russell was one of these. He
had held clerkship for eight years, on
slowly-increasing salary, and had been
temperate, frugal, and Industrious. He
had as much interest in his work as if
he had been a car-horse; but he would
rather have been employed than idle.
Thinking he regarded as an unsafe oc-
cupation for man who knew how to
analyze the facts of existence, as he did.
That was the trouble: he knew how to
analyze them but he didn't know the
facts. He had long ago given up ambi-
ton, friendship, love, and many other
sweet and profitable things because he
regarded them as delusions!
Then came a day when he began to
regard the consultations of his daily task
of routine as delusions also. He was as
good sample Of the discouraged young
man as could have been found in New
York. He had hitherto maintain a
certain contentment bolstered up by
prejudice in favor of his own philosophy;
and when this thin support gave way
there was no mending it. About this
time Russell lost his clerkship, natu-
ally enough. perhaps, for man in that
condition of mind is not a valuable en-
ploye. He did not regard the loss of
the position as calamity, and he made
no attempt to get another. He simply
lived on his small savings without any
plan whatever for the day when they
should be gone. If any suggestion of a
life worth striving for should come to
him, he would awaken his energies If
not, they should sleep.
He occupied the time in strolling
about the city studying life in various
forms. In reality he knew but little of
what was going on in the world. He had
given most of his leisure to books, and
had continued studies of a philosophy
cal nature which he had begun at
college. He cultivated the acquaintance
of few men and no women. There was
not single household in the great city
where he was ever q guest. If there had
been doubtless he would have obtained
new and better ideas of many common
comforts and pleasures. But his early
life had been so unfortunate thathe had
no recollections with which to stimulate
desire for domestic scenes. Indeed ii
was his special infiiction that he had nc
desire for any thing.
The impression made upon such a man
by first sight of the interior of the New
York stock exchange was wonder thai
the game of stocks was played with sc
great an exercise of physical activity.
He had expected to see a calm, cool
headed assembly Of gamblers, and this
is not what the stock exchange looks
like from the gallery, on a lively day
1t bears more resemblance to a football
match where the crowd has broken upor
the field with the intention of killing
the referee. Russell was surprised t
find himself much interested in the ath
letic side of brokers' business. He
was a muscular young man, and the
sight appealed to him strongly. Fo
more than an hour he watched the busy
scene, and played the game of stocks ii
. his mind-a method much to be preferred
. to any other.
, He had flve-dollar gold piece in his
pocket, and not another penny in the
world. 1t did not occur to him to seel
, out bucket-shop and take a desperate
chance with his last coin; he was onl,
wondering what brokers' life was like
and whether it was worth the living. H.
strolled down to the door, and observed
with genuine curiosity those who passed
in and out. The younger men especial
ly interested him, they were so mucl
superior in every way to his expecta
ton. Instead of the victims of a nerve
. destroying life, he saw lot of jolly feel
= lows who were apparently full of men
A tai and bodily vigor.
3 1t may have been the revolt of
= healthy body against sluggish mind
or simply the contagion of the activit.
: around him; but, whatever the cause
!. he felt for the first time suspicion tina
: he had discovered a career which woul'
please him. He had q general idea tina
= the social life of these men was not wha
= he would desire, but he began to be Il
doubt whether he really knew nue.
: about it. He was conscious of a desir
. to learn what it really was. Only on
a way suggested itself, and that was b
: inquiry, but he had natural hesitanc
8 about stopping one of these favore
r young men on the street and asking hir
b whether he found existence satisfactor
on the whole, and if so, why. He WOE
dered If any truthful picture of broker