But I perceive I am getting wide from my subject, and prating about the causes of a panic, instead of its consequences. If we would follow these out to their end, we must leave the disorganized condition of business, and follow men into their secret communings with themselves; and mark the anguish of despair, the bitterness of cursing and disgust with their fellow men, occasioned by their blasted hopes—we must follow them in their principles, and see how many are corrupted by example, and how many have done their first act of villainy, in the vain hope of escaping from its consequences. We must follow them in their morals, and see how many have, by the excitement of circumstances, lost their self-respect and control. And we must follow them to their homes, and see the desolation wrought by a sheriff’s levy, or a bill in chancery, and witness the broken repose, and see the tearful eyes of loved ones: and then let any one make a levy or file a bill, or aid in a panic, who chooses.
But the mind sickens at the picture, and I turn it with pleasure to a better light, to bring out its now hidden colors.
ENCOURAGEMENT AND KINDLY ADVICE.
Every man must have felt, many times in his life, that it is better to laugh than to cry. In this case, it certainly is, the proverb of Solomon to the contrary notwithstanding; and among the many who, in the last few years, have been the victims of panic, not a few I trust are, by this time, ready to agree with me. Many an oak has been shorn of its boughs, and lived to withstand a hundred storms; many a ship, dismantled of her spars, has gained her port,—and floated again as gallantly as ever; and many a man bereft of his fortune, has lived to dispense large bounties of charity from his store; many a one too, who has long fainted beneath the load of his griefs, has lived to command those who oppressed him.
Experience is sometimes a very hard, but always an efficient teacher; and those who have suffered will have the satisfaction to know better hereafter, who to trust and what to trust, and taught to rely more on themselves. And if afraid of a panic in future, he will be able to prepare himself on the first appearance of the “premonitory symptoms,” and when he sees it coming on the wings of the wind, like the man in the simoon, he may then safely turn his back, hold his breath, and let it pass by. At any rate, like the people I described in the church, he will find himself more comfortable and happy to return, and take his seat, than to be wandering about in the cold, among the multitude without, to find out what has happened.
AUTHOR’S LEAVE-TAKING.
I have now finished six days in Wall-street, which, by the only book of Ethics that I have ever learned, are the whole of the week that is at my disposal. I can hardly suppose that any man in his senses, has followed me through all the descriptions of truth and villainy, fact and fiction, sense and nonsense, which I have here given; but if any one has been so patient, I am bound to take a courteous leave of him.
First I am bound to thank him for the “high consideration” given me. And should his better feelings tell him that I am too severe, I only request him to ponder what is true—
Nor set down aught in malice.
But if when he shuts this book, he shall say, amen, he is entitled to my thanks for his patience and a double congee for his approval. No one will of course take any thing that is here written to himself, unless he discovers in it some features of his own portrait, and to those who can make such discovery, we owe neither apology nor sympathy.