[CHAPTER XI.]
ARRIVAL AT HARTFORD—MY OCCUPATION THERE—RESTLESSNESS—MY FRIEND GEORGE SHELDON.
I now enter upon a new era in my life. Early in the summer of 1811, I took leave of Danbury, and went to Hartford. On my arrival there, I was installed in the dry-goods store of C. B. K——, my father having made the arrangement some weeks before.
My master had no aptitude for business, and spent much of his time away, leaving the affairs of the shop to an old clerk, by the name of Jones, and to me. Things went rather badly, and he sought to mend his fortune by speculation in Merino sheep—then the rage of the day. A ram sold for a thousand dollars, and a ewe for a hundred. Fortunes were made and lost in a day during this mania. My master, after buying a flock and driving it to Vermont, where he spent three months, came back pretty well shorn—that is, three thousand dollars out of pocket! This soon brought his affairs to a crisis, and so in the autumn I was transferred to the dry-goods store of J. B. H——.
My new employer had neither wife nor child to take up his time, so he devoted himself sedulously to business. He was, indeed, made for it—elastic in his frame, quick-minded, of even temper, and assiduous politeness. He was already well established, and things marched along as if by rail. For a time we had another clerk, but he was soon dismissed, and I was the only assistant; my master, however, seldom leaving the shop during business hours. Had the capacity for trade been in me, I might now have learned my business. I think I may say that I fulfilled my duty, at least in form. I was regular in my hours, kept the books duly journalized and posted. I never consciously wronged arithmetic to the amount of a farthing. I duly performed my task at the counter. Yet, in all this I was a slave: my heart was not in my work. My mind was away; I dreamed of other things; I thought of other pursuits.
And yet I scarcely knew all this. I had certainly no definite plan for the future. A thousand things floated before my imagination. Every book I read drew me aside into its own vortex. Poetry made me poetical; politics made me political; travels made me truant. I was restless, for I was in a wrong position; yet I asked no advice, for I did not know that I needed it. My head and heart were a hive of thoughts and feelings, without the regulating and sedative supremacy of a clear and controlling intelligence.
I was then eighteen years of age. I had been sufficiently educated for my station. My parents had now removed from Ridgefield to Berlin, a distance of but eleven miles from my present residence, so that I had easy and frequent communication with them. My uncle, Chauncey Goodrich, then a Senator of the United States, lived in an almost contiguous street, and while in the city, always treated me with the kindness and consideration which my relationship to him naturally dictated. In general, then, my situation was eligible enough; and yet I was unhappy.