When the ambition of wealth drew him from his work-shop, he carefully laid aside the tools of his trade in a stout oaken box, to be kept as mementoes of former labor; they were now all that remained to him, the only gift which he had asked, and would receive of creditors who were disposed to be generous. With them, at thirty-five years of age, he bid the North good-bye, went on shipboard, entered before the mast, in payment of a passage to New Orleans, and on his arrival there, at once hired himself into the service of a silver-smith, who has since ranked with the wealthiest of its citizens, and who has since met with ruin more disastrous than that which brought the best of his journeymen to his door.
John Cornelius, when you first scented the Mississippi marshes, and stepped from ship to shore with a debt of eighty thousand dollars upon your back, John Gravier had not wholly parted with that domain, which now forms the noblest portion of the second municipality. To one with a soul in his body, bent on money-getting, the track clear, the goal in view, to be won with effort, eighty thousand dollars of debt is like weight to the race-horse—it is not best to run too light at the start. Your eye saw what John Gravier did not. You read the page written by the hand of God, legibly enough—the Mississippi with all its tributaries, rolling through lands of an unequalled fertility, and of every variety of clime, and you had faith. God’s promises are certain. With the return of spring comes the flower, and with the breath of autumn comes the fruit; with the twinkling star comes rest, and with the rise of day comes light and labor; every mountain, every hill and valley, every plain and running-stream, river and ocean, speak of God’s promises, and accomplish them. Read, and understand; this it is, which separates the man gifted from the common herd, who are born to toil for the benefit of the few.
John Cornelius read God’s promises in the Mississippi, and went heartily to work. With him, there was no folding of the hands, no waiting on Providence; for he knew that the fable of Hercules and the wagoner was as instructive under a Christian, as under a pagan dispensation; so he girded up his loins, made sharp his sickle, and entered upon the harvest which was already ripe for the reaper. Economy is the handmaid of wealth, and penuriousness is economy’s own daughter. John Cornelius took them both to his bosom, and for ten long years he lived upon one meal a day, and that a cold one. The larger portion of his monthly wages he hoarded up, and when the accumulations had become sufficient, remembering the promises of the Mississippi, he bought a lot of ground within the precincts of John Gravier’s plantation; hoarded again, put a small wooden tenement upon the lot, rented, and was a landlord. Thus he went on, working, hoarding, with economy and penuriousness his whole household, penuriousness holding the upper hand; adding lot to lot, tenement to tenement, and lease to lease, until at the close of ten years, he found that God’s promises written upon the Mississippi, were fulfilled and fulfilling; and he again laid aside the tools of his trade in a stout, oaken box, there to rest, as they do rest to this hour. He was rich; he had kept even pace with New Orleans, in its progress toward greatness; but, with his wealth had grown up a habit, the habit of penuriousness, which wealth only strengthened, as a child strengthens its parent. Habit moulds the soul, and fashions it to its will; habit makes the writer; habit makes the poet; of habit, are born the soldier, the statesman, and the scholar; habit created the arts, and all science; habit gives faith and religion, and fastens every vice upon us; and habit made John Cornelius a miser.
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SECTION II.
It was many years subsequent to the period at which Mr. Cornelius found it for his interest to retire a second time from the work-shop, and to devote himself exclusively to the management of his increasing rent-roll, and frequent investments in real property, and when, with the eighty thousand dollars of debt lifted from his shoulders, he stood erect, mighty in wealth, that he one day entered my office, and tendered me a counselor’s fee.
Mr. Cornelius and myself were strangers to each other. I had occupied chambers in one of his houses for the past five years, but his collector arranged with me the terms of my lease, and received the quarterly rent; and as my landlord was faithful to his own interests, and as I was equally faithful to mine, no incident had transpired, growing out of our relations, to bring us together.
“I have for some time been a tenant of yours, Mr. Cornelius,” said I, handing the gentleman a chair; “and I suppose that I may attribute this visit to a worthy desire on your part to become acquainted with one who, thus far, has exhibited no sign of an intention to quit.”
“I am too old a man to wish for new acquaintances, Mr. Didimus; and had you referred my call to a knowledge of your reputation for attention to business, and a want of your professional services, you would have come much nearer the truth.”
I thanked him, both for the compliment and his confidence; and requested a statement of his case.