These trials, though for the present not joyous but grievous, have, I trust, been already a blessing to me; and I hope that my daily record of them, as it hereafter reminds me of my mental suffering, will also keep green in memory the lessons they have taught me.”
“May 11. Another day of torture. The anguish of mind I have endured yesterday and to-day surpasses description. Except remorse of conscience, it seems to me there can be no worse suffering than I am now experiencing. My hope and confidence are still strong, though H. told me to-day he believed I should be obliged to fail within a month.”
Speaking of an unfortunate action of some who were his friends, he says, “I am almost discouraged, for no surer way to break me down could have been adopted.”
Again, he says, “No one knows the bitterness of my life; but, after all, I feel that I have much to be thankful for, even in these trials.”
“It has been a day of almost perfect misery. Astonished as I was at such treatment from such a source, I succeeded in keeping calm; but God only knows what I have suffered to-day. I have almost lost all hope; my plans are frustrated at every step, and all my struggles and efforts seem to avail nothing.”
I have copied several of these extracts relating to his pecuniary difficulties, simply to show the delicacy and depth of his feelings. As far as his experience was merely pecuniary, I do not suppose it was at all exceptional. These difficulties occurred at a time when almost every man in active business was more or less disappointed in his calculations, and perplexed in the attempt to adjust his affairs in a manner satisfactory to himself and his business connections. But while numbers failed, and thus divided, or rather multiplied their perplexities among their creditors and dependents, Walter Aimwell, with the hopeful nerve of a hero, and the pious patience of a martyr, persevered in his exhausting labors, and endured his continual vexations. If it be true that angels, holier and wiser than we, look on earth with interest in the affairs of men, some must have loitered with solemn sympathy as they passed near the solitude in which Walter Aimwell silently grappled with the earth-life.
He conquered. He came out of the conflict with unsoiled brow, and eyes still calmly looking heavenward.
Of this eventful year he says, “I commenced it by ‘taking to myself a wife,’—a step I have not yet for one moment regretted. In my domestic relations I have been as happily situated as I could desire. I have also during this year exchanged a city for a country home, where I expect to permanently locate myself. In this, too, I consider myself peculiarly fortunate, having secured a home in all respects to my mind, and not expensive either. But the most prominent feature in the past year has been in my business affairs. I have experienced an amount of suffering which I can hardly look back upon without shuddering. I have, for months at a time, been sadly pressed for pecuniary means, and brought so near to bankruptcy that I had little hope of escape. I have been driven to the necessity of discontinuing the ‘Library’” (that was the name of the monthly magazine that he started a year or two before), “and raising the price of the ‘Rambler.’ But, in the midst of these trials, I have experienced the deliverance of a kind Providence; and, though often cast down, I have never been utterly forsaken. The last month of the year has been preëminently a bright one, and the prospect is as fair as I could desire. I am, indeed, relieved for the present from all pecuniary anxiety; and, though I do not expect a plethora of money for a year or two, I think I shall hereafter have less trouble in my business than I have heretofore experienced.”