MR. EDGAR was a money-lender, and scrupled not in exacting the
highest "street rates" of interest that could be obtained. If good
paper were offered, and he could buy it from the needy seeker of
cash at two or even three per cent. a month, he did not hesitate
about the transaction on any scruples of justice between man and
man. Below one per cent. a month, he rarely made loans. He had
nothing to do with the question, as to whether the holder of bills
could afford the sacrifice. The circle of his thoughts went not
beyond gain to himself.
Few days closed with Mr. Edgar that he was not able to count up
gains as high as from thirty to one hundred dollars: not acquired in
trade--not coming back to him as the reward of productive
industry--but the simple accumulation of large clippings from the
anticipated reward of others' industry. Always with a good balance
in bank, he had but to sign his name to a check, and the slight
effort was repaid by a gain of from ten to fifty dollars, according
to the size and time of the note he had agreed to discount. A shrewd
man, and well acquainted with the business standing of all around
him, Mr. Edgar rarely made mistakes in money transactions. There was
always plenty of good paper offering, and he never touched any thing
regarded as doubtful.
Was Mr. Edgar a happy man? Ah! that is a home question. But we
answer frankly, no. During his office hours, while his love of gain
was active--while good customers were coming and going, and good
operations being effected--his mind was in a pleasurable glow. But,
at other times, he suffered greatly from a pressure on his feelings,
the cause of which he did not clearly understand. Wealth he had
always regarded as the greatest good in life. And now he not only
had wealth, but the income therefrom was a great deal more than he
had any desire to spend. And yet he was not happy--no, not even in
the thought of his large possessions. Only in the mental activity
through which more was obtained, did he really find satisfaction;
but this state was only of short duration.
Positive unhappiness, Mr. Edgar often experienced. Occasional
losses, careful and shrewd as he always was, were inevitable. These
fretted him greatly. To lose a thousand dollars, instead of gaining,
as was pleasantly believed, some sixty or seventy, was a shower of
cold water upon his ardent love of accumulation: and he shivered
painfully under the infliction. The importunities of friends who
needed money, and to whom it was unsafe to lend it, were also a
source of no small annoyance. And, moreover, there was little of the
heart's warm sunshine at home. As Mr. Edgar had thought more of
laying up wealth for his children than giving them the true riches
of intellect and heart, ill weeds had sprung up in their minds. He
had not loved them with an unselfish love, and he received not a
higher affection than he had bestowed. Their prominent thought, in
regard to him, seemed ever to be the obtaining of some concession to
their real or imaginary wants; and, if denied these, they reacted
upon him in anger, sullenness, or complaint.
Oh, no! Mr. Edgar was not happy. Few gleams of sunshine lay across
his path. Life to him, in his own bitter words, uttered after some
keen disappointment, had "proved a failure." And yet he continued
eager for gain; would cut as deep, exact as much from those who had
need of his money in their business, as ever. The measure of per
centage was the measure of his satisfaction.