WHAT HAPPENED IN THE DEAD-CHAMBER.--THE DIRGE OF A WEALTHY PARENT.
Upon that couch lay the ghastly spectacle of a human corse, stiff and
cold. It was that of an old man, and I thought at first that he slept;
but, upon looking closer, I perceived that he had been dead for at
least an hour; and it appeared as if he had died untended by friend or
servant, for the bedclothes had been nearly tossed from the bed in his
last convulsion, and now lay tumbled about his limbs and the floor,
just as they had fallen. His features were greatly distorted, having an
expression of rage upon them that was highly disagreeable to look on;
yet I had a vague feeling that I had seen him before.
While I was wondering who he could be, I perceived a paper clutched in
his right hand; and, taking it to the light, the secret was at once
revealed.
It was a letter from my adorable Alicia to her father, dated that very
evening, in which she gave him to understand, in the most romantic
language in the world, that his opposition to her wishes in relation to
her beloved Dawkins had broken her heart--that she could never think
of marrying any one else (as if, indeed, the old gentleman ever wished
her)--that she could not live without her Dawkins, and accordingly
had made up her mind to fly with him afar from parental severity;
and concluded by assuring him that "when he read those lines, penned
by a grieved and determined, but still dutifully loving heart" (she
said nothing of her fingers), "she would be in the arms of a lawful
husband." There was appended a postscript, in which she expressed much
contrition, hoped he would forgive her, and hinted that she would be of
age in two months.
I looked at the old man again, and wondered I had not known him before.
It was old Skinner, sure enough, and the secret of his death was
readily explained. He had been sick before, and this elegant epistle
had finished him--or rather the necessity, so romantically hinted at
in the conclusion, of settling, two months thereafter, his guardian's
account with her husband, had done his business. I did not suppose the
wound in his parental feelings had done him much hurt; but there was
more, perhaps, in that, than any one would have thought that knew the
old miser.
And there he lay, then the owner of thousands and hundreds of
thousands, with none to mourn him--nay, with not even a hand to smooth
the bed-robe over his neglected body. He had squandered health,
happiness, good name, and perhaps self-approbation, the true riches of
man, in the pursuit of the lucre which cannot purchase back again one
of these treasures; and notwithstanding which lucre he was now, and
indeed had been at his death-hour, no better off than the beggar in his
coffin of deal. He had heaped up gold for his children, that they might
begrudge him the breath drawn in pain and infirmity, and rejoice in the
moment of his death. He had--But why should I moralize over a subject
worn just as threadbare as any other. The old fellow was a miser, and
met the miser's fate. Nobody accused even his children of loving him;
and while I stood by his side, I had a stronger proof of their regard
than spoke in the neglected appearance of his deathbed. I had scarce
entered the room before I heard, from some of the apartments below, the
sounds of mirth and festivity.
They were not to be mistaken; it was plain that some persons were
feasting and making merry in one of the old fellow's parlours; and I
doubted not they were his two sons, Ralph and Abbot, both of whom had
very bad characters, the latter in particular, who was a notorious
profligate. They were young men of promise, I had heard; but the
avarice of the parent had ruined them. Their education neglected from
indifference, or a miserable spirit of parsimony, their minds and
morals uncultivated,--the consciousness of their father's wealth and
their own golden prospects at his decease stimulated them to excesses,
which were perhaps rendered still more agreeable to their imaginations,
and certainly more destructive to their weal, by the difficulty of
indulging in them, resulting from the niggardliness of their father.
But the reign of denial was now over; the rattle and crash of glasses
and vessels in the room below, the tumbling down of chairs and tables,
with the sounds of singing, shouting, and laughter, proclaimed with
what a lusty lyke-wake the abandoned sons were honouring the memory of
their father--with what orgies of Bacchus they were celebrating their
own deliverance from restraint. Suddenly the sound of the singing grew
louder, as if some door between the revellers and the dead had been
opened; and a moment after I perceived, from the increase and direction
of the uproar, that the sots were ascending the stairs, and perhaps
approaching the chamber of death.
An idea seized upon my mind. I was heartily sick of Mr. I. D. Dawkins's
body, being ready at that moment to exchange it for a dog's, and I was
incensed at the heartless and brutal rejoicings of the young Skinners.
It occurred to me, if I could get my spirit into old Goldfist's body, I
should avoid all dunning for the future, and give these two reprobate
sons of his such a lesson as would last them to their dying day.
The idea came to me like a blaze of sunshine; I remembered in a moment
the vast wealth of the deceased, and I pictured to my imagination the
glorious use I should make of it. I had always hated and despised the
old villain; but a sudden affection for him now seized upon my soul. I
had a strong persuasion in me, resulting from my two former adventures,
that I possessed the power of entering any human body which I found to
my liking; and I resolved to exercise it, or, at the worst, to make
proof of its existence, for a third time. Of the manner of exercising
the power I knew but little; I remembered, however, that, on the former
occasions, I had merely uttered a wish, and the transformation was
instantly completed. I stepped up to the body, and chuckling with the
idea of chousing the unnatural sons out of their expected inheritance,
I said, "Old Goldfist, if you please, I wish to be in your body!"
In less than a second of time I found myself starting up from the bed,
as if I had just been roused from sleep by the noise of some falling
body, and exclaiming "What's that?"
I looked over the side of the bed, and saw the body of I. D. Dawkins
lying on the floor on its face. The transformation was complete, and
had been so instantaneous, that my spirit heard, through the organs of
its new tenement, the downfall of its old. I felt a little bewildered,
indeed posed, and remained upon my elbow staring about the room; and I
may add, that I was more disconcerted by the bacchanalian voices now at
the chamber door, than by any thing else.
The door opened, and the young Skinners entered; I shall remember them
to my dying day; they were both royally drunk, and each armed with
a candle, with which, scattering the tallow over the floor as they
advanced, they came staggering and hiccoughing into the chamber.
"I say, bravo, dad, and no offence," said the foremost, "but don't feel
so sorry as I ought; and here's Ralph a'n't sorry neither."
"Led us a devilish hard life of it," grumbled the other, "but shall
have something done for his soul by the Catholics. I say, Abby, shall
buy that black horse and the buggie."
"And a tombstone for dad," said the worthy Abbot, laying his candle
upon the table, and striking an attitude like a dancing-master, which,
however, he could not keep. "I say, Ralph," he went on, "it isn't right
to say so, but don't you feel good? Three hundred thousand apiece,
dammee! I say, Ralph, let us dance."
And the villains took hands, and attempted a _pas de deux_, as the
theatre people have it; while the old woman, who had been sleeping
below, and was roused by the fall of my late body, came running into
the room, to see what was the matter. By this time the dogs had
chassé'd up so nigh to the bed, that, for the first time, they laid
their eyes upon the reanimated countenance of their father.
The effect was prodigious; the moment before their faces were all
drunkenness and triumph--now they were all drunkenness and horror. The
light of the candle held by Ralph flashed over my visage; but Abbot was
the first to observe me resting on my elbow, and staring at him with
looks of wrath and indignation.
"Lord love us, Ralph," said he, "dad's coming to!"
"Yes, you villains!" said I, "I am coming to; you unnatural, undutiful
rascals, I _have_ come to!"
They looked upon me, and upon one another, unutterably confounded,
and I wondered myself that I did not laugh at them. Their confusion,
however, only filled me with rage, and I railed at them with as much
emphasis and sincerity as if I had been their father in earnest.
They dropped on their knees; but their rueful appearance only added to
my fury. I stormed and I scolded, until, being quite exhausted with the
effort, a film came over my eyes, and I fell back in a swoon.
BOOK IV.
CONTAINING ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE FOLLY OF BRINGING UP CHILDREN IN THE
WAY THEY SHOULD GO, AND THE WISDOM OF MAKING A FORTUNE.
CHAPTER I.
THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF ABRAM SKINNER, THE SHAVER.
My swoon was, I believe, of no great duration, and I awoke from it a
new man, as well as an old one.
Yes, I was changed, and with a vengeance; and into such a miserable
creature, that had I justly conceived what I was to become in entering
old Goldfist's body, I doubt whether even the extremity in which I was
placed would have forced me upon the transformation. I forgot that
the title to Skinner's wealth was saddled with the conditions of age,
infirmity, and a thousand others equally disagreeable. But I soon made
the discovery, though it was some time before I discovered all.
The first inconvenience of the transformation which I felt was a
thousand aches in my bones, a great disturbance in my inner man, and
a general sense of feebleness and impotency, highly vexatious and
tormenting. My eyesight was bad, my hearing indistinct, and, indeed,
all my senses were more or less confused; my hand trembled when I
lifted it to my face, my voice quavered while I spoke, and every effort
to breath seemed to fill my lungs with coal-gas and ashes. In a word, I
was a man of sixty years or more, with a constitution just breaking up,
if not already broken.
My resuscitation produced a hubbub of no ordinary character. My
sons--for, wonderful to be said, I _had_ sons, and I soon felt as if
they were in reality mine--were confounded, and so, doubtless, was
Barbara, the housekeeper; to the latter of whom it was perhaps owing
that I ever recovered from my swoon; for my two boys, overcome with
horror and despair, rushed out of the house, and it was a week before I
saw their faces again.
What added to the confusion was the discovery of my late body, lying
on the floor, no one being at all able to account for its appearance.
To this day, indeed, the thing remains a mystery among tailors and
shop-keepers. It was pretty generally considered that the unfortunate
I. D. Dawkins met his death by dunning, and I believe the coroner's
jury returned a verdict accordingly; but how he made his way into the
chamber of the usurer to give up the ghost, just at the moment the
other was resuming it, was never known. Some supposed he had visited
the old gentleman to borrow money, and had knocked his head against the
bedpost in despair upon finding the lender past lending. Speculation
was alive upon the subject for two full days, and was then buried in
the young gentleman's grave, along with his body and his memory; for
the memory of a dandy passeth away, unless recorded on the books of his
tailor.
I was confined to my bed a week, suffering with a complication of
disorders; for, though I possessed the power to reanimate a corpse, I
had none to conjure away its diseases. In this period I had leisure to
exchange all previous characteristics that might have clung to me, for
those that more properly belonged to my new casing; and when I rose
from my bed the transformation was in every particular complete. My
soul had lost its identity; it had taken its shape from the mould it
occupied; it was the counterpart of the soul of Abram Skinner.
My last act as I. D. Dawkins was to chuckle over the prospect of
spending Abram Skinner's money; my first as Abram Skinner was to take
care it should be spent neither by myself nor by any one else. The
desire to enjoy myself had vanished; the thoughts of fine clothes,
horses and carriages, and so on, entered my mind no more. The only idea
that possessed me was, "What am I worth? how much more can I make myself
worth?" and the first thing I did, when I could sit in a chair, was to
ransack a certain iron chest that stood under my bed, containing my
prototype's books of accounts, over which I gloated with the mingled
anxiety and delight that had doubtless distinguished the studies of the
true Goldfist.
I found myself rich beyond all my previously-formed expectations;
and, glum and rigid as were now all my feelings, I think I should
have danced around my chamber for joy, had not the first flourish
of a leg introduced me to the pangs of rheumatism. I indulged my
rapture, therefore, in a soberer way; and while awaiting the period of
emancipation from my chamber, arranged a thousand plans for increasing
my wealth.
My sons had deserted me, but I was not left entirely to solitude.
I received divers visits from old fellows like myself, who, after
growling out a variety of wonder and congratulation at my return to
life, proceeded to counsel with me on subjects, the discussion of which
speedily brought me to the knowledge of my new condition, where it had
not been supplied by the iron chest and my instincts.
These persons formed a confraternity, of which it seems I, or rather
my prototype, Abram Skinner, was a prominent member; and the objects
of the association were to secure to each member the fruits of his
ambition with as little danger and trouble as possible. We were a
knot of what the censorious call stock-gamblers; and by working in
common, and playing into each other's hands, without taking pains to
acknowledge any connexion, we were pretty sure of our game.
It is astonishing how soon I entered into the spirit of my new
character. On previous occasions, the adaption of soul to body was a
work of time; but here it seemed the work of but a few hours. The cause
was, however, simple; Abram Skinner was possessed of but one, or, at
most, two characteristics, and with these I easily became familiar. The
love of money was the ruling passion; and this, I honestly confess,
came to me so naturally, that I was not conscious, while giving up my
whole soul to it, of any change of character whatever. Before I left
the house I was as busy shaving notes, receiving bonds, mortgages, and
pledges (for Abram Skinner was a gambler of all work), and devising
schemes for "cornering" and blowing high and low in the stock-market,
as if I had been born to the business.
I found on my books the records of all imaginable operations, from the
_mem_. of a thousand shares of the Moonlight Manufacturing Company,
bought of A. B. on time, to the entry of "Mrs. C. D.'s silver spoons and
pitcher, _purchased_" (Abram Skinner scorned all dealing on _pawns_,
that being illegal to the unlicensed) "at such a sum, but redeemable at
such another sum, which was generally at fifty per cent. advance, on a
certain day, or--forfeit." Here was a memorandum of a note bought at
half its value, there of a mortgage taken in form of a purchase; and in
other places a thousand other forfeitures, such as marked the extent
and universality of business, the skill, the forethought, and the
success of Abram Skinner the shaver.
I have my compunctions when I think of the life I led that winter; for
so long did I continue the life of a money-maker. But I entreat the
reader to remember that I had got into Abram Skinner's body, and that
the burden of my acts should be therefore laid upon his shoulders. A
swearing gentleman once borrowed a Quaker's great-coat, with a promise
not to dishonour it by any profanity while it was on his back; upon
returning it to his friend, he was demanded if he had kept his promise.
"Yes," said the man of interjections, with one of the most emphatic;
"but it has kept me lying all the time." I never heard anybody doubt
that the lying was the fault of the coat; and, in like manner, I hope
that the reader will not hesitate to attribute all my actions, while in
Abram Skinner's body, to Abram Skinner's body itself.
Besides my friends of the honest fraternity, I had other visiters
before my infirmities permitted me to leave the house; and the dealings
I had with them, besides enabling me to get my hand in, as the saying
is, would afford the reader, if described, some insight into the
excellences of my new character.
But I cannot pause over such pictures in detail. The rulers then over
us, to please the poor, had got up a pressure in the money-market,
whereby the poor were, as is usual in such cases, put under
contribution by the rich. Such a pressure, however, may be said to
please everybody, though it puts everybody in a passion. To the
rich, who have money to lend, it is as great a season of jubilee
as a rain-storm to ducks, or a high wind to the bristly herd in an
apple-orchard, and they are in a passion because they fear it will
be soon over; to the poor, who borrow their money at a higher rate
than usual, it affords an opportunity to rail at the aristocracy, and
the grinders of the poor; which is a pleasing recreation after a bad
dinner. At such times Abram Skinner was a happy man, for he made money
without the trouble of stirring from his house: every knock at the door
was the signal of a god-send; every jerk at the bell was as the jingle
of coming dollars and cents.
CHAPTER II.
SHEPPARD LEE'S FIRST HIT AT MONEY-MAKING.
It was at such a season that I entered the shaver's body. The knocks
at my door were frequent, and the demands of my visiters to be
brought into presence irresistible. What cared they for my pains and
sickness?--they wanted money: what cared _I_ for my pains and sickness?
--I was anxious to make it. I ordered my house-keeper Barbara (for
it seems I was such a niggard I had no other servant) to admit all
well-dressed applicants; for I scorned to deal with any other.
The first person admitted was a woman, very good looking, but advanced
in years. She kept a boarding-house, but, as Barbara informed me,
had seen better days, having been the wife of a rich merchant, who
failed, was absurd enough to keep his books so straight as to allow no
opportunity for defrauding his creditors, surrendered up every cent
of his property, and died a beggar, leaving a widow and six orphan
daughters to lament his honesty.
She was in some little flurry and perturbation of spirits, but I spoke
with a blandness that astonished myself, until I found that this was
always my practice with a customer whom I was not tired of. This
restored her to confidence and garrulity.
Her tale was soon told:--her boarders were all very fine gentlemen
and ladies, and good pay; but the times were so hard, they were just
at this moment compelled to pay with promises; with which coin her
landlord was not so easily satisfied. She would not distress poor Mr.
G., who owed her a hundred and fifty dollars, nor Mr. H., nor Mrs. I.,
who were all in a peck of trouble just then, but were well enough to do
in the world--no, not she; she had heard I was so good as often to lend
to people who wanted money for a few days, even when the banks would
not, provided they were good and safe; and who was better and safer
than she? With all her troubles, and the Lord he knew they were many
and enough, she had always paid her debts, and she defied anybody to
say the contrary: and so she hoped I would be so good as to oblige her
with the small sum of two hundred-dollars, which, upon her honest word,
she would pay as soon as she had the money.
To this eloquent suggestion I answered (and I doubt if the true Abram
Skinner could have answered better) by lamenting her difficulties, and
assuring her I was in as great trouble as herself, not having a cent at
command that I could call my own (the iron chest told another story,
and there were divers handsome hundreds placed to my credit in three
or four different banks); nevertheless I had a little money belonging
to a friend, which I thought I might make so free as to lend to one of
her excellent character and standing; but that would be taking a great
responsibility on my shoulders, &c. &c., in terms which the reader can
easily imagine; and I concluded by hinting, that if she had any plate
or other valuables to deposite as a security, it would save her the
trouble of giving her note, and the inconvenience such an instrument
might prove to her, if my friend's necessities should compel him to
throw it into the market.
The widow, delighted with my frankness, and penetrated by my
friendliness, ran home, and returned with a basket of chattels to the
value of perhaps three hundred and fifty dollars.
"Very good," said I; "you shall have the money, though I should have to
pay for it myself."
"Sure," said she, "but you are a good obliging man, and I shall be much
beholden: and sure, but I thought all pawnbrokers had golden balls at
their doors."
"Madam," said I, "thank your good fortune that I am _not_ a pawnbroker.
Had you gone to such a person you would have paid dear for your money,
and perhaps lost your silver into the bargain. Now, supposing this
silver to be worth three hundred dollars--"
"Three hundred lack-a-daisies!" said the old lady, "why, it cost more
than four hundred dollars; for I remember the coffee-pot--"
"Yes, ma'am," said I; "that was the cost of making: I reckon the silver
at about three hundred dollars, though that is a large allowance. Now,
had you taken this to a pawnbroker, what do you think he would have
loaned you on it?"
"To be sure, and I suppose; but I can't say."
"One hundred dollars, perhaps, if a moderate fellow," said I; "but _I_
am another sort of man; I scorn to take any advantage of any one. Yes,"
said I, feeling warm and virtuous, "I scorn them there fellows that
take advantage, and grind down the poor to the last mite. I, Mrs.--,
hum, ha, Mrs.--"
"Mrs. Smith," said the old lady, eying me with admiration.
"_I_, Mrs. Smith, will treat you in another way; I will let you have
what you want--the full two hundred dollars, for the space of thirty
days, and charge you but twenty-five dollars for the favour."
"Sure," said Mrs. Smith, "and that's dear."
"On the contrary, madam," said I, "it is but twelve and a half per
cent. a month, whereas money will often fetch fifteen."
"Will it, indeed?" said the foolish widow; "and sure but you must
know better than myself. Well, then, Mr. Skinner, let me have the two
hundred dollars, and you shall have the plate in pawn."
"No, ma'am," said I, "none but a pawnbroker can do that. A gentleman
like myself does this sort of thing in another manner; for were I to
receive this silver as a pawn, you might prosecute me for it in court,
and make me pay a fine. The way we do is this; I _buy_ the plate of
you, for two hundred dollars, taking a receipt from you for that
amount, and granting you, on my part, a written permission to purchase
the same back again, this day month, for the sum of two hundred and
twenty-five dollars."
"La!" said the old lady, "is that the way? But what if I should not get
the money in a month?"
"Why, then," said I, with a look of benevolence, "why, then, I think I
must give you a month longer."
"Sure and you are the best man in the world," said Mrs. Smith; "and you
think my silver won't be in no danger? and you'll lock it up in some
big iron chest? for thieves are quite thick already; and your paper to
buy again will be just as good as a pawnbroker's certificate?"
I hastened to satisfy the old lady's mind on this and all other
subjects. I then wrote out a receipt, which I caused her to subscribe,
being a due acknowledgment on her part of having sold me certain
specified articles of plate; after which I delivered her a paper,
in which, without troubling myself to make any reference to the
conveyance, I covenanted to sell her the same articles, at the price
mentioned before, at the expiration of thirty days.
With this and the two hundred dollars which I now gave her, the foolish
woman departed very well satisfied; and as for me, I actually rubbed my
hands together with the delight of having made such a good bargain. I
say again, old Skinner himself could not have managed the affair with
greater address than myself; and, young as I was in his body, I felt as
much satisfaction at having overreached a silly old woman, as ever a
less avaricious man felt at deluding a young one. This was small game,
to be sure, for a man who dabbled in stocks, and counted profits, not
by dollars, but by hundreds and thousands; but, as I said before, Abram
Skinner was a man of all work, who thought no gain small enough to be
despised, and who cheated a single tatterdemalion with as much zeal as
he would fleece a community.
The end of the bargain was this: in a month's time Mrs. Smith called
on me again, but without money; whereupon I spoke to her with greater
benevolence than before, assured her she need not be distressed,
and renewed the engagement between us by adding twenty-five dollars
(the interest upon the money advanced) to the sums specified in
the conveyance and covenant; and the same amount I added at the
expiration of the second month. And this course I intended to pursue
for two months more, until the amount of interest should swell the
purchase-money to three hundred dollars; after which I designed to
close the bargain, and consider the silver fairly purchased.
If anybody supposes I treated the old woman ill--that I acted
dishonestly, and even illegally, in the matter--all I have to say is,
that I only did what Abram Skinner the shaver had done a thousand times
before me, and what, I have no doubt, other worthy gentlemen of his
tribe have done after me. He who rides with the devil must put up with
his driving; and he who deals with his nephews must look for something
warmer than burnt fingers.
The transaction with Mrs. Smith was a sample of divers others, begun
and conducted on the same principles, though involving more momentous
profits. The system of _forfeitures_, as practised by a skilful hand,
is applicable to all species of property, and I practised it with
great effect in the case of houses and lands, and the Lord knows what
besides. The "pressure" continued long; and I think I should have made
a handsome fortune in the course of the winter out of this single
branch of my business alone, had not destiny arrested me in the midst
of a prosperous career, and left the business to be settled by my
administrators.
CHAPTER III.
REFLECTIONS ON STOCK-JOBBING AND OTHER MATTERS.
But this was but a branch, and a small one, of my profession. My
noblest blows were struck at the community at large; and struck
in that most magnificent of gambling-fields, the stock-market. My
skill here--for I inherited all the sagacity and daring that had
distinguished the original owner of my body--was such as to keep me at
the head of that confraternity of which I have spoken before I was the
very devil among the fancy stocks; and had the good luck to originate
and conduct a stroke of _cornering_, by which no less than twenty young
shop-keepers, who were ambitious to be seen on 'change and in brokers'
offices, and to dare that achievement of audacity, _selling on time_,
were smashed like coal-candlesticks, and half as many wiser and richer
desperadoes were driven to the verge of ruin.
My chief strength, indeed, was shown in the management of small stocks,
and especially those that were good for nothing, and more especially
still in southern mining-companies. It was here that we of the Clipping
Club, as the members of the fraternity delighted to call themselves,
found our fairest opportunity to prey upon those passions of cupidity
and terror which lay the ignorant at the mercy of the knowing. No one
knew better than myself how to get up or depress such a stock. I knew
how many ignorant widows, poor parsons, infirm artisans, and other
needy persons were to be cajoled, by the prospect of handsome and
increasing dividends, to invest their petty savings when it could be
done at small premiums; and I knew how easily the terror of loss could
drive them out of their investments. To say the truth, the principal
business of myself and my brother clippers was to bob for such minnows;
and it is incredible how they bite, though it is only to be bitten. A
few words scattered at random, and still fewer uttered in confidence,
were enough to send shoals of these unlucky creatures to swallow what
we thought proper to sell; and a few doubts and long faces, added to
the throwing away at low prices of a _few_ dozen shares, sufficed to
convert the trembling holders into sellers, whenever we deemed it
advisable to buy. In this way I have known a pet stock to be tossed
up and down like a ball, while every ascent and downfall served the
purpose of filling the pockets of the fraternity and emptying those of
the victims.
In such occupations as these passed three months of my existence,
and, sinner that I am, I thought that they passed very honestly. The
spirit of Abram Skinner had left such a taint of rascality in his
body, that my own was thoroughly imbued with it; from which I infer
that a man's body is like a barrel, which, if you salt fish in it
once, will make fish of every thing you put into it afterward. A grain
of lying or thieving, or any such spicy propensity, infused into the
youthful breast by a tender parent, will give a scent to the spirit
for life; and as this is a fact, I recommend parents to take no notice
of it,--not supposing parents will take advice, except by contraries.
The passion of Abram Skinner destroyed every trait that had belonged
to Sheppard Lee; and as for those I had taken from John H. Higginson
and I. D. Dawkins, they were lost in like manner. I was Abram Skinner,
and nothing but Abram Skinner. I scarce remembered that I had ever been
any thing else. I am free now to confess, what I was not so certain of
then, though I had my doubts on the matter at times,--namely, that in
labouring so hard after lucre, I was only striving to sell my soul to
the greatest advantage.
Idleness is said to be the root of all evil. The root of _much_ evil I
never doubted it was. But my experience in the body of Abram Skinner
has convinced me, that the industry to which a man is goaded by the
love of money is the root of much greater evil,--of a bigger _upas_,
indeed, than ever sprung from the bed of the sluggard. The idler may
betake him to the bottle, as the idler usually does, and then lapse
into a reprobate, which is a common consequence; but, at the worst, his
crimes are committed at the expense of individuals. The man of avarice
drinks out of his purse, which intoxicates quite as deeply as the
bowl, makes war upon communities, preys legally upon his neighbour's
pocket, and just as legally consigns his neighbour's children to want
and beggary, from which it appears that he is a drunkard, thief, and
murderer, just as naturally as the idler. The latter, by indulging his
propensity, loses his character; the former, by indulging his, loses
all those generous sentiments and feelings, the sense of honour and
instinct of integrity, upon which character should be founded. The man
who enriches himself by extracting wealth from the soil and the bowels
of the earth, or by the practice of any art or business which supplies
the necessaries of life, or ministers to the convenience of society,
makes his money virtuously, and deserves to enjoy it in honour; but he
who gains a fortune by the mere gambling legerdemain of speculation,
by turning his neighbour's pockets wrong side out, is--not so much
of a Christian as he supposes. My honest opinion, formed after much
reflection and experience, is, that bulls and bears are as little
likely to go to heaven as any other animals.
In regard to myself, I am as free to confess, that my course of life
while in Abram Skinner's body was deserving of all reprobation. I hope
that the acts I then committed may be laid to old Skinner's door; but,
for fear of a mistake, I have endeavoured to repent them, as being sins
of my own committing: and this course I recommend to all those good
folks who are persuaded their peccadilloes are the fault of others, and
for the same reason,--namely, lest they should be mistaken. I confess
also that I had my doubts, even at the time of committing them, of the
righteousness of my acts, and that I sometimes had bad dreams: but the
fury of avarice stilled the pangs of conscience, as the fury of wrath
and battle stills those of the wounded soldier. Having made these
admissions, I will now betake me to my story.
END OF VOL. I