y," the old man replied, "you want a million; but you don't want
it enough. What you _want_ at present is pleasure, and you want it so
much that you are willing to spend all your surplus force, time, and
revenue to get it. If you wanted your million as much as you _want
pleasure_, by and by, when you have a bald head like mine, you would
have your million."

Peter Force was a very good illustration of the old merchant's doctrine.
He got all these precious things because he wanted them with a sustained
passion of desire for half a century. There never was a time when he
would not have gladly got up in the middle of the night and walked ten
miles, in the face of a northeasterly storm, to get a rare pamphlet of
four pages. He was a miser of such things. But, no; that word does not
describe him; for one of the greatest pleasures of his life was to
communicate his treasures to others; and he communicated to the whole
American people the best of his collections in massive volumes of
American Archives. He was a miser only in the strength of his desire.

"More than once," he said to Mr. George W. Greene, "did I hesitate
between a barrel of flour and a rare book; but the book always got the
upper hand."

To the same friend he made a remark which shows that his desire to
communicate was quite as strong as his desire to obtain.

"Whenever," said he, "I found a little more money in my purse than I
absolutely needed, I published a volume of historical tracts."

It was interesting to hear the old man relate how this taste for the
treasures of history was formed in his mind. His father, who served,
during the revolution, in a New Jersey regiment, retired after the war
to the city of New York, and at his house the Jersey veterans liked to
meet and talk over the incidents of the campaigns they had made
together. Peter, as a boy, loved to hear them tell their stories, and,
as he listened, the thought occurred to him one evening, Why should all
this be forgotten? Boy as he was, he began to write them down, under the
title of "The Unwritten History of the War in New Jersey." He made
considerable progress in it, but unfortunately the manuscript was lost.
The taste then formed grew with his growth and strengthened with his
strength. At ten he left school forever, and went into a printing
office, which has proved an excellent school to more than one valuable
American mind. He became an accomplished printer, and at twenty-two was
elected