to construct a raft.

Indeed, there was something pitiable in the state of things which that
panic revealed in the business centres of the country. Common sense
seemed to be disowned by mutual consent; an infectious fear went
shivering from man to man; and a strange fascination led people to
increase by suspicions and reports the peril which threatened their own
destruction. Men, being thus thrown back upon the resources of
character, were put to terrible tests. As the intellect cannot act when
the will is paralyzed, many a merchant, whose debts really bore no
proportion to his property, was seen sitting, like the French prisoner
in the iron cage whose sides were hourly contracting, stupidly gazing at
the bars which were closing in upon him, and feeling in advance the pang
of the iron which was to cut into his flesh and crush his bones.

In invigorating contrast to the panic-smitten, we had the privilege to
witness many an example of the grit-inspired. Then it was that the
grouty, taciturn, obstinate trader, so unpopular in ordinary times,
showed the stuff he was made of. Then his bearing was cheer and hope to
all who looked upon him. How he girded himself for the fight, resolved,
if he died, to die hard! How he tugged with obstacles as if they were
personal affronts, and hurled them to the right and to the left! How
grandly, amid the chatter of the madmen about him, came his few words of
sense and sanity! And then his brain, brightened, not bewildered, by the
danger, how clear and alert it was, how fertile in expedients, how firm
in principles, with a glance that pierced through the ignorant present
to the future, seeing as calmly and judging as accurately in the tempest
as it had in the sunshine. Never losing heart and never losing head,
with as strong a grip on his honor as on his property, detesting the
very thought of failure, knowing that he might be broken to pieces, but
determined that he would not weakly "go to pieces," he performed the
greatest service to the community, as well as to himself, by resolutely,
at any sacrifice, paying his debts when they became due. It is a pity
that such austere Luthers of commerce, trade-militant instead of
church-militant, who meet hard times with a harder will, had not a
little beauty in their toughness, so that grit, lifted to heroism, would
allure affection as well as enforce respect. But their sense is so
rigid, their integrity so gruff, and their courage so unjoyous, th