so much to their lack of
business talent as to their lack of business nerve. How many lovable
persons we see in trade, endowed with brilliant capacities, but cursed
with yielding dispositions,--who are resolute in no business habits and
fixed in no business principles,--who are prone to follow the instincts
of a weak good-nature against the ominous hints of a clear intelligence,
now obliging this friend by indorsing an unsafe note, and then pleasing
that neighbor by sharing his risk in a hopeless speculation,--and who,
after all the capital they have earned by their industry and sagacity
has been sunk in benevolent attempts to assist blundering or plundering
incapacity, are doomed, in their bankruptcy, to be the mark of bitter
taunts from growling creditors and insolent pity from a gossiping
public. Much has been said about the pleasures of a good conscience; and
among these I reckon the act of that man who, having wickedly lent
certain moneys to a casual acquaintance, was in the end called upon to
advance a sum which transcended his honest means, with a dark hint,
that, if the money was refused, there was but one thing for the casual
acquaintance to do,--that is, to commit suicide. The person thus
solicited, in a transient fit of moral enthusiasm, caught at the hint,
and with great earnestness advised the casual acquaintance to do it, on
the ground that it was the only reparation he could make to the numerous
persons he had swindled. And this advice was given with no fear that the
guilt of that gentleman's blood would lie on his soul, for the mission
of that gentleman was to continue his existence by sucking out the life
of others, and his last thought was to destroy his own; and it is hardly
necessary to announce that he is still alive and sponging. Indeed, a
courageous merchant must ever by ready to face the fact that he will be
called a curmudgeon, if he will not ruin himself to please others, and a
weak fool, if he does. Many a fortune has melted away in the hesitating
utterance of the placable "Yes," which might have been saved by the
unhesitating utterance of the implacable "No!" Indeed, in business, the
perfection of grit is this power of saying "No," and saying it with such
wrathful emphasis that the whole race of vampires and harpies are scared
from you counting-room, and your reputation as unenterprising,
unbearable niggard is fully established among all borrowers of money
never meant to be repaid, and all pro