e passing away, it is a question
of no small interest what shape the trade will put on. We will not
attempt to answer that question. We prefer to give a sketch of the man
who has done the most to solve it--Mr. A. T. Stewart.

Mr. Stewart possesses one of the most truly executive minds in America.
Indeed, as respects this feature, we doubt if any exception could be
made to according him the very first position among our business men.
Others may occasionally equal him in grasp of intellect, as in the
instance of George Law, or Cornelius Vanderbilt; but, considered in the
point of executive ability, we consider him unapproachable. He has long
been chief among American dry goods dealers, and is known far and wide
as the largest merchant (that is, buyer and seller) on this continent,
and perhaps in the world. Yet there are thousands, including New Yorkers
as well as country people, who have lost sight of Mr. Stewart's
personality, and mention his name daily, and, perhaps, hourly, merely as
the representative of a mammoth house of trade. The reason of this is
obvious: hundreds and thousands have dealt year after year in that
marble palace without ever beholding its proprietor. To such persons the
name 'Stewart' has become merely a symbol, or, at most, a term of
locality. To them he is a myth, with no personal entity. To their minds
the term sets forth, instead of so many feet stature encased in
broadcloth, with countenance, character, and voice like other men,
merely a train of ideas, a marble front, plate glass, gorgeous drapery,
legion of clerks, paradise of fashion, crowds of customers, and all the
fascination of a day of shopping. 'Where did you get that love of a
shawl?' asks Miss Matilda Namby Pamby of her friend Miss Araminta
Vacuum. 'Why, at Stewart's, of course,' is the inevitable reply; 'and so
cheap! only $250.' Now, to this pair of lady economists, what is
'Stewart's' but a mere locality, as impersonal as Paris or Brussels, or
any other mart of finery? We would correct this tendency to the unreal
(which, by the way, is very natural), by stating that behind the mythic
idea, there _is_ a Stewart; not a mere locality, but a man--plain,
earnest, and industrious--who, amid this army of clerks and bustle of
external traffic, drives the secret machinery with wonderful precision.
Purchasers at retail are the most liable to the symbolic idea, since
they never behold the existing Stewart. They see hundreds of salesmen,
some