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fortune; but his father would make him go into business. He might be a
model family man, and at the same time a very entertaining member of
society; but his wife has snubbed and suppressed him for her own
exaltation. If, instead of treating him thus, she would only show him a
little gratitude as the source of all her luxury and magnificence, her
dresses and her jewelry, her carriage and horses (what a pair of
iron-grays she does drive!), and all her other splendors--if she would
only be proud of him as the great broker--not to speak of his varied
knowledge, of which she might also well be proud--if she would take some
little pains to interest herself in his pleasures and to bring him
forward in society--how easily she could correct and soften his little
uncouthnesses of person and dress, if she would take the trouble! Why
should she be ashamed of him? He is older than she--how much? ten years
perhaps, or twelve at most. He is not a beauty; but in a man, I should
say, mind, comes before good looks; and how infinitely superior he is in
mind and soul to any of the frivolous little beaux, native or foreign,
whom she delights to draw about her!"

"I fear I shall never be able to regard Mr. Harrison with as much
respect as you do. It may be ignorance, but I never could see much
difference between a speculator in stocks and a gambler."

"When a man is in his predicament domestically there are three things,
to one, two, or all of which he is pretty sure to take--drink, gambling,
and horses. Harrison is too purely intellectual a man to be led away by
the vulgar animal temptation of liquor, though he has a good cellar, and
sometimes consoles himself with a snug bachelor dinner. Stock-jobbing
is, as you say, only another sort of gambling, and this is his vice: at
the same time you will consider that it is his business, to which he was
brought up. Then, for absolute relaxation, he has his 'fast crab.' Put
him behind his 2' 45" stepper and he is happy for an hour or two, and
forgets his miseries--that is to say, his wife."

"But you talk as if his marriage was the cause of his speculations,
whereas you told me the other day that his speculations were the
indirect cause of his marriage."

"You are right: I believe the beginning of that bad habit must be set
down to his father's account; but the continuance of it is still
chargeable on his wife. I have heard him say myself that he would have
retired from business long ago but fo