ved on in my state of damnation, and the thought of
Elizabeth shone with a friendly but heart-piercing light into the hell
around me. Still the frenzy of life had laid fast hold on me, and made
me too take my place in the vast bedlam, and go through my part under
the great task-master. People tell you that death cures all; others
again look forward to being transported from one workhouse to another,
where they shall keep on playing the fool through all eternity and
evaporating in an endless succession of illusions. With a little
money--it would be ridiculous were I to mention the sum; many take so
much merely to fill their bellies--I engaged in a small line of
business. It succeeded. I made a petty mercantile speculation. It
turned out well. I entered into partnership with a man of considerable
property. It seemed as if I had a talent of always guessing and
foreboding where gain and profit were lying hid in distant countries,
in uninviting, or hazardous undertakings; something like what is said
of the divining rod, that it will hit upon metals and upon water. As
many gardeners have a lucky hand, so in trade I prospered in every,
even the most unpromising speculation. It was neither strength of
understanding nor extent of knowledge, but mere luck. One becomes a
man of understanding however, so soon as one has luck. My partner was
astonisht; and, as he had a small estate here, we removed into this
country, where till the time of his death we went on enlarging the
number of our houses of business and manufactories. When he died, and
I had settled my accounts with his heir, I might already have been
accounted a rich man. But a feeling of awe came upon me along with
this property as they call it. For how great is the responsibility for
managing it rightly! And why were so many honest men unfortunate,
while with me everything throve so unaccountably? After a number of
painful years my wife also died: without children, without friends, I
was again alone. How singularly that blind being, that men call
fortune, pampered me, you may see from the following story. I always
felt an aversion to play at cards or any other game for money. For
what does a gambler do, but declare that he will exalt the wretched
stuff, to which even as money he attaches such an inordinate value,
into an oracle and a promulgation of the divine will? And then he
stakes his heart and soul on this delusion: the freaks of chance,
things utterly without meaning,