ite inferior to prose, and
unworthy one's attention. Look at the splendid qualities of these great
men, particularly in the line in which the imaginative faculties tend.
See how they fascinated the ladies, who it is well known adore a fine
imagination. How well they talked love, the noblest of all subjects--for
a man's idle hours. Then observe the schemes they projected. Conquests,
consolidations, empires, dominion, and to include my own project, a
bullion bank with a ten-acre vault. It appears that a lack of capital
was at the bottom of all their plans. Alexander confessed that he was
bankrupt for lack of more worlds, and is reputed to have shed tears over
his failure, which might have been expected from a modern dry-goods
jobber, but not from Alexander. Caesar and Bonaparte failed for the want
of men: they do not seem to have been aware of the existence of Rhode
Island. I think Burr failed for the lack of impudence--he had more than
all the rest of the world together, but he needed much more than that to
push his projects ahead of his times. As for myself, when I have doubled
my capital, I shall found my bullion bank in the face of all opposition.
The ten-acre lot at the corner of Broadway and Wall street is already
selected and paid for, and I shall excavate as soon as the present crop
is off.

There is no question that the occupation of banking conduces to literary
pursuits. When I take interest out of my fellow beings, I naturally take
interest in them, and so fall to writing about them. I have in my
portfolio sketches of all the leading merchants of the age, romantically
wrought, and full of details of their private lives, hopes, fears, and
pleasures. These men that go up town every day have had, and still have,
little fanciful excursions that are quite amusing when an observer of my
talent notes them down. I know all about old Boscobello, the Spanish
merchant, of the house of Boscobello, Bolaso & Co. My romance of his
life from twenty to forty fills three volumes, and is as exciting as the
diaries of those amusing French people whom Bossuet preached to with
such small effect. Boscobello has sobered since forty, and begs for
loans as an old business man ought to. I think he sees the error of his
ways, and is anxious to repair his fortunes to the old point, but it is
easier to spend a million than to make it. My cashier reports his
account overdrawn the other day, and not made good till late next
afternoon. This is