He lived in a dingy little house in Water Street. His wife had died in
an insane asylum, and he was childless. He was repulsive in person. He
was feared by his subordinates--by all who had dealings with him--and
liked by none. He was mean and close in his personal habits, living on
less, perhaps, than any of his clerks, and deriving little or no benefit
from his vast wealth, so far as his individual comfort was concerned. He
gave nothing in charity. Lazarus would have lain at his doors a
life-time without being noticed by him. He was solitary, soured, cold,
with a heart of stone, and fully conscious of his personal unpopularity.
Yet he valued wealth--valued it for the power it gave him over men.
Under that cold, hardened exterior reigned an ambition as profound as
that which moved Napoleon. He was ambitious of regulating the financial
operations of the land, and proud of his power in this respect, and it
should be remembered in his favor that he did not abuse that power after
it had passed into his hands.

He had no vices, no dissipations; his whole soul was in his business. He
was conscious that his only hope of distinction above his fellow-men was
in his wealth, and he was resolved that nothing should make him swerve
from his endeavor to accumulate a fortune which should make him all
powerful in life and remembered in death. He sought no friends, and was
reticent as to his career, saying to those who questioned him about it,
"Wait till I am dead; my deeds will show what I was."

Religion had no place in his heart. He was an avowed unbeliever, making
a boast of his disbelief. He always worked on Sunday, in order that he
might show his disapproval of the observance of it as a day of rest.
Rest, he said, made a man rusty, and attendance upon the worship of God
he denounced as worse than folly. His favorite books were the works of
Voltaire, and he named his best ships after the most celebrated French