CHAPTER VII.
Lives of great men all remind us,
We can make our lives sublime.
A true delineation of the smallest man and his scenes of pilgrimage through life, is capable of interesting the greatest man.
A modern writer remarks, “nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.” That must be on account of their rarity, like a certain kind of charity. It is as difficult to find a man of common sense, as a four-leaved clover. I have often wondered why people seemed astonished at me, but the above remark solves the problem; it’s my common sense and plain dealing, and fair dealing (a still rarer quality), that does it. In these respects I stand out in bold relief like a statue in a stereoscope, or poetically “like a lone star in a tempestuous night.” I consider myself a standard of common sense, and were I a Prince Consort, I might be called The Imperial Standard I have always dealt in a plain, unostentatious way, and nobody can say that I ever cheated even to the extent of a lucifer match, or a corset lace. That’s what few of my brother merchants can say. Many of them no doubt live in fine houses, and fare sumptuously every day, and, in their own estimation, are the great and mighty of the earth, but in this mercantile
