Home as Found - James Fenimore Cooper (ebook reader wifi txt) 📗

any thing was

said, it arose incidentally and as inseparable from the regular

thread of the discourse.

 

When in Wall street, the carriages stopped and the gentlemen

alighted. The severity of the weather kept the ladies in the chariot,

where Grace endeavoured to explain things as well as she could to her

companions.

 

"What are all these people running after, so intently?" inquired

Mademoiselle Viefville, the conversation being in French, but which

we shall render freely into English, for the sake of the general

reader.

 

"Dollars, I believe, Mademoiselle; am I right, Grace?"

 

"I believe you are," returned Grace, laughing, "though I know little

more of this part of the town than yourself."

 

"_Quelle foule_! Is that building filled with dollars, into which the

gentlemen are now entering? Its steps are crowded."

 

"That is the _Bourse_, Mademoiselle, and it ought to be well lined,

by the manner in which some who frequent it live. Cousin Jack and Sir

George are going into the crowd, I see."

 

We will leave the ladies in their seats, a few minutes, and accompany

the gentlemen on their way into the Exchange.

 

"I shall now show you, Sir George Templemore," said John Effingham,

"what is peculiar to this country, and what, if properly improved, it

is truly worth a journey across the ocean to see. You have been at

the Royal Exchange in London, and at the _Bourse_ of Paris, but you

have never witnessed a scene like that which I am about to introduce

you to. In Paris, you have beheld the unpleasant spectacle of women

gambling publicly in the funds; but it was in driblets, compared to

what you will see here."

 

While speaking, John Effingham led the way upstairs into the office

of one of the most considerable auctioneers. The walls were lined

with maps, some representing houses, some lots, some streets, some

entire towns.

 

"This is the focus of what Aristabulus Bragg calls the town trade,"

said John Effingham, when fairly confronted with all these wonders.

"Here, then, you may suit yourself with any species of real estate

that heart can desire. If a villa is wanted, there are a dozen. Of

farms, a hundred are in market; that is merely half-a-dozen streets;

and here are towns, of dimensions and value to suit purchasers."

 

"Explain this; it exceeds comprehension."

 

"It is simply what it professes to be. Mr. Hammer, do us the favour

to step this way. Are you selling to-day?"

 

"Not much, sir. Only a hundred or two lots on this island, and some

six or eight farms, with one western village."

 

"Can you tell us the history of this particular piece of property,

Mr. Hammer?"

 

"With great pleasure, Mr. Effingham; we know you to have means, and

hope you may be induced to purchase. This was the farm of old Volkert

Van Brunt, five years since, off of which he and his family had made

a livelihood for more than a century, by selling milk. Two years

since, the sons sold it to Peter Feeler for a hundred an acre; or for

the total sum of five thousand dollars. The next spring Mr. Feeler

sold it to John Search, as keen a one as we have, for twenty-five

thousand. Search sold it, at private sale, to Nathan Rise for fifty

thousand, the next week, and Rise had parted with it, to a company,

before the purchase, for a hundred and twelve thousand cash. The map

ought to be taken down, for it is now eight months since we sold it

out in lots, at auction, for the gross sum of three hundred thousand

dollars. As we have received our commission, we look at that land as

out of the market, for a time."

 

"Have you other property, sir, that affords the same wonderful

history of a rapid advance in value?" asked the baronet.

 

"These walls are covered with maps of estates in the same

predicament. Some have risen two or three thousand per cent. within

five years, and some only a few hundred. There is no calculating in

the matter, for it is all fancy."

 

"And on what is this enormous increase in value founded?--Does the

town extend to these fields?"

 

"It goes much farther, sir; that is to say, on paper. In the way of

houses, it is still some miles short of them. A good deal depends on

what you _call_ a thing, in this market. Now, if old Volkert Van

Brunt's property had been still called a farm, it would have brought

a farm price; but, as soon as it was surveyed into lots and mapped--"

 

"Mapped!"

 

"Yes, sir; brought into visible lines, with feet and inches. As soon

as it was properly mapped, it rose to its just value. We have a good

deal of the bottom of the sea that brings fair prices in consequence

of being well mapped."

 

Here the gentlemen expressed their sense of the auctioneer's

politeness, and retired.

 

"We will now go into the sales-room," said John Effingham, "where you

shall judge of the spirit, or _energy_, as it is termed, which, at

this moment, actuates this great nation."

 

Descending, they entered a crowd, where scores were eagerly bidding

against each other, in the fearful delusion of growing rich by

pushing a fancied value to a point still higher. One was purchasing

ragged rocks, another the bottom of rivers, a third a bog, and all on

the credit of maps. Our two observers remained some time silent

spectators of the scene.

 

"When I first entered that room," said John Effingham, as they left

the place, "it appeared to me to be filled with maniacs. Now, that I

have been in it several times, the impression is not much altered."

 

"And all those persons are hazarding their means of subsistence on

the imaginary estimate mentioned by the auctioneer?"

 

"They are gambling as recklessly as he who places his substance on

the cast of the die. So completely has the mania seized every one,

that the obvious truth, a truth which is as apparent as any other law

of nature, that nothing can be sustained without a foundation, is

completely overlooked, and he who should now proclaim, in this

building, principles that bitter experience will cause every man to

feel, within the next few years, would be happy if he escaped being

stoned. I have witnessed many similar excesses in the way of

speculations; but never an instance as gross, as wide-spread, and as

alarming as this."

 

"You apprehend serious consequences, then, from the reaction?"

 

"In that particular, we are better off than older nations, the youth

and real stamina of the country averting much of the danger; but I

anticipate a terrible blow, and that the day is not remote when this

town will awake to a sense of its illusion. What you see here is but

a small part of the extravagance that exists, for it pervades the

whole community, in one shape or another. Extravagant issues of

paper-money, inconsiderate credits that commence in Europe; and

extend throughout the land, and false notions as to the value of

their possessions, in men who five years since had nothing, has

completely destroyed the usual balance of things, and money has got

to be so completely the end of life, that few think of it as a means.

The history of the world, probably, cannot furnish a parallel

instance, of an extensive country that is so absolutely under this

malign influence, as is the fact with our own at this present

instant. All principles are swallowed up in the absorbing desire for

gain; national honour, permanent security, the ordinary rules of

society, law, the constitution, and every thing that is usually so

dear to men, are forgotten, or are perverted, in order to sustain

this unnatural condition of things."

 

"This is not only extraordinary, but it is fearful!"

 

"It is both. The entire community is in the situation of a man who is

in the incipient stages of an exhilarating intoxication, and who

keeps pouring down glass after glass, in the idle notion that he is

merely sustaining nature in her ordinary functions. This wide-spread

infatuation extends from the coast to the extremest frontiers of the

west; for, while there is a justifiable foundation for a good deal of

this fancied prosperity, the true is so interwoven with the false,

that none but the most observant can draw the distinction, and, as

usual, the false predominates."

 

"By your account, sir, the tulip mania of Holland was trifling

compared to this?"

 

"That was the same in principle as our own, but insignificant in

extent. Could I lead you through these streets, and let you into the

secret of the interests, hopes, infatuations and follies that prevail

in the human breast, you, as a calm spectator, would be astonished at

the manner in which your own species can be deluded. But let us move,

and something may still occur to offer an example."

 

"Mr. Effingham--I beg pardon--Mr. Effingham," said a very

gentlemanly-looking merchant, who was walking about the hall of the

exchange, "what do you think now of our French quarrel?"

 

"I have told you, Mr. Bale, all I have to say on that subject. When

in France, I wrote you that it was not the intention of the French

government to comply with the treaty; you have since seen this

opinion justified in the result; you have the declaration of the

French minister of state, that, without an apology from this

government, the money will not be paid; and I have given it as my

opinion, that the vane on yonder steeple will not turn more readily

than all this policy will be abandoned, should any thing occur in

Europe to render it necessary, or could the French ministry believe

it possible for this country to fight for a principle. These are my

opinions, in all their phases, and you may compare them with facts

and judge for yourself."

 

"It is all General Jackson, sir--all that monster's doings. But for

his message, Mr. Effingham, we should have had the money long ago."

 

"But for his message, or some equally decided step, Mr. Bale, you

would never have it."

 

"Ah, my dear sir, I know your intentions, but I fear you are

prejudiced against that excellent man, the King of France! Prejudice,

Mr. Effingham, is a sad innovator on justice."

 

Here Mr. Bale shook his head, laughed, and disappeared in the crowd,

perfectly satisfied that John Effingham was a prejudiced man, and

that he, himself, was only liberal and just.

 

"Now, that is a man who wants for neither abilities nor honesty, and

yet he permits his interests, and the influence of this very

speculating mania, to overshadow all his sense of right, facts plain

as noon-day, and the only principles that can rule a country in

safety."

 

"He apprehends war, and has no desire to believe even facts, so long

as they serve to increase the danger."

 

"Precisely so; for even prudence gets to be a perverted quality, when

men are living under an infatuation like that which now exists. These

men live like the fool who says there is no death."

 

Here the gentlemen rejoined the ladies, and the carriages drove

through a succession of narrow and crooked streets, that were lined

with warehouses filled with the products of the civilized world.

 

"Very much of all this is a part of the same lamentable illusion,"

said John Effingham, as the carriages made their way slowly through

the encumbered streets. "The man who sells his inland lots at a

profit, secured by credit, fancies himself enriched, and he extends

his manner of living in proportion; the boy from the country becomes

a merchant, or what is here called a merchant, and obtains a credit

in Europe a hundred times exceeding his means, and caters to these

fancied wants; and thus is every avenue of society thronged with

adventurers, the ephemera of the same wide-spread spirit of reckless

folly. Millions in value pass out of these streets, that go to feed

the vanity of those who fancy themselves wealthy, because they hold

some ideal pledges for the payment of advances in price like those

mentioned by the auctioneer, and which have some such security for

the eventual payment, as one can find in _calling_ a thing, that is

really worth a dollar, worth a hundred."

 

"Are the effects of this state of things apparent in your ordinary

associations?"

 

"In every thing. The desire to grow suddenly rich has seized on all

classes. Even women and clergymen are infected, and we exist under

the active control of the most corrupting of all influences--'the

love of money.' I should despair of the country altogether, did I not

feel certain that the disease is too violent to last, and entertain a

hope that the season of calm reflection and of repentance, that is to

follow, will be in proportion to its causes."

 

After taking this view of the town, the party returned to Hudson

Square, where the baronet dined, it being his intention to go to

Washington on the following day. The leave-taking in the evening was

kind and friendly; Mr. Effingham, who had a