done under the circumstances. So he continued
to dwell in his mountain fortress, without
an object in life, or any amusement that
he cared about. He had nothing to do but to
fish, or to shoot, and he cared nothing for
either of these modes of pastime. After about
six months of it, he ordered a boat upon the
lake, to go, as he said, fishing for salmon.
Unobserved by any one, he put an old grindstone
into the boat, and a few yards of
rope line, and rowed himself away to the
middle of the lake. He was never seen again
alive. The boat drifted on shore without him
in the evening, and three days afterwards his
body was drawn from the bottom of the lake,
with the grindstone tied round its neck.

The third little story is equally suggestive.
A very hard-working professional man, careful,
prudent, abstemious, but somewhat
eccentric, retired from busy life with thirty
thousand pounds: in order, as he said, to
enjoy himself, and pass the evenings of his life
in the mild radiance of the setting sun. It
could not be said of him that he had no
resources in his mind, for he was learned,
witty, fond of books, music, and pictures; and
he was happily married. All his friends (and
he had many) to whom his harmless
eccentricities and real kindliness of heart, concealed
under a brusque manner, were sources of
attraction, anticipated for him many years of
learned leisure and calm domestic happiness.
But it was not to be. A serious, and as it
proved, a fatal illness overtook him, before, as he
expressed it, "he had been three months out
of business." He did not suffer much, and by
no means anticipated a fatal termination to his
malady. After ten days' confinement to his
room, he was somewhat alarmed by the grave
face and demeanour of his usually hearty and
cheerful medical attendant. "I think," said the
latter, "that it is my duty to recommend to
you, if you have any worldly affairs to settle,
that you should settle them." The patient
sprang up in the bed. "Do you mean to tell
me, doctor, that I am dying?" "Oh, no!"
said the doctor, kindly, "I hope not; and I
trust that many happy years are in store for you.
Still, if there is any matter of business for
you to settle, settle it. Life is always
uncertain; and it is best to be prepared for all
contingencies." "Doctor," said the sick man,
"you cannot deceive me. You think I am
dying, and you do not like to tell me the truth.
Well! I have toiled, and struggled, and screwed,
and saved, for forty years, and thought that at
the last I was going to enjoy myself for a little
while before the end. And now you tell me I
am dying. All I can say is, that it is a—."
He added two words that were very tragic,
very comic, very lamentable, very unrepeatable;
turned his face to the wall; and never
spoke more.

Fourth on my list of the unhappy rich, is a
gentleman who retired, at the age of fifty, from
a large and prosperous business, with the
expectation that his share of the partnership
would amount to half a million sterling. This
expectation was not realised. On a settlement
of accounts, and a valuation of the assets
between him and his partners, it was found that
his share fell a little, but not much, short of
two hundred thousand pounds. This was a
grievous disappointment to him. All his
life, from very early youth, he had
overworked his weary brain. He had been
unwisely eager to grow rich, and had overtasked;
the energies both of his body and mind, in
the attempt to build up a fortune, and to
become the founder of a family, that should rank
among the first in the county in which he
resided. He loved wealth for its own sake,
and with a love beyond reason. Though a
clear fortune of two hundred thousand pounds,
or even half of the money, would seem to most
men something to be grateful for, and to be
well enjoyed and well secured, it did not seem
so to this greedy man, who had made money
his idol, and the only object of reverence in the
world. His brain was weakened by the hard
work expended in making and taking care of
this magnificent, but to him, disappointing
sum, and he brooded so much over the failure
to reach the half million he had so long
calculated upon amassing, that symptoms of
aberration of intellect were soon apparent to his
family. His brain softened, and in less than a
twelvemonth after the winding up of his partnership
his mind was wholly gone, and it became
necessary to place him under the protection
of keepers, who attended upon him night
and day, and never suffered him out of their
presence, lest he should do himself a mischief.
His life became a blank. It did not appear that
he knew whether he was rich or poor—free or
restrained—ill or well—and in this state he
remained for many months, and died.

My last rich man—a very rich man he was—
an owner, not of hundreds of thousands, but of
millions—was not unhappy, but was, on the
contrary, cheerful, and happier than most
men are permitted to be in this world. But
strange to say his happiness arose, not from
his real wealth, but from his imaginary poverty.
At the close of a long, honourable, and useful
life, he took it into his head that the world had
entered into a conspiracy to reduce him to
pauperism, and that he should end his days in the
workhouse. It was in vain to argue the point
with him. His faith was fixed and settled.
He came to the conviction—though the
possessor of millions—that he was de jure and de
facto, a pauper, and reduced in his old age to
labour for his daily bread. When he consulted
his son, who was to be the inheritor of his vast
wealth, what was best to be done under these
unhappy circumstances, the son, acting under
medical advice, offered to settle a handsome
annuity upon his father. The pride of the old
gentleman was roused:

"No! no," he said, "give me employment.
I am still hale and hearty. I have always taken
great pleasure in gardening. Make me your
gardener, and I will do my duty like a man;
and I will owe no other man anything, except
my thanks to you, my dear son, for giving me