If he
has met with a severe pecuniary loss in business, he ought to be told
it's the fortune of trade; how lucky he is he ain't ruined, he can
afford and must expect losses occasionally. If he frets over it, it
will hurt his mercantile credit, and after all, he will never miss it,
except in a figure in the bottom of his balance-sheet, and besides,
riches ain't happiness, and how little a man can get out of them at
best; and a minister ought to be able to have a good story to tell
him, with some point in it, for there is a great deal of sound
philosophy in a good anecdote.
He might say, for instance: "Did you ever hear of John Jacob Astor?"
"No, never."
"What not of John Jacob Astor, the richest man in all the unevarsal
United States of America? The man that owns all the brown and white
bears, silver-gray and jet-black foxes, sables, otters, stone martins,
ground squirrels, and every created critter that has a fur jacket,
away up about the North Pole, and lets them wear them, for furs don't
keep well, moths are death on 'em, and too many at a time glut the
market; so he lets them run till he wants them, and then sends and
skins them alive in spring when it ain't too cold, and waits till it
grows again?"
"No, never," sais the man with the loss.
"Well, if you had been stript stark naked and turned loose that way,
you might have complained.
Pages:
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151