Retiring from Business CHAPTER 5.
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DISAPPOINTMENT.
Much to the disappointment and concern of Mr. and Mrs. Franklin, they discovered very soon after starting on their western journey, that Mr. LeGrand was a fellow passenger. He occupied a seat contiguous to the one that contained Florence; and, soon after the cars started, engaged her in conversation. A suitable opportunity offering, Florence introduced him to her father and mother. As the young man's manner was extremely courteous, they could not treat him rudely; the more especially as it might be true that he was a member of a southern family of wealth and standing.
Availing himself of the introduction, Mr. LeGrand presumed to make himself extremely agreeable to Mr. and Mrs. Franklin. Having before traveled along the route they had taken, he was familiar with all the localities, and gave information in regard to any historical association connected with points or places through, or near which they passed. Affable in his manners, possessed of fine conversational powers, and intelligent beyond the ordinary class of men, it was no very hard matter for Mr. LeGrand to remove, to some extent, the prejudice with which his approaches had been anticipated. Before the first day's ride was completed, he was on such good terms with all the family as scarcely to be considered a stranger.
But, for all this, neither Mr. Franklin nor his wife was pleased with the marked attentions that were shown to their daughter, and much less pleased at the manner in which these attentions were received. In their eyes, she was little more than a child; and they still wished others to regard her in the same light.
In this light, it was plain that LeGrand did not regard her.
Three days were passed at the Falls, and then a trip down the St. Lawrence was determined upon. This was the very route the affable southerner had decided upon taking before leaving Saratoga. He was, of course, a fellow voyager. At Montreal they parted company. But met again at Lake Champlain. Determined to get rid of a man whom he could not throw off, Mr. Franklin took the quickest route homeward. When the doors of his own house closed upon him, he breathed more freely.
Had the summer trip been a source of pleasure to Mr. Franklin? Far, very far from it! He had not spent a single comfortable hour since leaving home, and he came back with the painful conviction that his two oldest children had been injured by coming in contact with improper associates. Mrs. Franklin showed plainly that she had returned with a weight upon her feelings. Edwin was changed; and no longer met the family with a cheerful countenance. Something that did not bring pleasant thoughts was upon his mind. And, as for Florence, she evinced little interest in anything, and much preferred being alone than with her family.
How changed was this family! A year before Mr. Franklin was daily occupied in active business, and his children were as earnestly engaged in pursuing their studies. When they met, cheerfulness pervaded the circle. They were not robbed of happiness by unsatisfied dreams; nor filled with dread as the shadows of approaching evil fell upon them. None thought of going from home in search of pleasure, for the hearth-fire blazed warmly, and all felt its congenial influence.
But it was different now. Mr. Franklin having retired from the useful position he occupied in society, must needs do something — to be entirely idle was impossible — and he had, unfortunately put his hand to a work, the fruit of which proved evil. The removal of Florence from her school was, apparently, a little matter; but sad effects followed, as has been seen. Just at the most dangerous age, she was thrown among associates, whose influence upon her was anything but good; and her feelings had received a bias that caused her parents serious alarm.
In search of some new mode of passing the time, a visit to the Springs was proposed. The effect upon at least two members of his family is already partially apparent, and Mr. Franklin might well tremble for the ultimate result.
Edwin had come home, a short time previous to the trip to Saratoga, having completed his collegiate term. It was only a week or two before starting on this tour of pleasure, that he had expressed his utter unwillingness to enter upon the study of law, for which profession his father had designed him. Shortly after their return from Saratoga and the Falls, the subject was renewed, when Edwin expressed a still more decided aversion.
"What profession, then, will you choose?" asked Mr. Franklin, with some petulance of manner.
"I do not wish to become a professional man at all," said Edwin. "My inclinations do not lead me that way!"
"Then in what direction do they lead you?"
"I would much prefer going into some business."
"You are too young for that. And, besides, have not received a business education."
"It is not yet too late to learn?"
"No. But you will not be willing to go into a store or counting-room, for three or four years, in order to acquire a knowledge of business."
"I would rather do that, than attempt the law, for which I have a great dislike."
"But all business is precarious. Not one in twenty, who enter the avenues of trade, escapes disaster. In the professions, it is not so. Success is more gradual, but it is more certain. As a professional man, you will be removed from the agitations, losses, and anxieties of trade; and starting with a competency, can go on, steadily advancing until you gain wealth, and distinction, at the same time. To a young man in your position, one of the learned professions is in every way to be preferred."
But Edwin thought differently. He preferred business to study. Reluctantly did Mr. Franklin seek for him a place in a commercial house. While he was doing so, under the pressure of a natural anxiety for his son, a wish that he had never withdrawn from business, more than once crossed his mind. Had he still been engaged in his extensive manufacturing operations, he could have taken Edwin into his counting-room, and, retaining him thus under his own care, have made him extremely useful, and at the same time, imparted a knowledge of his business. In a few years, he could come in as a partner, while he, in retiring then, would have left his son in a fair way of amassing an independence for himself.
But this opportunity was now gone. He was a retired gentleman, and had no business into which he could bring his son. The only expedient, therefore, was to get him into some good house, and hope for a favorable result. This was accordingly done, and at the age of nineteen, Edwin, who had already formed some intimate associations with young men of the city, whom he had met at the Springs, entered a new world. The establishment into which he was introduced, was an extensive one, and employed about twenty-five clerks, many of them the sons of wealthy parents. Several of these were in the enjoyment of a liberal allowance of pocket money; thus having in their hands the means of dissipation, which a few of them did not fail to use.
With no love for intellectual pursuits, and naturally inclined to sensual indulgence, the position of Edwin, was anything but a safe one. Mr. Franklin felt that it was unsafe, but did not clearly comprehend the reason. Had he done so, he would have deemed the advantages to be gained in the house where he had placed his son, as of no importance whatever, when considered in view of the injury that must inevitably be suffered. But Mr. Franklin, was not a man sufficiently accurate in his knowledge of human nature, nor well enough learned in mental philosophy, to be able, abstractly, to determine the exact effect of circumstances upon a particular temperament. Life was to him a problem; and the relation between mental causes and ultimate results, was one of the fields that he had been unable to enter, by the force of his own reason.
There were certain wise sayings and oft repeated axioms, that to him had become self-evident truths; and when circumstances led to their application in real life, he made them standards of action. But in new and untried positions, where, by the light of his own intelligence he was required to see the right way, his uninstructed mind gave him little aid. In business, he had followed in the well-beaten paths. Industry, prudence, and economy — all directed by an earnest desire to accumulate money, made success certain. Here, by a long concentration of his thoughts, intelligence in business matters had grown clearer, and when sufficient means of enlargement came, he was prepared to introduce machinery, and to extend largely his operations.
The introduction of his children into the world, however, was an untried experiment with Mr. Franklin, and the difficulties appertaining thereto, were never clearly apparent until now. If he had been in business when Edwin came home from college, it would have been an easy thing, he saw, to have introduced him into it. The young man would then have been under his own eye, and he could have given him an interest, in order to balance his mind against undue social attractions, as soon as prudence dictated the step. Now, however, he would have to take his chance; and when Mr. Franklin recollected Edwin's associations at the Springs, and the fact that he had spent money there with a strange person — for what, he was yet ignorant — he might well fear for the result.
In thinking of Florence, his eldest daughter, now at the most critical age, the father had little more to encourage him. She had suddenly changed from a modest, unassuming girl — into a forward, self-reliant young Miss. The origin of that change he could too accurately trace. The cause lay at his own door. He had disturbed the regular progress of her education. Broken up old associations that were good, and introduced her, ignorantly on his part, among those whose influence and example had the worst possible effect upon her. She was not a strong minded girl. In fact, there was no marked intellectual character about any of the family. The children were precisely of that stamp so frequently seen among those who have risen into affluence by what may be called a sort of unintellectual devotion to business, in which the higher powers of the mind have remained asleep. As to eminence in anything, that was next to impossible for them to obtain. They lacked, by birth, sufficient mental activity. No wonder Edwin had no fancy for such hard work as the study of law appeared in prospect. A course of four years at college, in which he was distinguished for nothing, was sufficient experience in mental labor for him.
Such being the character of Florence — we might almost have said, lack of character — any change of associations such as we have mentioned, could not but be permanently injurious. With a mind unbalanced by serious thoughts of any kind, and uninstructed in regard to life and its mighty considerations, it was but natural that she should step aside into the first path that allured her feet.
If Mr. Franklin had, while in business, permitted his thoughts wisely to regard his family; if he had, as his children's minds began to open to the light, divided his attention between them and his manufactory; if he had studied their character, needs, and destiny, with half the earnestness that he studied the means and ends appertaining to a successful issue of his business — he would, as a consequence, have lived along with them from year to year, and so guided the development of their characters and guarded their future steps as to have provided against the evils which had fallen upon them. Had this been the case, he might even have retired from business, without their suffering any disturbing consequences. The effects of this unwise step would then have been felt more particularly in his own person.
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