He lived in a dingy little house in Water Street.  His wife had died in an insane asylum, and he was childless.  He was repulsive in person.  He was feared by his subordinates—­by all who had dealings with him—­and liked by none.  He was mean and close in his personal habits, living on less, perhaps, than any of his clerks, and deriving little or no benefit from his vast wealth, so far as his individual comfort was concerned.  He gave nothing in charity.  Lazarus would have lain at his doors a life-time without being noticed by him.  He was solitary, soured, cold, with a heart of stone, and fully conscious of his personal unpopularity.  Yet he valued wealth—­valued it for the power it gave him over men.  Under that cold, hardened exterior reigned an ambition as profound as that which moved Napoleon.  He was ambitious of regulating the financial operations of the land, and proud of his power in this respect, and it should be remembered in his favor that he did not abuse that power after it had passed into his hands.

He had no vices, no dissipations; his whole soul was in his business.  He was conscious that his only hope of distinction above his fellow-men was in his wealth, and he was resolved that nothing should make him swerve from his endeavor to accumulate a fortune which should make him all powerful in life and remembered in death.  He sought no friends, and was reticent as to his career, saying to those who questioned him about it, “Wait till I am dead; my deeds will show what I was.”

Religion had no place in his heart.  He was an avowed unbeliever, making a boast of his disbelief.  He always worked on Sunday, in order that he might show his disapproval of the observance of it as a day of rest.  Rest, he said, made a man rusty, and attendance upon the worship of God he denounced as worse than folly.  His favorite books were the works of Voltaire, and he named his best ships after the most celebrated French infidels.

Yet this man, so unloved, so undeserving of love, is said to have once had a warm heart.  His early troubles and his domestic griefs are said to have soured and estranged him from mankind.

“No one who has had access to his private papers can fail to be impressed with the belief that these early disappointments furnish the key to his entire character.  Originally of warm and generous impulses, the belief in childhood that he had not been given his share of the love and kindness which were extended to others, changed the natural current of his feelings, and, acting on a warm and passionate temperament, alienated him from his home, his parents, and his friends.  And when in after time there were superadded years of bitter anguish, resulting from his unfortunate and ill-adapted marriage, rendered even more poignant by the necessity of concealment, and the consequent injustice of public sentiment, marring all his cherished expectations, it may be readily understood why constant occupation became a necessity and labor a pleasure.”