He was not there, he said, to glorify
what had been done by himself, his family, or his friends in Tasajara.
Others who were to follow him might do that, or at least might be better
able to explain and expatiate upon the advantages of the institution
they had just opened, and its social, moral, and religious effect upon
the community. He was there as a business man to demonstrate to
them--as he had always done and always hoped to do--the money value
of improvement; the profit--if they might choose to call it--of
well-regulated and properly calculated speculation. The plot of land
upon which they stood, of which the building occupied only one eighth,
was bought two years before for ten thousand dollars. When the plans
of the building were completed a month afterwards, the value of the
remaining seven eighths had risen enough to defray the cost of the
entire construction. He was in a position to tell them that only that
morning the adjacent property, subdivided and laid out in streets and
building-plots, had been admitted into the corporate limits of the city;
and that on the next anniversary of the building they would approach
it through an avenue of finished dwellings! An outburst of applause
followed the speaker's practical climax; the fresh young faces of his
auditors glowed with invincible enthusiasm; the afternoon trade-winds,
freshening over the limitless plain beyond, tossed the bright banners
at the windows as with sympathetic rejoicing, and a few odorous pine
shavings, overlooked in a corner in the hurry of preparation, touched
by an eddying zephyr, crept out and rolled in yellow ringlets across the
floor.
Pages:
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110