But I was myself unmoved," our friend concluded,
in his usual vein of philosophy, "though, I trust, not unsympathizing;
because I saw, through those dun clouds of smoke, the stars still shining
serenely aloft, and because I felt that after that transient convulsion of
nature the great sun would rise as majestically as ever on the morrow, to
show us, here and there, no doubt, a beautiful tract now desolate, here and
there a fruitful vale now filled with ashes,--but also, the same glorious
bay breathing calmly in its bed, the same cloudless sky holding the green
and peaceful earth in its complacent embrace."
We could not, as we listened to the story of the traveller, help
considering it an illustration of that great convulsion of finance
which has visited us during the last month. We do not mean to call
this an eruption, which would scarcely be appropriate,--inasmuch as
the characteristic of it was not a preternatural activity, but rather a
preternatural stagnation and paralysis; but there is certainly a striking
similarity in the contrasts presented by the two pictures just painted, and
the contrasts presented in the condition of the commercial world as it is
now, and as it was only a few weeks since.
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