I am a banker, and I need hardly say I am in comfortable circumstances. Some of my friends, of whom I have a good many, are pleased to call me rich, and I shall not take it upon myself to dispute their word. Until I was twenty-five, I travelled, waltzed, and saw the best foreign society; from twenty-five to thirty I devoted myself to literature and the art of dining; I am now entered upon the serious business of life, which consists in increasing one's estate. At forty I shall marry, and as this epoch is nine years distant, I trust none of the fair readers of this journal will trouble themselves to address me notes which I really cannot answer, and which it would give me pain to throw in the fire.

Some persons think it beneath a gentleman to write for the magazines or papers. This is a low and vulgar idea. The great wits of the world have found their best friends in the journals; there were some who never learned to write,—who ever hears of them now? I write anonymously of course, and I amuse myself by listening to the remarks that society makes upon my productions. Society talks about them a great deal, and I divide attention with the last novelist, whether an unknown young lady of the South, or a drumhead writer of romances. People say, 'That was a brilliant article of so and so's in the last ——, wasn't it?' You will often hear this remark. I am that gentleman—I wrote that article—it was brilliant, and, though I say it, I am capable of producing others fully equal to it.

Many persons imagine that business disqualifies from the exercise of the imagination. This is a mistake. Alexander was a business man of the highest order; so was CÆsar; so was Bonaparte; so was Burr; so am I. To be sure, none of these distinguished characters wrote poetry; but I take it, poetry is a low species of writing, quite inferior to prose, and unworthy one's attention. Look at the splendid qualities of these great men, particularly in the line in which the imaginative faculties tend. See how they fascinated the ladies, who it is well known adore a fine imagination. How well they talked love, the noblest of all subjects—for a man's idle hours. Then observe the schemes they projected. Conquests, consolidations, empires, dominion, and to include my own project, a bullion bank with a ten-acre vault. It appears that a lack of capital was at the bottom of all their plans. Alexander confessed that he was bankrupt for lack of more worlds, and is reputed to have shed tears over his failure, which might have been expected from a modern dry-goods jobber, but not from Alexander. CÆsar and Bonaparte failed for the want of men: they do not seem to have been aware of the existence of Rhode Island. I think Burr failed for the lack of impudence—he had more than all the rest of the world together, but he needed much more than that to push his projects ahead of his times. As for myself, when I have doubled my capital, I shall found my bullion bank in the face of all opposition. The ten-acre lot at the corner of Broadway and Wall street is already selected and paid for, and I shall excavate as soon as the present crop is off.

There is no question that the occupation of banking conduces to literary pursuits. When I take interest out of my fellow beings, I naturally take interest in them, and so fall to writing about them. I have in my portfolio sketches of all the leading merchants of the age, romantically wrought, and full of details of their private lives, hopes, fears, and pleasures. These men that go up town every day have had, and still have, little fanciful excursions that are quite amusing when an observer of my talent notes them down. I know all about old Boscobello, the Spanish merchant, of the house of Boscobello, Bolaso & Co. My romance of his life from twenty to forty fills three volumes, and is as exciting as the diaries of those amusing French people whom Bossuet preached to with such small effect. Boscobello has sobered since forty, and begs for loans as an old business man ought to. I think he sees the error of his ways, and is anxious to repair his fortunes to the old point, but it is easier to spend a million than to make it. My cashier reports his account overdrawn the other day, and not made good till late next afternoon. This is a sign of failing circumstances, and must be attended to.

When Boscobello comes in about half past two of an afternoon for the usual loan of a hundred dollars to enable him to go on, I amuse myself by talking to him while I look over his securities. He has two or three loans to pay up before three o'clock, in different parts of the town, and we cannot blame him for being in a hurry, but this is no concern of mine. If he will get into a tight place, one may surely take one's time at helping him out: and really it does require some little time to investigate the class of securities he brings, and which are astonishingly varied. For instance, he brought me to-day as collateral to an accommodation, a deed to a South Brooklyn block, title clouded; a Mackerelville second mortgage; ten shares of coal-oil stock; an undivided quarter right in a guano island, and the note of a President of the Unterrified Insurance Company. 'How much was the cartage, Bos?' said I, for you see my great mind descends to the smallest particulars, and I was benevolent enough to wish to deduct his expenses from the bonus I was about to charge him for the loan. 'Never mind the cartage,' said he, 'that's a very strong list, and will command the money any day in Wall street, but I have a particular reason for getting it of you.' 'The particular reason being,' said I, 'that you can't get it anywhere else. Jennings,' I continued to my cashier, 'give Mr. Boscobello ninety-five dollars Norfolk or Richmond due-bills, and take his check payable in current funds next Saturday for a hundred.'

Poor old Boscobello! A man at forty ought not to look old, but Bos had often seen the sun rise before he went to bed, and he had been gay, so all my aunts said. Some stories Bos has told me himself, o' nights at my house, after having in vain endeavored to induce me to take shares in the guano island, or 'go into' South Brooklyn water lots. 'I'm too old for that sort of a thing, Bos,' I say; 'it's quite natural for you to ask me, and I don't blame you for trying it on, but you must find some younger man. Tell me about that little affair with the mysterious Cuban lady; when you only weighed a hundred and forty pounds, and never went out without a thousand dollars in your pocket—in the blooming days of youth, Bos, when you went plucking purple pansies along the shore.'

Boscobello weighs over two hundred now, and would have a rush of blood to the head if he were to stoop to pluck pansies. Mysterious Cuban ladies, in fact ladies of any description, would pass him by as a middle-aged person of a somewhat distressed appearance, and the dreams of his youth are quite dreamed out. Nevertheless, when he warms with my white Hermitage, the colors of his old life come richly out into sight, and the romantic adventures of wealth and high spirits overpower, though in the tame measures of recital, all the adverse influences of the present hour. But as the evening wanes, the colors fade again; his voice assumes a dreary tone; and I once more feel that I am with a man who has outlived himself, and who, having never learned where the late roses blow, is now too old to learn.

The reader will perceive I am sorry for Boscobello. If I am remarkable for anything, it is for my humanity, consideration, and sympathy.

These qualities of my constitution lead me to enter into the affairs of my clients with feeling and sincerity, but I fear I am sometimes misunderstood. Not long ago I issued an order to my junior partners to exercise more compassion for those unfortunate men with whom we decline business, and not to tumble them down the front steps so roughly. Let six of the porters attend with trestles, I said, and carry them out carefully, and dump them with discretion in some quiet corner, where, as soon as they recover their faculties, they may get up and walk away. I put it to the reader if this was not a very humane idea, and yet there are those who have stigmatized it as heartless.

I wish I was better acquainted with the way in which common people live. I can see how I have made mistakes in consequence of not understanding the restricted means and the exigencies of these people, who are styled respectable merchants. Thus when Boscobello has made some more than ordinarily piteous application, I have said, 'Boscobello, dismiss about fifty of your servants;' or, 'Boscobello, sell a railroad and put the money back again into your business;' or, 'Boscobello, my good friend, limit your table, say, to turtle soup, champagne, and truffles; live more plainly, and don't take above ten quarts of strawberries a day during the winter,—the lower servants don't really need them;' or, 'Boscobello, if you are really short, send around a hundred or so of your fast trotters to my stables, and I'll pay you a long figure for them, if they are warranted under two minutes.' Boscobello has never made any very definite replies to such advice, and I have attributed his silence to his nervousness; but I begin to suspect he has'nt quite understood me on such occasions. Then again, when Twigsmith declared he was a ruined man, in consequence of my refusal of further advances, and that he should be unable to provide for his family, I said: 'Why, Twigsmith, retire to one of your country seats, and live on the interest of some canal or other, or discount bonds and mortgages for the country banks.' Actually, I heard Twigsmith mutter as he went out, that it wasn't right to insult a man's poverty. Now I hadn't the remotest idea of injuring Twigsmith's feelings, for he was a very clever fellow, and we made a good thing out of him in his time, but it seems that my advice might not have been properly grounded.

It begins to occur to me that there may be such a case as that a man may want something, and not be able to get it; and again, that at such a time a weak mind may complain, and grow discouraged, and make itself disagreeable to others.

There is a set of old fellows who call themselves family men, and apply for discounts as if they had a right to them, by reason of their having families to provide for. I have never yet been able to see the logical sequence of their conclusions, and so I tell them. What right does it give anybody to my money that he has a wife, six children, and lives in a large house with three nursery-maids, a cook, and a boy to clean the knives? 'Limit your expenses,' I say to these respectable gentlemen, 'do as I do. When Jennings comes to me on Monday morning, and reports that the receipts of the week will be eighty millions, exclusive of the Labrador coupons, which, if paid, will be eighty millions more, I say, 'Jennings, discount seventy, and don't encroach upon the reserves; you may however let Boscobello have ten on call.' This is true philosophy; adapt your outlay to your income, and you will never be in trouble, or go begging for loans. If the Bank of England had always managed in this way, they wouldn't have been obliged to call on our house for assistance during the Irish famine.'

These family men invite me to their wives' parties, constantly, unremittingly. The billets sometimes reach my desk, although I have given orders to put them all into the waste basket unopened. I went to one of these parties, only one, I give you my honor as a gentleman, and after Twigsmith and his horrid wife had almost wrung my hand off, I was presented to a young female, to whom Nature had been tolerably kind, but who was most shamefully dressed. In fact her dress couldn't have cost over a thousand dollars—one of my chambermaids going to a Teutonia ball is better got up. This young person asked me 'how I liked the Germania?' Taking it for granted that such a badly dressed young woman must be a school teacher, with perhaps classical tastes, I replied that it was one of the most pleasing compositions of Tacitus, and that I occasionally read it of a morning. 'Oh, it's not very taciturn,' she replied; 'I mean the band.' 'Very true,' said I, 'he says agmen, which you translate band very happily, though I might possibly say 'body' in a familiar reading.' 'Oh dear,' she replied, blushing, 'I'm sure I don't know what kind of men they are, nor anything about their bodies, but they certainly seem very respectable, and they play elegantly; oh, don't you think so?' 'I am glad you are pleased so easily,' I answered; 'Tacitus describes their performances as indeed fearful, and calculated to strike horror into the hearts of their enemies. But,' continued I, endeavoring to make my retreat, for I began to think I was in company with an inmate of a private lunatic hospital, 'they were devoted to the ladies.' 'Indeed they are,' said she,'and the harpist is so gallant, and gets so many nice bouquets.' It then flashed across my mind that she meant the Germania musicians. 'They might do passably well, madame,' said I, 'for a quadrille party at a country inn, but for a dress ball or a dinner you would need three of them rolled into one.' 'Oh, you gentlemen are so hard to please,' she replied; and catching sight of the Koh-i-noor on my little finger, she began to smile so sweetly that I fled at once.

It was at that party that I perspired. I had heard doctors talk about perspiration, and I had seen waiters at a dinner with little drops on their faces, but I supposed it was the effect of a spatter, or that some champagne had flown into their eyes, or something of that sort. But at this party I happened to pass a mirror, and did it the honor to look into it. I saw there the best dressed man in America, but his face was flushed, and there were drops on it. This is fearful, thought I; I took my mouchoir and gently removed them. They dampened the delicate fabric, and I shook with agitation. The large doors were open, and after a struggle of an hour and three quarters, I reached them, and promising the hostess to send my valet in the morning to make my respects, which the present exigency would not allow me to stay to accomplish, I was rapidly whirled homeward. I can hardly pen the details, but on the removal of my linen, it was found—can I go on?—tumbled, and here and there the snowy lawn confessed a small damp spot, or fleck of moisture. Remorse and terror seized me. Medical attendance was called, and I passed the night in a bath of attar of roses delicately medicated with aqua pura. Of course, I have never again appeared at a party.

People haven't right ideas of entertainment. What entertainment is it to stand all the evening in a set of sixteen-by-twenty parlors, jammed in among all sorts of strange persons, and stranger perfumes, deafened with a hubbub of senseless talk, and finally be led down to feed at a long table where the sherry is hot, and the partridges are cold? Very probably some boy or other across the table lets off a champagne cork into your eyes, and the fattest men in the room will tread on your toes. One might describe such scenes of torture at length, but the recital of human follies and miseries is not agreeable to my sensibilities.

I dare say the reader might find himself gratified at one of my little fÈtes. The editors of this journal attend them regularly, and have done me the honor to approve of them. You enter on Twelfth avenue; a modest door just off Nine-and-a-half street opens quietly, and you are ushered by a polite gentleman—one of our city bank presidents, who takes this means to increase his income—into an attiring room. Here you are dressed by the most accomplished Schneider of the age, in your own selections from an unequalled repertoire of sartorial chef d'ouvres, and your old clothes are sent home in an omnibus.

I might delight you with a description of the ball room, but the editors have requested me to the contrary. Some secrets of gorgeous splendor there are which are wisely concealed from the general gaze. But a floor three hundred feet square, and walls as high as the mast of an East Boston clipper, confer ample room for motion; and the unequalled atmosphere of the saloon is perhaps unnecessarily refreshed by fountains of rarest distilled waters. This is also my picture gallery, where all mythology is exhausted by the great painters of the antique; and modern art is thoroughly illustrated by the famous landscapes of both hemispheres. The luxuriant fancy of my favorite artist has suggested unique collocations of aquaria and mossy grottoes in the angles of the apartment, where the vegetable wealth of the tropics rises in perfect bounty and lawless exuberance, and fishes of every hue and shape flash to and fro among the tangled roots, in the light of a thousand lamps. In the centre, I have caused the seats of the orchestra to be hidden at the summit of a picturesque group of rocks, profusely hung with vegetation, and gemmed with a hundred tiny fountains that trickle in bright beads and diamonds into the reservoir at the base. From this eminence, the melody of sixty unequalled performers pervades the saloon, justly diffused, and on all sides the same; unlike the crude arrangements of most modern orchestras, where at one end of the room you are deluged with music, and at the other extremity you distinguish the notes with pain or difficulty. The ceiling, by a rare combination of mechanical ingenuity and artistic inspiration, displays, so as to quite deceive the senses, the heavens with all their stars moving in just and harmonious order. Here on summer nights you see Lyra and Altair triumphantly blazing in the middle sky as they sweep their mighty arch through the ample zenith; and low in the south, the Scorpion crawls along the verge with the red Antares at his heart, and the bright arrows of the Archer forever pursuing him. Here in winter, gazing up through the warm and perfumed air, you behold those bright orbs that immemorially suggest the icy blasts of January: Aldebaran; the mighty suns of Orion; diamond-like Capella; and the clear eyes of the Gemini. Under such influences, with the breath of the tropics in your nostrils, and your heart stirred by the rich melodies of the invisible orchestra, waltzing becomes a sublime passion, in which all your faculties dilate to utmost expansion, and you float out into happy forgetfulness of time and destiny.

Rarely at these fÊtes do we dance to other measures than those of the waltz, though at times we find a relief from the luxuriance of that divine rhythm in the cooler cadences of the Schottish. By universal consent and instinct, we banish the quadrille, stiff and artificial; the polka, inelegant and essentially vulgar; and the various hybrid measures with which the low ingenuity of professors has filled society. But we move like gods and goddesses to the sadly joyful strains of Strauss and Weber and Beethoven and Mozart, and the mighty art of these great masters fills and re-creates all our existence.

Sometimes in these divine hours, thrilled by the touch of a companion whose heart beats against and consonantly with mine, I catch glimpses of the possibilities of a free life of the spirit when it shall be released from earth and gravitation, and I conjecture the breadth of a future existence. This will only seem irrational to such as have squeezed out their souls flat between the hard edges of dollars, or have buried them among theologic texts which they are too self-wise to understand. History and the experience of the young are with me.

From twelve to four you sup, when, and as, and where, you will. A succession of little rooms lie open around an atrium, all different as to size and ornament, yet none too large for a single couple, and none too small for the reunion of six. What charming accidents of company and conversation sometimes occur in these Lucullian boudoirs! You pass and repass, come and go, at your own pleasure. Waltzing, and Burgundy, and Love, and Woodcock are here combined into a dramatic poem, in which we are all star performers, and sure of applause. These hours cannot last forever, and the first daybeams that tell of morning, are accompanied by those vague feelings of languor that hint to us that we are mortal. Then we pause, and separate before these faint hints of our imperfection deepen into distasteful monitions, and before our fulness of enjoyment degenerates into satiety. Antiquity has conferred an immortal blessing upon us in bequeathing to us that golden legend, Ne quid nimis;[19] a legend better than all the teachings of Galen, or than all the dialogues of Socrates. For in these brief words are compressed the experiences of the best lives, and Alcibiades and Zeno might equally profit by them. They contain the priceless secret of happiness; and do you, reader, wisely digest them till we meet again.