THE RANDALL FAMILY 20 5
thirty thousand dollars." In the winters, I found him, when I entered his study, bending grimly over a vast mass of maps, railroad reports, statistical tables, and business docu- ments of all sorts. He was studying out for himself, at first hand, the foundations and elements and necessary conditions of all that vast activity in railroad development which in a generation created a new America. He was doing this precisely in the spirit in which he had once studied botany, entomology, conchology, natural history, with all the thoroughness and indefatigable energy of the original investigator in science. But his aim now was no longer that of the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake ; it was intensely practical ; it was occupied with invest- ments. The immense force of the man had taken a new direction. What did it all mean .-'
It was seemingly a vast change, full of significance of some sort. It filled me with wonder, and not a little anxiety and regret. But, when I saw with what indiffer- ence he flung aside all these Gradgrind pursuits on my entrance, and with what avidity he took up once more our old themes of friendly communion, my anxiety turned into a pity I never ventured to express. Gradually I came to understand, as I believed, the causes of this strange meta- morphosis in my great-souled friend.
I noticed, in the first place, that he was never gambling or speculating at any time or in any degree ; he was busied exclusively with legitimate business enterprises for the development of this wonderful country of ours ; he was never seeking sudden profits at somebody else's expense out of the swift fluctuations of the stock market, but saga- ciously scrutinizing the actual state of things to find out what enterprises would bring fair, honest, and well-earned returns to all the stockholders in common ; he was the
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