Every
thing about him, animate and inanimate, partakes of this character of
solidity. His wife even is a jolly, portly dame, his children
chubby rogues, with legs shaped like little old-fashioned mahogany
bannisters--his barns as big as fortresses--his horses like
mammoths--his cattle enormous--and his breeches surprisingly redundant in
linseywoolsey. It matters not to him, whether the form of sideboards or
bureaus changes, or whether other people wear tight breeches or cossack
pantaloons in the shape of meal-bags. Let fashion change as it may,
his low, round-crowned, broad-brimmed hat, keeps its ground, his
galligaskins support the same liberal dimensions, and his old oaken
chest and clothes-press of curled maple, with the Anno Domini of their
construction upon them, together with the dresser glistening with
pewter-plates, still stand their ground, while the baseless fabrics
of fashion fade away, without leaving a wreck behind. Ceaseless and
unwearied industry is his delight, and enterprise and speculation his
abhorrence. Riches do not corrupt, nor poverty depress him; for his
mind is a sort of Pacific ocean, such as the first navigators described
it--unmoved by tempests, and only intolerable from its dead and tedious
calms.
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