At this period of his life, nothing was farther from his thought and purpose than to become in any sense a recluse; neither was he of the kind who think that they have done the world a service in being born into it and that it ought to find for him for the rest of his days, some highly honorable and remunerative position, without hard work or great responsibility.
It may be fairly said, for reasons that follow, that his determination had been finally to remain a bachelor. Having lost his first choice of a country girl, by death, when he came to live in the city he endeavored to win as a wife a most worthy woman, to whom he paid court and to whom he proposed marriage. But he was refused as too poor and with a business too uncertain. It is stated that in after years, when better off, he renewed his proposal to the same person and was again refused for being too rich!
Had he desired to return to the drygoods business he established, doubtless every door would have opened to him. With the reputation that he had made and the good judgment he possessed, he could with his means
