John Cornelius read God’s promises in the Mississippi, and went heartily to work. With him, there was no folding of the hands, no waiting on Providence; for he knew that the fable of Hercules and the wagoner was as instructive under a Christian, as under a pagan dispensation; so he girded up his loins, made sharp his sickle, and entered upon the harvest which was already ripe for the reaper. Economy is the handmaid of wealth, and penuriousness is economy’s own daughter. John Cornelius took them both to his bosom, and for ten long years he lived upon one meal a day, and that a cold one. The larger portion of his monthly wages he hoarded up, and when the accumulations had become sufficient, remembering the promises of the Mississippi, he bought a lot of ground within the precincts of John Gravier’s plantation; hoarded again, put a small wooden tenement upon the lot, rented, and was a landlord. Thus he went on, working, hoarding, with economy and penuriousness his whole household, penuriousness holding the upper hand; adding lot to lot, tenement to tenement, and lease to lease, until at the close of ten years, he found that God’s promises written upon the Mississippi, were fulfilled and fulfilling; and he again laid aside the tools of his trade in a stout, oaken box, there to rest, as they do rest to this hour. He was rich; he had kept even pace with New Orleans, in its progress toward greatness; but, with his wealth had grown up a habit, the habit of penuriousness, which wealth only strengthened, as a child strengthens its parent. Habit moulds the soul, and fashions it to its will; habit makes the writer; habit makes the poet; of habit, are born the soldier, the statesman, and the scholar; habit created the arts, and all science; habit gives faith and religion, and fastens every vice upon us; and habit made John Cornelius a miser. SECTION II. It was many years subsequent to the period at which Mr. Cornelius found it for his interest to retire a second time from the work-shop, and to devote himself exclusively to the management of his increasing rent-roll, and frequent investments in real property, and when, with the eighty thousand dollars of debt lifted from his shoulders, he stood erect, mighty in wealth, that he one day entered my office, and tendered me a counselor’s fee. Mr. Cornelius and myself were strangers to each other. I had occupied chambers in one of his houses for the past five years, but his collector arranged with me the terms of my lease, and received the quarterly rent; and as my landlord was faithful to his own interests, and as I was equally faithful to mine, no incident had transpired, growing out of our relations, to bring us together.