One day, almost in despair, I took up a newspaper, (it was the Journal of Commerce,) and my eye alighted on a remark of the editor’s to the effect that a stock-speculator should be in no hurry either to buy or sell; but, waiting coolly and patiently for opportunities, with his feet elevated upon a stove, he should always buy when stocks are low, and sell out when they are high. I was struck with amazement at the wisdom displayed in this advice, and wondered why so obviously correct a course had not occurred to me in my deep cogitations upon this subject. It was perfectly plain—a child might see it—that if this recommendation were strictly followed, success would crown my efforts; and I forthwith determined to commence another career on this excellent and safe principle. Failure was impossible. “Buy when they are low,” I repeated, “and sell when they are high. How wonderful, yet, at the same time, how simple!” I had all along been pursuing the wrong track. My practice had been, whatever my intentions were, to buy when they were high, and sell when they were low; and this had been the result of a want of patience, and of too much precipitancy in my purchases and sales. I was now in possession of a grand secret, and that secret was to WAIT, BUY LOW AND SELL HIGH. Well, I did wait, and that most patiently, for a fall of stocks—and a fall at length occurred, a greater one than had been known for a long time, and prices were depressed below what they had been in several months. “Now,” thought I, “is the time to take down my feet from the stove, and walk into the fancies;” whereupon I went into Wall street, and borrowed a considerable sum for a fortnight, pledging the stock as security, according to the _modus operandi_ well understood in that region. Every thing promised well; and I felt encouraged, deeming it next to impossible that fortune should always fight against me. I bought the stock very low, comparatively, and went home to replace my feet upon the stove, and await patiently another rise. No rise, however, occurred within the fortnight that I was able to hold my new acquisition. Prices moved, it is true, but they moved the wrong way for me; they “advanced backward.” I thought when I purchased, that they were low enough in all conscience; but it appears there were lower depths still to which they were destined to attain. _I did not wait long enough._ The principle on which I had acted was a good one—the fault was in me. A man falling from the roof of a house, would not reach the ground more quickly than my stock tumbled to a point five per cent. below what I had given. A new element had arisen to produce this sudden, unlooked for, and extraordinary change. The Texas question came upon the brokers like a thunderbolt, knocking every thing into a cocked-hat; and the upshot was, that I sold my stock at a loss which swept away the remainder of my capital, and left me as penniless as a street-beggar.