At this point I thought the matter was taken care of and resumed my life as it had been before. Then, at the beginning of 1867, I received a letter from Mr Cardano, informing me of certain important developments concerning my investment. It had, quite literally, struck gold, and Uncle Tobias's legacy was now worth many times what it had been. I was, in fact, tolerably wealthy and, as most of my money was earned (in a fashion) by myself, I felt quite free to give a sum equivalent to the legacy to my parents and to my sisters, thus causing, I hope, Uncle Tobias's mortal remains to give a few more spins in their coffin.
In the meantime I had turned my thoughts to dissipation, but found it did not suit me overmuch. My parents had brought me up too well and, besides, my head was ill-suited to it. I found the life of pleasure-seeking frivolity too dull to endure. I visited Joseph Cardano once more, this time to place my money in the most advantageous but safe fashion, and prepared to leave England for a tour of the Continent, in the hope that this would provide inspiration for some suitable way of filling in my days.
By that stage I had spent considerable time, with his assistance and often enough in his offices, studying money and its infinite variety. I had started with
On the whole, I stick firm to the conclusions I formed then. The Stock Exchange is merely an elaborate means for the wealthy to extract money from the less well off. It is not those who buy and sell shares who prosper; it is those who insert themselves in between the two sides who grow rich. Once I realised this, and (tutored by Mr Cardano) grasped the poetry of capital formation, of share issuance and flotation, of how to make capital be in two, three or four places simultaneously so that all profit accrues to you, and the losses to someone else – only then did my interest begin to be aroused. Even so, I found this all too abstract. It has never been my desire to amass money; I find possession a dull business. Rather, I had the desire to do something with it. In England, commerce is divided strictly into three parts: the world of money, the world of industry and the world of trade. While I was at Mr Cardano's side, I began to ponder how vast fortunes might be made by blending those three worlds into one.
I should also mention that I was married by that stage. My wife was good and kind. We did not love each other and we never had, but she did her duty, and I mine, and I held firmly to the belief that this was all that was required. I can say that nothing I did harmed her, and so, were I to be strictly rational, I would say that my behaviour was unobjectionable to all but the religious moralist. But I am aware that religious moralists can make a good case, and I accept that my behaviour fell short.
We married when I was twenty and she eighteen; she died six years later of pneumonia, shortly after my return from my travels. I cannot even remember why I chose her, except that I accepted that I should. My mother disapproved, although she did not say so. Perhaps she was offended that I married someone with a nature so very different from hers – quiet, docile, polite, dutiful, obedient. She would have approved very much more of Elizabeth, had they ever met. But then I thought Mary was everything a wife should be. So she was; she was not, alas, everything a woman could be. After only a short while I could find little to say to her, and found little in what she said interesting; but I did not expect anything else, and I do not believe I ever made her aware of this. I spent more time with my fellows, less at home. I lived two lives and treated my home as little more than a place to sleep. My wife accepted this and was not discontented.
