It seemed
highly absurd to the friends of Fitch, Watt, Fulton, Wedgwood,
Whitney, Arkwright, that they should forsake the beaten track of
business to pursue a path that led through the wilderness to nothing
but wilderness. Not one of these men, perhaps, could have made a
reasonable reply to the remonstrances of their friends. They only
felt, as poor Goodyear felt, that the steep and thorny path which they
were treading was the path they _must_ pursue. A power of which they
could give no satisfactory account urged them on. And when we look
closely into the lives of such men, we observe that, in their dark
days, some trifling circumstance was always occurring that set them
upon new inquiries and gave them new hopes. It might be an _ignis
fatuus_ that led them farther astray, or it might be genuine light
which brought them into the true path.
Goodyear might have yielded to his friends on this occasion, for he
was an affectionate man, devoted to his family, had not one of those
trifling events occurred which inflamed his curiosity anew. During his
late transient prosperity, he had employed a man, Nathaniel Hayward by
name, who had been foreman of one of the extinct India-rubber
companies.
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