"He could command an army of five hundred thousand men!"
exclaimed one of his admirers. That was an erroneous remark. He could
have commanded an army of five hundred thousand tea-chests, with a
heavy auxiliary force of otter skins and beaver skins. But a commander
of men must be superior morally as well as intellectually. He must be
able to win the love and excite the enthusiasm of his followers. Astor
would have made a splendid commissary-general to the army of Xerxes,
but he could no more have conquered Greece than Xerxes himself.
The reader may be curious to know by what means Mr. Astor became so
preposterously rich. Few successful men gain a single million by
legitimate commerce. A million dollars is a most enormous sum of
money. It requires a considerable effort of the mind to conceive it.
But this indomitable little German managed, in the course of sixty
years, to accumulate twenty millions; of which, probably, not more
than two millions was the fruit of his business as a fur trader and
China merchant.
At that day the fur trade was exceedingly profitable, as well as of
vast extent.
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