But in a very few years the rule in it passed to a generation whose folly surpassed the usual limit of imaginable incapacity.

In a short time they substituted ruin for prosperity and changed opulence into insolvency.

Such great folly is happily rare; and the business of a bank is not nearly as difficult as the business of a discount company.

Still much folly is common, and the business of a great bank requires a great deal of ability, and an even rarer degree of trained and sober judgment.

That which happened so marvelously in the green tree may happen also in the dry.