midnight
Apparently all was tranquil ; apparently the people accepted the Wall Street theory that I was an `` exploded sensation . '' `` The Seven '' began to preen themselves ; the strain upon them to maintain prices , if no less than for three months past , was not notably greater ; the crisis would pass , I and my exposures would be forgotten , the routine of reaping the harvests and leaving only the gleanings for the sowers would soon be placidly resumed . Sunday . Roebuck , taken ill as he was passing the basket in the church of which he was the shining light , died at midnight -- a beautiful , peaceful death , they say , with his daughter reading the Bible aloud , and his lips moving in prayer . Some hold that , had he lived , the tranquillity would have continued ; but this is the view of those who can not realize that the tide of affairs is no more controlled by the `` great men '' than is the river led down to the sea by its surface flotsam , by which we measure the speed and direction of its current . Under that terrific tension , which to the shallow seemed a calm , something had to give way . If the dam had not yielded where Roebuck stood guard , it must have yielded somewhere else , or might have gone all in one grand crash .