Struggles and Triumphs, P. T. Barnum [good books to read in english .txt] 📗

“Yes, it was totally destroyed two years ago, but Barnum built another one.”

“Yes, and that is burned,” I replied; “now listen,” and I proceeded very calmly to read the account of the fire. Mrs. Thomas, still believing from my manner that it was a joke, stole slyly behind my chair, and looking over my shoulder at the newspaper, she exclaimed:

“Why, Mrs. Barnum, the Museum is really burned. Here is the whole account of it in this morning’s paper.”

“Of course it is,” I remarked, with a smile, “how could you think I could joke on such a serious subject!”

It was indeed too true, and the subject was no doubt “serious” enough; in fact the pecuniary blow was perhaps even heavier than the loss of the other Museum, especially as there was probably no Bennett around who would give me $200,000 for a lease! But during my whole life I had been so much accustomed to operations of magnitude for or against my interests, that large losses or gains were not apt to disturb my tranquillity. Indeed, my second daughter calling in soon after, and seeing how coolly I took the disaster, said that her husband had remarked that morning, “Your father wont care half so much about it as he would if his pocket had been picked of fifty dollars. That would have vexed him, but he will take this heavier loss as simply the fortune of war.”

And this was very nearly the fact. Yet the loss was a large one, and the complete frustration of our plans for the future was a serious consideration. But worse than all were the sufferings of the poor wild animals which were burned to death in their cages. A very few only of these animals were saved. Even the people who were sleeping in the building barely escaped with their lives, and next to nothing else, so sudden was the fire and so rapid its progress. The papers of the following morning contained full accounts of the fire; and editorial writers, while manifesting much sympathy for the proprietors, also expressed profound regret that so magnificent a collection, especially in the zoological department, should be lost to the city.

The cold was so intense that the water froze almost as soon as it left the hose of the fire engines; and when at last everything was destroyed, except the front granite wall of the Museum building, that and the ladder, signs, and lampposts in front, were covered in a gorgeous framework of transparent ice, which made it altogether one of the most picturesque scenes imaginable. Thousands of persons congregated daily in that locality in order to get a view of the magnificent ruins. By moonlight the ice-coated ruins were still more sublime; and for many days and nights the old Museum was “the observed of all observers,” and photographs were taken by several artists.

When the Museum was burnt, I was nearly ready to bring out a new spectacle, for which a very large extra company had been engaged, and on which a considerable sum of money had been expended in scenery, properties, costumes, and especially in enlarging the stage. I had expended altogether some $78,000 in building the new lecture-room, and in refitting the saloons. The curiosities were inventoried by the manager, Mr. Ferguson, at $288,000. I bought the real estate only a little while before the fire, for $460,000, and there was an insurance on the whole of $160,000; and in June, 1868, I sold the lots on which the building stood for $432,000. The cause of the fire was a defective flue in a restaurant in the basement of the building.

Thus by the destruction of Iranistan, and two Museums, about a million of dollars’ worth of my property had been destroyed by fire, and I was not now long in making up my mind to follow Mr. Greeley’s advice on a former occasion, to “take this fire as a notice to quit, and go a-fishing.”

We all know how difficult it is for a person to stop when he is engaged in business, and how seldom it is that we find a man who thinks he has accumulated money enough, and is willing to cease trying to make more. An active business life, like everything else, becomes a habit, and the strife for success in business, through all the changes of fortune, and ups and downs of trade, becomes an infatuation akin to that which spurs the gambler. Hence, men often pursue their money-getting occupations long after the necessity therefor has ceased. Of course, by wedding themselves to this one ambition they forego many of the higher pleasures of life, and though they have a vague idea of that “good time coming,” when they are going to take things easy and enjoy themselves, that time never comes. Men who are entirely idle are the most miserable creatures in the world; but when by arduous toil they have secured a competence, and especially when they have reached a point in life where they are conscious of a waning of their vital energies, we must admit that they are unwise if they do not slip out of active business, and devote a large portion of their time to intellectual pursuits, social enjoyments, and, if they have not done so through life, to serious reflections on the ends and aims of human existence.

It is, perhaps, possible that notwithstanding the active life I have led, I have after all a lazy streak in my composition; at all events, I confess it was with no small degree of satisfaction that by this last burning of the Museum, notwithstanding the serious pecuniary loss it proved to me, I discovered a way open through which I could retire to a more quiet and tranquil mode of life. I therefore at once dissolved with the Van Amburgh Company, and sold out to them all my interest in the personal property of the concern. I was, however, beset on every side