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

and carrying out his enterprise. His proposition fully met my views, and I accepted it. Without incurring risk or responsibility, I could occupy portions of my time, which otherwise, perhaps, might drag heavily on my hands; my mind especially would be employed in matters with which I was familiar, and I might gratify my desire to assist in catering to the healthful, wholesome amusement of the rising generation and the public. I should not rust out; and, moreover, the new museum would afford me a pleasant place to drop into when I felt inclined to do so. Nothing in this arrangement compelled my presence in New York, or even in the United States; I could go when and where I chose, and could continue to be, as I hope to be for the rest of my life, “a man of leisure,” which in my case, and according to my construction, is far from being a man of idleness.

While I was at the White Mountains, I received a telegram from Mr. George Wood, stating that he could not consider his list of curiosities complete unless I would consent to be present at the opening of his Museum, and I accordingly waived all my chances in any intended foot races, and hastened to New York, making at Mr. Wood’s request the opening address in his new establishment, August 31, 1868.

XLIV Curious Coincidences.⁠—Number Thirteen

Popular Superstitions⁠—Unlucky Friday⁠—Unfortunate Saturday⁠—Rainy Sundays⁠—Terrible Thirteen⁠—The Brettells of London⁠—Incidents of My Western Trip⁠—Singular Fatality⁠—Number Thirteen in Every Hotel⁠—No Escape from the Frightful Figure⁠—Advice of a Clerical Friend⁠—The Thirteen Colonies⁠—The Thirteenth Chapter of Corinthians⁠—Thirteen at My Christmas Dinner Party⁠—Thirteen Dollars at a Fair⁠—Two Disastrous Days⁠—The Thirteenth Day in Two Months⁠—Thirteen Pages of Manuscript.

In the summer of 1868, a lady who happened to be at that time an inmate of my family, upon hearing me say that I supposed we must remove into our summer residence on Thursday, because our servants might not like to go on Friday, remarked:

“What nonsense that is! It is astonishing that some persons are so foolish as to think there is any difference in the days. I call it rank heathenism to be so superstitious as to think one day is lucky and another unlucky”; and then, in the most innocent manner possible, she added: “I would not like to remove on a Saturday myself, for they say people who remove on the last day of the week don’t stay long.”

Of course this was too refreshing a case of undoubted superstition to be permitted to pass without a hearty laugh from all who heard it.

I suppose most of us have certain superstitions, imbibed in our youth, and still lurking more or less faintly in our minds. Many would not like to acknowledge that they had any choice whether they commenced a new enterprise on a Friday or on a Monday, or whether they first saw the new moon over the right or left shoulder. And yet, perhaps, a large portion of these same persons will be apt to observe it when they happen to do anything which popular superstition calls “unlucky.” It is a common occurrence with many to immediately make a secret “wish” if they happen to use the same expression at the same moment when a friend with whom they are conversing makes it; nevertheless these persons would protest against being considered superstitious⁠—indeed, probably they are not so in the full meaning of the word.

Several years ago an old lady who was a guest at my house, remarked on a rainy Sunday:

“This is the first Sunday in the month, and now it will rain every Sunday in the month; that is a sign which never fails, for I have noticed it many a time.”

“Well,” I remarked, smiling, “watch closely this time, and if it rains on the next three Sundays I will give you a new silk dress.”

She was in high glee, and replied:

“Well, you have lost that dress, as sure as you are born.”

The following Sunday it did indeed rain.

“Ah, ha!” exclaimed the old lady, “what did I tell you? I knew it would rain.”

I smiled, and said, “all right, watch for next Sunday.”

And surely enough the next Sunday it did rain, harder than on either of the preceding Sundays.

“Now, what do you think?” said the old lady, solemnly. “I tell you that sign never fails. It won’t do to doubt the ways of Providence,” she added with a sigh, “for His ways are mysterious and past finding out.”

The following Sunday the sun rose in a cloudless sky, and not the slightest appearance of rain was manifested through the day. The old lady was greatly disappointed, and did not like to hear any allusion to the subject; but two years afterwards, when she was once more my guest, it again happened to rain on the first Sunday in the month, and I heard her solemnly predict that it would, every succeeding Sunday in the month, for, she remarked, “it is a sign that never fails.” She had forgotten the failure of two years before; indeed, the continuance and prevalence of many popular superstitions is due to the fact that we notice the “sign” when it happens to be verified, and do not observe it, or we forget it, when it fails. Many persons are exceedingly superstitious in regard to the number “thirteen.” This is particularly the case, I have noticed, in Catholic countries I have visited, and I have been told that superstition originated in the fact of a thirteenth apostle having been chosen, on account of the treachery of Judas. At any rate, I have known numbers of French persons who had quite a horror of this fatal number. Once I knew a French lady who had taken passage in an ocean steamer, and who, on going aboard, and finding her assigned stateroom to be “No. 13,” insisted upon it that she would not sail in the ship at all; she had rather forfeit her passage money,