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And now began the last phase of his career. Lying there in that state, unable so much as to raise his hand, with a mind all but disembodied, he intended his thoughts to the passion that ruled him still. The doctors warned him that it would be extremely dangerous to exercise his mind. It would cause the thread of life to part. That made no difference. What was the thread of life for?
Three times a week Mordecai came to talk with him. These visits, beginning naturally as between friends, soon became conferences of a consequential character between principal and banker. They examined problems, discussed measures, evolved policies, and spent hours, sometimes whole days, together. Mordecai became Galt’s self objectified. He executed his will, promulgated his ideas, represented him in all situations. He sat for him at board meetings and in general Wall Street councils. This became soon an institutional fact. No business of a high nature proceeded far in Wall Street until Mordecai was asked, “What does Mr. Galt say?” or “What would Mr. Galt think?”
A paralyzed hand ruled the world of finance.
Galt’s mind was clear and insatiable. It comprehended both details and principles. He directed minutely the expenditure of that five hundred millions and verified his own prophecy. The outlay of this vast sum upon railroad works averted a period of industrial depression.
I remained permanently at Moonstool. The room in which at first I had established merely a point of contact with the outside world to meet such emergencies as might arise became a regular office. We installed news printing machines and direct telephones. Stock Exchange quotations were received by a private telegraph wire. We had presently a staff of clerks, typists and statisticians, all living in the house and keeping hours. The personnel of this singular organization included one fresco painter.
More than anything else Galt missed his maps and charts. A map of any portion of the earth’s surface enthralled him. The act of gazing at it stimulated his thoughts. And statistical charts,—those diagrams in which quantities, ratios and velocities are symbolized by lines that rise and fall in curves,—these were to him what mathematical symbols are to an astronomer. He could not think easily without them. We had tried various devices for getting maps and charts before him, and they were all unsatisfactory. One day he said: “I can look at the ceiling and walls without effort. Why not put them there?”
But we could not get maps large enough to show from the ceiling and there was a similar difficulty about charts, even though we drew them ourselves. Then we thought of painting them. We found a fresco painter possessing the rudiments of the peculiar kind of intelligence required for such work and then trained him to it.
We painted a map of the world in two hemispheres on the ceiling. The United States had to be carefully put in, with the Great Midwestern system showing in bold red lines. On the walls we painted statistical charts to the number of eight. Several were permanent, such as the one showing the combined earnings of the Galt railroad properties and another the state of general business. They had only to be touched up from time to time as new statistics came in. Others were ephemeral, serving to illustrate some problem his mind was working on. They were frequently painted out and new ones put in their place.
Under these conditions, gazing for hours at the world map, he conceived a project which was destined to survive him in the form of an idea. If he had lived it might have been realized. This was a pan-American railroad,—a vertical system of land transportation articulating the North and South American continents. It was painted there on the ceiling. Mordecai saw it and wept.
How easily the mind accommodates itself to any situation! In a short time all of this seemed quite natural because it was taking place. Having accepted Galt as a dynast in the flesh, Wall Street now accepted him as an invisible force pervading all its affairs, as if it might go on that way forever. Through Mordecai it solicited his advice and opinion on matters that were not his. Once Mordecai brought him the problem of a railroad that was in trouble; he bought the railroad to save it from bankruptcy. People, seeing this, began to think he was not ill at all, but preferred to work in a mysterious manner. Great Midwestern stock meanwhile was rising, always rising, and touched at last the fabulous price of three hundred dollars a share. Faith in it now was as unreasoning as distrust of it had once been.