From the doctor down to the humblest menial all were to be under my sway; and as the establishment numbered above a hundred officials, the command was extensive, if not very dignified. I will own, frankly, I was out of myself with joy at the prospect; nor could all the lowering suggestions of my uncle, and the vulgar cautions he instilled, prevent my feeling delighted with my good fortune. I need not say what resolves I made; what oaths I registered in my own heart to be a good and faithful steward, and while enjoying to the full the happiness of my fortunate existence, to neglect no item of the interests confided to me.
All that I had imagined or dreamed of the place itself was as nothing to the reality; nor shall I ever forget the sense of overwhelming delight in which I stood on the crest of the hill that looked down over the wooded glen and winding river, the deep-bosomed woods, the wandering paths of lawn or of moss, the gently flowing stream in which the castle, with its tall towers, was tremblingly reflected, seemed to me like a princely possession, and, for once, I thought that Paul Gosslett had become the favorite child of fortune, and asked myself what had I done to deserve such luck as this?
If habit and daily use deaden the pangs of suffering, and enable us to bear with more of patience the sorrows of adverse fortune, they, on the other hand, serve to dull the generous warmth of that gratitude we first feel for benefits, and render us comparatively indifferent to enjoyments which, when first tasted, seemed the very ecstasy of bliss. I am sorry to make this confession; sorry to admit that after some months at “Lahneck,” I was, although very happy and satisfied, by no means so much struck by the beauty of the place and the loveliness of the scenery as on my first arrival, and listened to the raptures of the newcomers with a sort of compassionate astonishment. Not but I was proud of the pretentious edifice, proud of its lofty towers and battlemented terraces, its immense proportion, and splendid extent. It was, besides, a complete success as an enterprise. We were always full; applications for rooms poured in incessantly, and when persons vacated their quarters, any change of mind made restitution impossible. I believed I liked the despotism I exercised; it was a small, commonplace sort of sovereignty over bath-men and kitchen-folk, it is true; but in the extent of my command I discovered a kind of dignity, and in the implicit obedience and deference I felt something like princely sway.
As the host, too, I received a very flattering amount of homage; foreigners always yield a willing respect to anything in authority, and my own countrymen soon caught up the habit, as though it implied a knowledge of life and the world. I had not the slightest suspicion that my general manners or bearing were becoming affected by these deferences, till I accidentally overheard a Cockney observe to his wife, “I think he's pompious,” a censure that made me very unhappy, and led me to much self-examination and reflection.
Had I really grown what the worthy citizen called “pom-pious,”—had I become puffed up by prosperity, and over-exalted in self-conceit? If so, it were time to look to this at once.
The directors, generally, were well pleased with me. Very gratifying testimonials of their approval reached me; and it was only my uncle's opposition prevented my salary being augmented. “Don't spoil the fellow,” he said; “you'll have him betting on the Derby, or keeping a yacht at Cowes, if you don't look out sharp. I 'd rather cut him down a hundred than advance him fifty.” This fiat from my own flesh and blood decided the matter. I sulked on this. I had grown prosperous enough to feel indignant, and I resolved to afford myself the well-to-do luxury of discontent. I was, therefore, discontented. I professed that to maintain my position—whatever that meant—I was obliged to draw upon my own private resources; and I went so far as to intimate to the visitors that if I had n't been a man of some fortune the place would be my ruin! Of course my hint got bruited about, and the people commonly said, “If Gosslett goes, the whole concern will break up. They 'll not easily find a man of good private fortune, willing to spend his money here, like Gosslett,” and such like, till I vow and declare I began to believe my own fiction, and regard it as an indelible fact. If my letter was not on record, I would not now believe the fact; but the document exists, and I have seen it, where I actually threaten to send my resignation if something—I forget what—is not speedily conceded to my demands; and it was only on receiving an admonition in the mild vein peculiar to my uncle that I awoke to a sense of my peril, and of what became me.
I know that there are critics who, pronouncing upon this part of my career, will opine that the Cockney was right, and that I had really lost my head in my prosperity. I am not disposed to say now that there might not have been some truth in this judgment. Things are generally going on tolerably well with a man's material interests when he has time to be dyspeptic. Doctors assure us that savage nations, amidst whom the wants of life call for daily, hourly efforts, amidst whom all is exigency, activity, and resource, have no dyspepsia. If, then, I had reasoned on my condition,—which I did not,—I should have seen that the world went too smoothly with me, and that, in consequence, my health suffered. Just as the fish swallow stones to aid the digestion, we need the accidents and frictions of life to triturate our moral pabulum, and render it more easily assimilable to our constitutions. With dyspepsia I grew dull, dispirited, and dissatisfied. I ceased to take pleasure in all that formerly had interested me. I neglected duty, and regarded my occupation with dislike. My house dinners, which once I took an especial pride in, seeking not only that the wines and the cookery should be excellent, but that their success as social gatherings should attract notoriety, I now regarded with apathy. I took no pains about either company or cookery, and, in consequence, contrarieties and bad contrasts now prevailed, where, before, all had been in perfect keeping and true artistic shading. My indolence and indifference extended to those beneath me. Where all had once been order, discipline, and propriety, there now grew up carelessness, disorder, and neglect. The complaints of the visitors were incessant. My mornings were passed in reading. I rarely replied to the representations and demands of outraged guests. At last the public press became the channel of these complaints; and “Publicola,” and “One who had Suffered,” and a number of similarly named patriots declared that the hydropathic establishment at Lahneck was a delusion and a sham; that it was a camp of confusion and mismanagement; and that though a certain P. Gosslett was the nominal director, yet that visitors of three months' standing averred they had never seen him, and the popular belief was that he was a nervous invalid who accepted a nominal duty in recompense for the benefit of air and climate to himself. “How,” wrote one indignant correspondent of the Times,—“how the company who instituted this enterprise, and started it on a scale of really great proportions, can find it to their advantage to continue this Mr. Gosslett in a post he so inadequately fills, is matter of daily astonishment to those who have repaired to Lahneck for healthful exercise and amusement, and only found there indifferent attendance and universal inattention.”
From the day this appeared I was peppered at every post with letters from the secretary, demanding explanations, reports, returns, what not. The phrase, “The Managing Committee, who are hourly less and less satisfied with Mr. Gosslett's conduct,” used to pass through all my dreams.
As for my uncle, his remarks were less measured. One of his epistles—I have it still by me—runs thus: “What do you mean? Are you only an idiot, or is there some deeper rascality under all this misconduct? Before I resigned my place at the Board, yesterday, I gave it as my deliberate opinion that a warrant should be issued against you for fraud and malversation, and that I would hail your conviction as the only solace this nefarious concern could afford me. Never dare to address me again. I have forbidden your aunt to utter your name in my presence.”
I don't know how it was, but I read this with as much unconcern as though it had been an advertisement about the Sydenham trousers or Glenfield starch. There must be a great dignity in a deranged digestion, for it certainly raises one above all the smaller excitements and conditions of passing events; and when, on the same morning that this epistle arrived, the steward came to inform me that of three hundred and twenty-four rooms twelve only were occupied, though this was what would be called the height of the season, I blandly remarked, “Let us not be impatient, Mr. Deechworth, they'll come yet.” This was in June; by July the twelve diminished to eight. No new arrival came; and as August drew to a close we had three! All September,—and the place was then in full beauty,—the mountains glowing with purple and scarlet heath, the cactus plants on the terrace in blossom, the Virginian acanthus hanging in tangled masses of gorgeous flowers from every tree, the river ever plashing with the leaping trout,—we had not one stranger within our gates. My morning report ran, “Arrivals, none; departures, none; present in house, none;” and when I put “Paul Gosslett” at the bottom of this, I only wonder why I did not take a header into the Lahn!