George Gould is bright and agreeable, and a good husband. If Jay Gould has made enemies, that is no reason why his son should not be popular. It is proverbial that the male descendants of a family are more akin to the side of the mother than to that of the father, and as Mrs. Jay Gould has always been recognized as a most exemplary wife and mother, she may rightfully be regarded as the equal of any woman in New York, and one to be respected and honored accordingly by those whom we ought to take as social exemplars. There should be no other standard of social test than that of merit; not judging individuals by what they were, but by what they are to-day; not judging by the ridiculous test of ancestry—a criterion which would upset some of our social demi-gods—but by the real worth of the living man or woman. Suppose, for instance, the young Vanderbilts, who rank high in society, and are splendid specimens of nature’s noblemen, should be measured by the standard of the old Commodore when he was a boatman on Staten Island. Everybody would recognize such a test of fitness as to the last degree absurd. In the United States nature’s nobility is at the front, as against the parchment nobility of England and the Continent. The personelle of the English nobility makes a sorry showing beside that of young George Gould, the young Vanderbilts, and others of our wealthy Americans.
The modern nobility spring from success in business. Peace has its victories in the formation of character greater than those of war; and peace and republicanism will develop the future greatness of the human family, and not pretentious yet effete monarchies, of which mankind is heartily sick. Many of the so-called noblemen of to-day shine only by a faint reflected glimmer from the armor of mediæval ancestors; or their ancestry may be much more recent, and steal slyly off in the gloom of forgotten crimes to the prison or the gallows; or their patent of nobility may be a thing of yesterday, a child’s bauble solemnly displayed by addle-pated dotards, ridiculous even to the unthinking. The English nobility is coming to the auction block. Not a few in former times laid their heads there for treason, but now it is articles of more value, namely, the curious, the antiquities, the bric-a-brac, the works of art, the rare furniture, which comes to the block, and they are purchased by the new nobility raised up by success in finance and commerce. There is very little in Europe which is not obtainable at a price. Titles in England may yet be sold as they have been in Italy. Who cares for a title of Italian or French nobility? To this low estate must English titles come at last. It is marvellous that they have endured so many centuries after the downfall of the feudal system that originally gave them birth.
Why is it that Gladstone has always refused a title?
One reason is that at his birth nature gave him a higher title to nobility than parchment can ever confer.
Another is that he did not care to be ennobled and then wrapped, as a titled mummy, in the sweet-scented cerements of political death, to be buried in that Egyptian tomb of political extinction, the House of Lords. And to-day he is a Colossus among statesmen, whose grand figure will loom up in history as one of the foremost men of the nineteenth century, a Titan dwarfing the proudest of a senile nobility. And yet he is simply a great Commoner.
If the Irish wish to assist nature in purging Great Britain of her bilious incumbus of nobility, they should recognize the fact that ridicule is a good medicine. The Irish are proverbially prolific. Let them make a point of christening the rising generation with titled names. Then there would be myriads bearing the name of Duke O’Reilly, Earl McCarty, Marquis O’Brien, Baron Sullivan, Sir Timothy Finnegan, Lord McSwynny, and so on. The objection to this plan, however, is that it would brand thousands of innocent and helpless children of worthy parents with titles which have become contemptible to all right-thinking persons as the badges of imbecility, mediocrity, or dishonor. This is a rather lengthy digression after beginning with one of the natural nobility which we have in this country, namely, the nobility founded solely on merit, but the case of a young man like George Gould naturally suggests contrasts. He is destined to take a commanding position in the world of finance in future years, and it is gratifying to know that he is a man of high character, excellent capacity, and of great promise. There is usually a disposition to criticise the sons of very wealthy men, due to that envy to which poor human nature is so prone, but the fact in this case is indisputable that young Gould is held in high esteem wherever he is known. He is a graduate of Harvard and Columbia, and a member of the Manhattan and other clubs, and he is, in the business world, where he is most powerful, simply a reserved and quiet associate, always controlling his lines, but never interfering in a strident way with those who are working for them.
CHAPTER LVII.
A LOOK INTO THE FUTURE.
What we are.—What we are Preparing for.—What we are Destined to do and to Become.—We are Entering on an Era of Seeming Impossibilities.—Yet the Inconceivable will be Realized.
In reviewing the past, I am struck with the enormous growth of New York as a city, New York as a State, and the United States as a Nation. The fact is that we hustle through the business world so fast (and this is especially applicable to Wall Street), that we do not realize how rapidly we are going. To any one who is familiar with the appearance of the down town or business part of the city, as it was twenty years ago, ten years ago, or even eight years ago, the difference to-day will give some intimation of the changes which are going on around us, and are merely features of development. Why, even ten years ago, the old Equitable Building was a structure to which attention was attracted because of its greatness and its superiority over any other building in New York city—its height, its width, its breadth, its depth, its elevators, its beauty of arrangement inside and its artistic aspect outside. Millions of dollars have been spent in the past few months in making this one building about four times as large as the original structure which brought pride to the hearts of New Yorkers, and surprised and startled their friends from the country. To-day it is one of the greatest buildings on the Island, and even rivals the State Capitol, which is supposed to be the pride of the people of the Empire State. This is only one instance. All along lower Broadway, the great business artery of the country, four-story and five-story buildings have been torn down, and nine-story buildings put up in their place. Four and five buildings have been dug away and a single structure put up in their place, and in some of the buildings—indeed in scores of them—within a few blocks of the Stock Exchange, there are whole communities of people who are performing life’s work in their own good way, rather than interfering with their neighbors or themselves, and who know nothing of what goes on around and about them, and care less. Small armies of retainers and servants, and the most perfect mechanism, are needed to enable these communities to carry on their work with dispatch and convenience. That is to say, where offices are rented in the eighth and ninth stories of a building, the occupants expect to be shot up to them, and down from them, with no trouble to themselves, and no weariness of limbs—and they are. This must be done, too, without loss of time—and it is. All the attendant arrangements must have the elements of luxuriousness and comfort—and they do.