There are over 250 varieties, from the size of a maidenhair fern to great shadowy trees, thirty feet high and with leaves as wide as the jib of a pilot boat. They range in value from $20 to $500; but what is money to a millionaire in pursuit of the butterfly of pleasure. These palms were brought from Africa, Central and South America, Samoa, the Sandwich Islands, the heart of India and from beyond Trebizonde, for the simple purpose of wooing Mr. Gould’s pale face into a smile. There were Viridifolium, Hyophorbe Americanlis and Plectocomia Assamica palms without number, and Mr. Gould knew every one of them by name.
In another apartment was a wilderness of roses, pink and white, and gold and Guelder, Burgundy and Austrian in an endless tangle of color and a delirious, odorous atmosphere that would have enraptured the soul of a lotus eater. No wonder that Mr. Gould abandoned care when he entered the portals of his conservatory. He did not have many warm personal friends, yet surely a man can not be altogether bad who is a friend of the roses. There must be some good in the heart of a man whose eyes grow tender as he bends over a lily.
The conservatory became a hobby with Mr. Gould. Every morning after breakfast he would pay a visit to the big glass house to wander for an hour or so among the plants and flowers. While there he would seem to forget everything but the green, tropical tangle about him. In the evening, on his return from the city, he would again stroll through the shadowy aisles of palm and vine, sometimes alone and at others accompanied by the members of his family.
Orchids were Mr. Gould’s especial hobby. In this department of his conservatory he had nearly 8,000 orchid plants and over 150 varieties. For some of these delicate, air-fed and angel-painted blossoms Mr. Gould had paid $300—half the amount of a poor man’s wages for a year of toil. In another apartment were nearly 2,000 azaleas, little bits of sunset sky cut into the shape of bells. In the fernery were 600 varieties of ferns, giving the entire place the appearance of a soft green cloud hemmed in glass walls. Just the place for Titania and her fairies.
It is strange that this appreciation of pure and poetical things should exist in the soul of a man of such financial grimness. But it was doubtless in Mr. Gould’s nature before his life took on its acquired thirst for gold. When that thirst was in a measure satiated he turned again to his fundamental instincts and his great conservatory was the result.
Yet in the summer months Mr. Gould found much pleasure in his open-air garden. It was a big affair, guiltless of weeds, yet it is doubtful if Mr. Gould ever weeded his own potato patch or hoed his own turnips. There were beds for cantaloupes and watermelon, cucumbers, peas, beans, parsley, spinach, carrots, beets, lettuce and cauliflower, and Mr. Gould knew just where to find everything. For a short time every day he would walk through the garden, and doubtless dream of his old barefoot, boyhood days when he looked after his mother’s garden in Delaware county. He was a sort of intermittent farmer and seemed to find a transitory pleasure in everything that pertained to a farm. There was nothing in common, however, between Mr. Gould’s luxurious style of farming and that of the everyday horny-handed knight of the pitchfork and plow.
His barnyards and meadows, situated some distance from the conservatory, contained innumerable blooded stock. There were 50 cows, 25 horses, a span of oxen, 3 bulls, over a thousand chickens, 200 ducks and 500 pigeons, besides half a dozen deer. This gave the entire estate a farmlike aspect that was very pleasing to Mr. Gould. Over two hundred and fifty tons of hay were harvested in the fields of Lyndhurst every year. Mr. Gould took great pleasure in going out to the fields on summer afternoons to lie under the trees and watch the haying. The far-off drone of the flying sickle came to his brain as a soporific balm, and the sight of the sun-worn toilers heaving away at the great, slow wagons and the distant songs of the reapers lulled him to slumber.
In Mr. Gould’s stables there were fifteen or twenty carriages and conveyances of one kind or another, many of which were not used once a year. To get rid of malaria, Mr. Gould filled in over one hundred and twenty acres of swamp land. Mr. Merritt spent over $1,250,000 in improving the place and Mr. Gould spent about $1,500,000 in the same endeavor.
Mr. Gould was a great lover of art, and was continually purchasing statuary and paintings. Beyond the carriage archway leading to the outer hall of the Gould castle is a bust of Lafayette; on the other side is one of Washington. On the right of the inner hall is a bronze Ethiopian woman and a painting by Perrault. There are many marble busts and statues on onyx pedestals scattered throughout the house, most of which were purchased by Mr. Gould. In the picture gallery are innumerable rare paintings. Among them are “A Forest Scene,” by Rousseau; “A River Scene,” by Ziem; “Evening Antique Dance,” by Corot; “A Girl,” by Fleury; “A Storm on the Farm,” by Jacque; “Priest and Cavalier,” by Meissonier, and “Le Loup dans la berguerie,” by Loustaunau.
Then there are Vernets, Simonettis, Kaemmerers, Constants, Bouguereaus and Troyons innumerable, all of which were purchased, either directly or indirectly, by Mr. Gould. This was in the earlier stages of his home-making and before he had the fever of the farm and conservatory upon him.