Struggles and Triumphs P. T. Barnum (the beginning after the end read novel .TXT) 📖

about, and made to serve every purpose to which a sensation-loving world could put me. Well! I was now in training, in a new school, and was learning new and strange lessons.

Yet, these new lessons conveyed the old, old story. There were those who had fawned upon me in my prosperity, who now jeered at my adversity; people whom I had specially favored, made special efforts to show their ingratitude; papers which, when I had the means to make it an object for them to be on good terms with me, overloaded me with adulation, now attempted to overwhelm me with abuse; and then the immense amount of moralizing over the “instability of human fortunes,” and especially the retributive justice that is sure to follow “ill-gotten gains,” which my censors assumed to be the sum and substance of my honorably acquired and industriously worked for property. I have no doubt that much of this kind of twaddle was believed by the twaddlers to be sincere; and thus my case was actual capital to certain preachers and religious editors who were in want of fresh illustrations wherewith to point their morals.

As for myself, I was in the depths, but I did not despond. I was confident that with energetic purpose and divine assistance I should, if my health and life were spared, get on my feet again; and events have since fully justified and verified the expectation and the effort.

XXVI Clouds and Sunshine

Friends to the Rescue⁠—Money Offers Refused⁠—Benefits Declined⁠—Magnificent Offer of Prominent New York Citizens⁠—William E. Burton⁠—Laura Keene⁠—William Niblo⁠—General Tom Thumb⁠—Editorial Sympathy⁠—“A Word for Barnum” in Boston⁠—Letter from “Mrs. Partington”⁠—Citizens’ Meeting in Bridgeport⁠—Resolutions of Respect and Condolence⁠—My Letter on the Situation⁠—Tender of Fifty Thousand Dollars⁠—Magnitude of the Deception Practised Upon Me⁠—Proposition of Compromise with My Creditors⁠—A Trap Laid for Me in Philadelphia⁠—The Silver Lining to the Cloud⁠—The Blow a Benefit to My Family⁠—The Rev. Dr. E. H. Chapin⁠—My Daughter Helen⁠—A Letter Worth Ten Thousand Dollars⁠—Our New Home in New York.

Happily, there is always more wheat than there is chaff. While my enemies and a few envious persons and misguided moralists were abusing and traducing me, my very misfortunes revealed to me hosts of hitherto unknown friends who tendered to me something more than mere sympathy. Funds were offered to me in unbounded quantity for the support of my family and to reestablish me in business. I declined these tenders because, on principle, I never accepted a money favor, unless I except the single receipt of a small sum which came to me by mail at this time and anonymously so that I could not return it. Even this small sum I at once devoted to charity towards one who needed the money far more than I did.

The generosity of my friends urged me to accept “benefits” by the score, the returns of which would have made me quite independent. There was a proposition among leading citizens in New York to give a series of benefits which I felt obliged to decline though the movement in my favor deeply touched me. To show the class of men who sympathized with me in my misfortunes and also the ground which I took in the matter I venture to copy the following correspondence which appeared in the New York papers of the day:

New York, June 2, 1856.

Mr. P. T. Barnum:

Dear Sir⁠—The financial ruin of a man of acknowledged energy and enterprise is a public calamity. The sudden blow, therefore, that has swept away, from a man like yourself, the accumulated wealth of years, justifies we think, the public sympathy. The better to manifest our sincere respect for your liberal example in prosperity, as well as exhibit our honest admiration of your fortitude under overwhelming reverses, we propose to give that sympathy a tangible expression by soliciting your acceptance of a series of benefits for your family, the result of which may possibly secure for your wife and children a future home, or at least rescue them from the more immediate consequences of your misfortune.

Freeman Hunt, E. K. Collins, Isaac Y. Fowler, James Phalen, Cornelius Vanderbilt, F. B. Cuting, James W. Gerard, Simeon Draper, Thomas McElrath, Park Godwin, R. F. Carman, Gen. C. W. Sanford, Philo Hurd, President H. R. R.; Wm. Ellsworth, President Brooklyn Ins. Co.; George S. Doughty, President Excelsior Ins. Co.; Chas. T. Cromwell, Robert Stuyvesant, E. L. Livingston, R. Busteed, Wm. P. Fettridge, E. N. Haughwout, Geo. F. Nesbitt, Osborne, Boardman & Townsend, Charles H. Delavan, I & C. Berrien, Fisher & Bird, Solomon & Hart, B. Young, M. D., Treadwell, Acker & Co., St. Nicholas Hotel, John Wheeler, Union Square Hotel, S. Leland & Co., Metropolitan Hotel, Albert Clark, Brevoort House, H. D. Clapp, Everett House, John Taylor, International Hotel, Sydney Hopman, Smithsonian Hotel, Messrs. Delmonico, Delmonico’s, Geo. W. Sherman, Florence’s Hotel, Kingsley & Ainslee, Howard Hotel, Libby & Whitney, Lovejoy’s Hotel, Howard & Brown, Tammany Hall, Jonas Bartlett, Washington Hotel, Patten & Lynde, Pacific Hotel, J. Johnson, Johnson’s Hotel, and over 1,000 others.

To this gratifying communication I replied as follows:

Long Island, Tuesday, June 3, 1856.

Gentlemen⁠—I can hardly find words to express my gratitude for your very kind proposition. The popular sympathy is to me far more precious than gold, and that sympathy seems in my case to extend from my immediate neighbors, in Bridgeport, to all parts of our Union.

Proffers of pecuniary assistance have reached me from every quarter, not only from friends, but from entire strangers. Mr. Wm. E. Burton, Miss Laura Keene and Mr. Wm. Niblo have in the kindest manner tendered me the receipts of their theatres for one evening. Mr. Gough volunteered the proceeds of one of his attractive lectures; Mr. James Phalon generously offered me the free use of the Academy of Music; many professional ladies and gentlemen have urged me to accept their gratuitous services. I have,