Analyzing Character by Arthur Newcomb (best ebook reader under 100 txt) 📖

to permit him to stand upright. You did not go down through a shaft, but straight in through the side of a hill to the bowels of the mountain, following a track on which a little donkey drew the coal to the mouth of the mine and sent it down the incline to run up and down a hill a mile or more by its own gravity before it reached the place of unloading. Through one of these we marched in, Adler and I, one summer morning with new pickaxes on our shoulders and nasty little oil lamps fixed in our hats to light us through the darkness where every second we stumbled over chunks of slate rock, or into pools of water that oozed through from above. An old miner, whose way lay past the fork in the tunnel where our lead began, showed us how to use our picks and the timbers to brace the slate that roofed over the vein, and left us to ourselves in a chamber perhaps ten feet wide and the height of a man.

We were to be paid by the ton, I forget how much, but it was very little, and we lost no time in getting to work. We had to dig away the coal at the floor with our picks, lying on our knees to do it, and afterward drive wedges under the roof to loosen the mass. It was hard work, and, entirely inexperienced as we were, we made but little headway.

When toward evening we quit work, after narrowly escaping being killed by a large stone that fell from the roof in consequence of our neglect to brace it up properly, our united efforts had resulted in barely filling two of the little carts, and we had earned, if I recollect aright, something like sixty cents each. The fall of the roof robbed us of all desire to try mining again....

Up the railroad track I went, and at night hired out to a truck farmer, with the freedom of his hay-mow for my sleeping quarters. But when I had hoed cucumbers three days in a scorching sun, till my back ached as if it were going to break, and the farmer guessed he would call it square for three shillings, I went farther. A man is not necessarily a philanthropist, it seems, because he tills the soil. I did not hire out again. I did odd jobs to earn my meals, and slept in the fields at night....

The city was full of idle men. My last hope, a promise of employment in a human-hair factory, failed, and, homeless and penniless, I joined the great army of tramps, wandering about the streets in the daytime with the one aim of somehow stilling the hunger that gnawed at my vitals, and fighting at night with vagrant curs or outcasts as miserable as myself for the protection of some sheltering ash-bin or doorway. I was too proud in all my misery to beg. I do not believe I ever did.

There was until last winter a doorway in Chatham Square, that of the old Barnum clothing store, which I could never pass without recalling those nights of hopeless misery with the policeman's periodic 'Get up there! move on!' reinforced by a prod of his club or the toe of his boot. I slept there, or tried to when crowded out of the tenements in the Bend by their utter nastiness. Cold and wet weather had set in, and a linen duster was all that covered my back. There was a woolen blanket in my trunk which I had from home—the one, my mother had told me, in which I was wrapped when I was born; but the trunk was in the 'hotel' as security for money I owed for board, and I asked for it in vain. I was now too shabby to get work, even if there had been any to get. I had letters still to friends of my family in New York who might have helped me, but hunger and want had not conquered my pride. I would come to them, if at all, as their equal, and, lest I fall into temptation, I destroyed the letters. So, having burned my bridges behind me, I was finally and utterly alone in the city, with the winter approaching and every shivering night in the streets reminding me that a time was rapidly coming when such a life as I led could no longer be endured.

Not in a thousand years would I be likely to forget the night when it came. It had rained all day, a cold October storm, and night found me, with the chill downpour unabated, down by the North River, soaked through and through, with no chance for a supper, forlorn and discouraged. I sat on the bulwark, listening to the falling rain and the swish of the dark tide, and thinking of home. How far it seemed, and how impassable the gulf now between the 'castle,' with its refined ways, between her, in her dainty girlhood, and me sitting there, numbed with the cold that was slowly stealing away my senses with my courage. There was warmth and cheer where she was. Here an overpowering sense of desolation came upon me. I hitched a little nearer to the edge. What if——? Would they miss me much or long at home if no word came from me? Perhaps they might never hear. What was the use of keeping it up any longer, with, God help us, everything against, and nothing to back, a lonely lad?...

It was not only breakfast we lacked. The day before we had had only a crust together. Two days without food is not good preparation for a day's canvassing. We did the best we could. Bob stood by and wagged his tail persuasively while I did the talking; but luck was dead against us, and 'Hard Times' stuck to us for all we tried. Evening came and found us down by the Cooper Institute, with never a cent. Faint with hunger, I sat down on the steps under the illuminated clock, while Bob stretched himself at my feet. He had beguiled the cook in one of the last houses we called at, and his stomach was filled. From the corner I had looked on enviously. For me there was no supper, as there had been no dinner and no breakfast. To-morrow there was another day of starvation. How long was this to last? Was it any use to keep up a struggle so hopeless? From this very spot I had gone, hungry and wrathful, three years before when the dining Frenchmen for whom I wanted to fight thrust me forth from their company. Three wasted years! Then I had one cent in my pocket, I remembered. To-day I had not even so much. I was bankrupt in hope and purpose. Nothing had gone right; and worse, I did not care. I drummed moodily upon my book. Wasted! Yes, that was right. My life was wasted, utterly wasted.

A voice hailed me by name, and Bob sat up, looking attentively at me for his cue as to the treatment of the owner of it. I recognized in him the principal of the telegraph school where I had gone until my money gave out. He seemed suddenly struck by something.

Richard Mansfield Photo by Marceau, N.Y. Fig. 9. Richard Mansfield, Actor-Manager. A fine, balanced combination of artistic talent, creative power, and capacity for great emotion, with good judgment, financial sense, great energy, great determination, uncompromising devotion to ideals, fine powers of expression, and executive ability of the driving, compelling, rigid type. Note high head, domed above temples and wide across center of forehead; large nose; long, straight upper lip; firm mouth; prominent chin; long line from point of chin to crown of head; intense expression. Hon. A.I. Cutting Fig. 10. Hon. A.I. Cutting (same as Fig. 11). Intellectual, idealistic, yet practical; mild, but very shrewd and persistent; good-natured, friendly, social, sympathetic, kindly, yet with good commercial and financial judgment. Observe height of head, with dome above temples; moderate width of head; pleasant, but firm-set, mouth; fine texture and fine chiseling of features; strong, prominent chin, and genial, kindly, friendly expression. Hon A. I. Cutting Fig. 11. Hon. A.L. Cutting. Ambitious, aspiring, hopeful, cheerful, friendly, social. A good public speaker. Excellent planner, prudent, far-sighted, and deliberate in speech and action. Note high head, both at crown and above temples, long behind ears; high forehead; well-formed eyes and nose, and prominent chin. Melville Fuller Fig. 12. The late Melville Fuller, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Unusually keen analytical powers, unaffected by sentiment or irrelevant considerations. Great ability to get down to essentials. Note fullness of brows and of upper corners of forehead; keen, penetrating eyes, and long nose with depressed tip. Frank A. Vanderlip Fig. 13. Frank A. Vanderlip, President of National City Bank, of New York. A man of both financial and political acumen—also humanitarian. Note high, domed head; width across center and lower part of forehead; inclination to stoutness; large, well-formed features; long lines of face. Hon. Joseph W. Folk Copyright American Press Association. Fig. 14. Hon. Joseph W. Folk, of Missouri. A keen politician, shrewd lawyer, and hard fighter. Note height and width of head; large, prominent nose; square, firm jaw; long upper lip; dogged set of mouth; unflinching eyes, and inclination to stoutness. Senator Nelson W. Aldrich Fig. 15. The late Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, of Rhode Island. Keen, practical observation, financial judgment, diplomacy, shrewdness, energy, intellect, industry, courage, determination, and command. Note well-developed brows; height and width of forehead, especially across center; long, well-developed nose; straight, firm mouth; broad, square, prominent chin; long ears; long line from point of chin to crown of head, and keen, shrewd, alert, penetrating expression of eye. Head Shot Fig. 16. Showing large, well-developed base of brain, usually an indication of a tendency to stoutness. Note fullness of back of head at nape of neck.

"'Why, what are you doing here?' he asked. I told him Bob and I were just resting after a day of canvassing.

"'Books!' he snorted. 'I guess that won't make you rich. Now, how would like to be a reporter, if you have got nothing better to do? The manager of a news agency downtown asked me to-day to find him a bright young fellow whom he could break in. It isn't much—$10 a week to start with. But it is better than peddling books, I know,'

"He poked over the book in my hand and read the title. 'Hard Times,' he said, with a little laugh. 'I guess so. What do you say? I think you will do. Better come along and let me give you a note to him now.'

"As in a dream. I walked across the street with him to his office and got the letter which was to make me, half starved and homeless, rich as Croesus, it seemed to me.

"When the sun rose I washed my face and hands in a dog's drinking trough, pulled my clothes into such shape as I could, and went with Bob to his new home. The parting over, I walked down to 23 Park Row and delivered my letter to the desk editor in the New York News Association up on the top floor.

"He looked me over a little doubtfully, but evidently impressed with the early hours I kept told me that I might try. He waved me to a desk, bidding me wait until he had made out his morning book of assignments; and with such scant ceremony was I finally introduced to Newspaper Row, that had been to me like an enchanted land. After