Charles Gould

“ You are very good. A very fierce-looking man, Don Carlos. He asked me for a cigar in a most familiar manner. What would have happened if I had not had a cigar? I shudder yet. What business had he to be talking with robbers in a lonely place?"
But Charles Gould, openly preoccupied now, gave not a sign, made no sound. The impenetrability of the embodied Gould Concession had its surface shades. To be dumb is merely a fatal affliction; but the King of Sulaco had words enough to give him all the mysterious weight of a taciturn force. ”

“ The emissary from Hernandez's camp pushed his horse close to Charles Gould.
"Caballero," he said, in an interested voice, "you are he whom they call the King of Sulaco, the master of the mine. Is it not so?"
"Yes, I am the master of the mine," answered Charles Gould.
The man cantered for a time in silence, then said: "I have a brother, a sereno in your service in the San Tomé Valley. You have proved yourself a just man. There had been no wrong done to any one since you called upon the people to work in the mountains. ”

“ Charles Gould was competent because he had no illusions. The Gould Concession had to fight for life with such weapons as could be found at once in the mire of a corruption that was so universal as almost to lose its significance. ”

“ Can it be that they really wish to become, for an immense consideration, drawers of water and hewers of wood to all the countries and nations of the earth?"
"A man must work to some end," Charles Gould said, vaguely.
Mrs. Gould, frowning, surveyed him from head to foot. With his riding-breeches, leather leggings (an article of apparel never before seen in Costaguana) , a Norfolk coat of gray flannel, and those great flaming mustaches, he suggested an officer of cavalry turned gentleman farmer. This combination was gratifying to Mrs. Gould's tastes. "How thin the poor boy is!" she thought. ”

“ To feel that prosperity always at the mercy of unintelligent greed had grown irksome to him. To Mrs. Gould it was humiliating. At any rate, it was dangerous. In the confidential communications passing between Charles Gould, the King of Sulaco, and the head of the silver and steel interests far away in California, the conviction was growing that any attempt made by men of education and integrity ought to be discreetly supported. ”

“ The truth of the comparison struck Charles Gould heavily. In his determined purpose he held the mine, and the indomitable bandit held the Campo by the same precarious tenure. They were equals before the lawlessness of the land. It was impossible to disentangle one's activity from its debasing contacts. A those-meshed net of crime and corruption lay upon whole country. An immense and weary discouragement sealed his lips for a time.
"You are a just man," urged the emissary of Hernandez. "Look at those people who made my compadre a general and have turned us all into soldiers. ”

“ There was something in the genius of that Genoese seaman which dominated the destinies of great enterprises and of many people, the fortunes of Charles Gould, the fate of an admirable woman. At this last thought the doctor had to clear his throat before he could speak.
In a completely changed tone he pointed out to the Capataz that, to begin with, he personally ran no great risk. As far as everybody knew he was dead. It was an enormous advantage. He had only to keep out of sight in the Casa Viola, where the old Garibaldino was known to be alone—with his dead wife. ”

“ Why shouldn't he give them some hope of success? Eh? Otherwise you wouldn't gain so much time. Couldn't he be instructed to—"
Charles Gould, looking at the doctor steadily, shook his head, but the doctor continued, with a certain amount of fire:
"Yes, to enter into negotiations for the surrender of the mine. It is a good notion. You would mature your plan. Of course I don't ask what it is. I don't want to know. I would refuse to listen to you if you tried to tell me. I am not fit for confidences."
"What nonsense!" muttered Charles Gould, with displeasure. ”

“ And Charles Gould was not humiliated by this consideration, because the thing remained as big as ever for him. Nobody else's vast conceptions of destiny could diminish the aspect of his desire for the redemption of the San Tomé mine. In comparison to the correctness of his aim, definite in space and absolutely attainable within a limited time, the other man appeared for an instant as a dreamy idealist of no importance. ”

“ Men of affairs venture sometimes on acts that the common judgment of the world would pronounce absurd; they take their decisions on apparently impulsive and human grounds. "Very well," had said the considerable personage to whom Charles Gould on his way out through San Francisco had lucidly exposed his point of view. "Let us suppose that the mining affairs of Sulaco are taken in hand. There would then be in it: first, the house of Holroyd, which is all right; then, Mr. Charles Gould, a citizen of Costaguana, who is also all right; and, lastly, the government of the republic. ”

“ Charles Gould, exposing his business with an imperturbable steadiness, called him Excellency.
The provincial Excellency assumed a weary superiority, tilting his chair far back near an open window in the true Costaguana manner. The military band happened to be braying operatic selections on the plaza just then, and twice he raised his hand imperatively for silence in order to listen to a favorite passage.
"Exquisite, delicious!" he murmured; while Charles Gould waited, standing by with inscrutable patience. "Lucia, Lucia di Lammermoor! I am passionate for music. It transports me. Ha! ”

“ And then we shall have the leisure to take in hand the outlying islands and continents of the earth. We shall run the world’s business whether the world likes it or not. The world can’t help it—and neither can we, I guess.”
By this he meant to express his faith in destiny in words suitable to his intelligence, which was unskilled in the presentation of general ideas. His intelligence was nourished on facts; and Charles Gould, whose imagination had been permanently affected by the one great fact of a silver mine, had no objection to this theory of the world’s future. ”

“ A man may be thrown off. The papers had unfortunately trumpeted all over the land his journey to Costaguana. If he was pleased at the way Charles Gould was going on, he infused an added grimness into his assurances of support. Even at the very last interview, half an hour or so before he rolled out of the patio, hat in hand, behind Mrs. Gould's white mules, he had said in Charles's room:
"You go ahead in your own way, and I shall know how to help you as long as you hold your own. ”

“ I think the railway has done pretty well by its friends without compromising itself hopelessly. Now the parties must be left to themselves."
"Costaguana for the Costaguaneros," interjected the doctor, sardonically. "It is a fine country, and they have raised a fine crop of hates, vengeance, murder, and rapine—those sons of the country."
"Well, I am one of them," Charles Gould's voice sounded, calmly, "and I must be going on to see to my own crop of trouble. My wife has driven straight on, doctor?" ”

“ What we want is advanced men like you in the province. The lethargy—the lethargy of these aristocrats! The want of public spirit! The absence of all enterprise! I, with my profound studies in Europe, you understand—"
With one hand thrust into his swelling bosom, he rose and fell on his toes, and for ten minutes, almost without drawing breath, went on hurling himself intellectually to the assault of Charles Gould's polite silence ”

“ She was highly gifted in the art of human intercourse which consists in delicate shades of self-forgetfulness and in the suggestion of universal comprehension. Charles Gould (the Gould family, established in Costaguana for three generations, always went to England for their education and for their wives) imagined that he had fallen in love with a girl’s sound common sense like any other man, but these were not exactly the reasons why, for instance, the whole surveying camp, from the youngest of the young men to their mature chief, should have found occasion to allude to Mrs. ”

“ The cab was dismissed at the Barbican, and Charles paid the driver.
‘Joe,’ said he, ‘come on to the pier, and let us look at the water rippling in the moon. It will be dawn directly.’
She hesitated a moment, and then said, ‘Very well; I want to tell you something.’
He gave her his arm, ‘You are not likely to catch cold, I hope!’
She shook her head.
‘The more I see of you,’ said he, ‘the more I wonder at you. You are a person of infinite resource. Joe! ”

“ Why was not Charles accepted? If society would not take up Charles, society must be cut down to his level.
He entered the shop of the Golden Balls with firm tread, and with his usual brusque and determined manner. Joanna was there. Towards dusk more business was done than at other times of the day. One gas jet was flaring near her head, accentuating her features. Mr. Cheek did not care in the least whether she was good-looking or the reverse. ”

“ This meant that any criminal lawyer would have been bound to start an investigation by insisting that Gould had assurances from the White House or the Treasury, since none other could have satisfied him. To young men wasting their summer at Quincy for want of some one to hire their services at three dollars a day, such a dramatic scandal was Heaven-sent. Charles and Henry Adams jumped at it like salmon at a fly, with as much voracity as Jay Gould, or his âme damnée Jim Fisk, had ever shown for Erie ”

“ You happen perhaps to have a spare room in the house?"
No answer was given to this question.
"Because I have brought over my little traps. I thought it best. We can talk over matters, and I will show you what the amount of property is that Charles has left. I have the will with me; it is not proved yet. ”

“ Gould, almost shocked. The allusion was not to the point. Don José was a dear good man, who talked very well, and was enthusiastic about the greatness of the San Tomé mine. "How can you compare them, Charles?" she
1 exclaimed reproachfully. "He has suffered—and yet he hopes." The working competence of men—which she never questioned—was very surprising to Mrs. Gould, because upon so many obvious issues they showed themselves strangely muddle-headed. ”

“ His step was light, his eyes full of glad expectation, and he held his head up proudly. He was surprised to see that the house of Lazarus had been repainted. The shop was open. A good deal of business was done on a Saturday, double on the eve of a Bank holiday. People would pawn necessaries to obtain money for a day’s pleasure.
He looked in at the window, and saw Joanna behind the counter talking to a woman who was in the shop with some article she wished to dispose of.
Charles waited till the woman came out, then he caught the door before she closed it, and stepped in. ”

“ Near by is the Gould birthplace, now a comfortable-looking farmhouse, glistening with a fresh coat of white paint. “Take away the porch and the back extension, and the top story and the paint,” said my driver, “and you will have the original ‘birthplace.’” He said that when he first began the livery business in Roxbury many people came to see the birthplace of Jay Gould, but no one mentioned Burroughs. Now it is just the other way, and the number of visitors increases yearly, all anxious to see the home of the famous philosopher. ”

“ Those men who of late have been most intimately associated in business with Mr. Gould, and those directly connected with the business enterprises of which he was the commanding power, invariably speak of him in the highest terms. The directors of the Manhattan Elevated Railway, the Western Union Telegraph Company, the Missouri Pacific System, and other great corporations in which Mr. Gould’s holdings of stock were the controlling interests, have been lavish in the compliments and admiration which they express. ”

“ 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. Gould236 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. ”

“ Nevertheless he does not permit his pastimes to interfere with his business affairs, and is a familiar figure in the financial districts of New York City. He has been president of the Little Rock and Fort Worth railroad, Texas and Pacific railroad, International and Great Northern railroad, Manhattan Elevated railroad, Missouri Pacific railroad, and the St. Louis and Iron Mountain and Southern railroad. Mr. Gould is a good specimen of the young American who does not let his great wealth hamper his activities. ”

“ Big cracks appeared in the ground where it had been unable to stand the constant baking any longer, and so had given way. The trees were gaunt and well-nigh leafless. [Pg 36]
He rode along keeping his eyes fixed on the clouds ahead. With surprising suddenness he felt a cool breeze commence to blow. It fanned his face and refreshed him, and his horse snorted and tossed his head as though he would say, 'This is a pleasant change. There will be a chance of a good feed soon.'
He reined in and waited; there was no occasion to ride on, for the storm was coming towards him fast. ”