's Blacking;" and as it was a really good
article, his sales in city and country soon became immense; Gosling made
a fortune in seven years, and retired but, as with thousands before him,
it was "easy come easy go." He engaged in a lead-mining speculation, and
it was generally understood that his fortune was, in a great measure,
lost as rapidly as it was made.

Here let me digress, in order to observe that one of the most difficult
things in life is for men to bear discreetly sudden prosperity. Unless
considerable time and labor are devoted to earning money, it is not
appreciated by its possessor; and, having no practical knowledge of the
value of money, he generally gets rid of it with the same ease that
marked its accumulation. Mr. Astor gave the experience of thousands when
he said that he found more difficulty in earning and saving his first
thousand dollars than in accumulating all the subsequent millions which
finally made up his fortune. The very economy, perseverance, and
discipline which he was obliged to practice, as he gained his money
dollar by dollar, gave him a just appreciation of its value, and thus
led him into those habits of industry, prudence, temperance, and
untiring diligence so conducive and necessary to his future success.

Mr. Gosling, however, was not a man to be put down by a single financial
reverse. He opened a store in Canajoharie, N. Y., which was burned, and
on which there was no insurance. He came again to New York in 1839, and
established a restaurant, where, by devoting the services of himself and
several members of his family assiduously to the business, he soon
reveled in his former prosperity, and snapped his fingers in glee at
what unreflecting persons term "the freaks of Dame Fortune." He is still
living in New York, hale and hearty at the age of seventy. Although
called a "French" blacking-maker, Mr. Gosling is in reality a Dutchman,
having been born in the city of Amsterdam, Holland. He is the father of
twenty-four children, twelve of whom are still living, to cheer him in
his declining years, and to repay him in grateful attentions for the
valuable lessons of prudence, integrity, and industry through the
adoption of which they are honored as respectable and worthy members of
society.

I cannot however permit this chapter to close without recording a
protest in principle against that method of advertising of which
Warren's on the Pyramid is an instance. Not that it is a crime