Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/338

 his possible retirement from the management of his companies, this sudden declaration was, nevertheless, a terrible shock to him, for he saw at once that his deposal as president of the former company meant also his loss of the Northern Pacific presidency. Knowing his own helplessness, remembering his pledge, and deeming no personal sacrifice too great for the salvation of his companies, Mr. Villard immediately accepted the terms proposed to him. The next day (December 17) the afternoon papers announced his resignation from the two companies founded by him; and the news of his downfall, like that of his triumph, went everywhere.

His fate was certainly tragic. Within a few years, he had risen from entire obscurity to the enviable position of one of the leaders of the material progress of our age. But a few months before, he had reached the pinnacle of contemporaneous fame, and received on his transcontinental journey such homage as few men have ever received in this country. But his fall from might to helplessness, from wealth to poverty, from public admiration to wide condemnation, was far more rapid than his rise, and his brief career was everywhere used to point a moral. At first, journalistic vituperation of him continued more vehemently than before. Hostility towards him was fanned by the untoward circumstance that, shortly after his resignation, he had moved with his family into his large private residence behind the cathedral on Madison Avenue, which he had begun to build a year before, when his fortune warranted its erection. He was loath now to occupy it, but he did so for reasons of economy, as the house was furnished and the family had no other city home. The house formed part of an imposing block, the whole of which he had built, and which presented the appearance of a palace, though it really consisted of six residences. Mr. Villard was attacked by a portion of the press for occupying a princely edifice in defiance of public sentiment and in mockery of the many who had suffered losses in his stocks,