In downright dramatic interest, in its exhibition of results achieved through the exercise of intellectual qualities which were themselves an achievement, and in the examples which it furnishes of the consistent development of traits which can scarcely be considered as the dower of heredity, and yet were already apparent at the outset, the life story of Jay Gould surpasses by far the histories of the great financiers, speculators and railway managers with whom he was either directly or remotely associated in a career which practically embraced the whole modern phase of financial operation. Like Drew, Vanderbilt and Fisk, he was of humble origin and began at an early age to carve out his fortunes on lines which lay far from those to which his youthful surroundings seemed to direct him. But his first exhibitions of independent and original activity were directed toward the acquiring of an intellectual equipment of an entirely different order from that which his great rivals in Wall street boasted. Nothing is plainer than that he was a born money-maker, but it is easily possible that if early success in this direction had not encouraged him to bend his energies solely to the acquisition of wealth, he might have devoted himself not only successfully, but much to his own satisfaction, to higher pursuits. Though he was an absolutely tireless worker in the field of money-getting, one can scarcely study his operations, whether as a mere speculator or as the creator and developer of great industrial enterprises, without becoming convinced that the incitement to many of his colossal operations was quite as much a love for intellectual occupation as for money. Human nature is generally set down as a universal possession, and Mr. Gould was yet a young man when the scope of his financial operations was such as to give clear evidence that the material things of this world were abundantly cared for in his possessions. He had, of course, the instincts of a born speculator, yet his was not the disposition to let results depend simply on the accidental fall of the dice, or the turn of a card. He loved hazard, but he loved better to compel chance to enter the channels he had dug for it. It would be folly to deny the vast value of his work in the development of the Western and Southwestern States, but perhaps as great a folly to attribute a philanthropic or patriotic motive to it. In a history of the life of such a man as Jay Gould, it is well that certain of his personal characteristics and certain of the chief events of his career be summarized before a complete study of his biography and character is made. It is thus possible better to understand both events and personal qualities.