I see that the handsome Mrs. Helmbold has succeeded in gettin’ her husband (the once notorious “Dr.” Helmbold, who was one of the sights of New York twenty years ago, and who has spent more money in advertisin’ than any man in America) out of the lunatic asylum, in which he had been placed by his brother, and has been reunited to him again. There is a reminiscence connected with the early lives of the “Doctor” and his wife which is worth recordin’.
Helmbold began life poor, and his wife, though always pretty, and belongin’ to a good and at one time wealthy family, was the opposite of rich. Helmbold was but a drug clerk on a very small salary when he married Miss Pell. It was a genuine love match between ‘em, and for a while the “happy pair” were really happy, as any two young people are, and must be, who live together, and love each other.
But, and very naturally, the beautiful Mrs. Helmbold had her little vanity, and wanted to shine in the society she was so well calculated to adorn. She had various accomplishments, and sighed for a chance to display ‘em. She was fitted to grace a palace, so of course she hankered after a palace to grace.
And Helmbold, too, didn’t feel a bit like workin’ a pestle and mortar all his life for some other man’s benefit, he doing nine-tenths of the work and the other man getting nine-tenths of the pay. So, with all their happiness in each other, the couple were altogether dissatisfied with the general condition of things.
One night the young Helmbold came back to lodgin’s in the upper part of the city, cursin’ his luck. It was rainin’ hard, the streets were quite muddy and he was obliged to walk home, or rather to his lodgin’s, in order to save car fare. He reached his rooms wet through and tired out, and didn’t find much there, except his wife, to cheer him. There was only a scanty fire in the stove, because the coal was nearly out, and coal cost money. The couple had to pay for the gas at the usual gas company’s exorbitant rates, and so there was only one burner of the two in the room lit, nearly makin’, as the sayin’ is, darkness visible. The rooms ‘emselves were only two, and very plainly furnished with a rickety sofa and common chairs, rag carpet and a shaky bed.
There were two or three cheap prints on the walls, and the usual motto, “God bless our home,” strung up, as if in mockery of those who have no “home” to “bless.”
Helmbold kissed his wife, but felt mad. Mrs. H. kissed her husband, but felt mad. Then the two got to talkin’ and complainin’, not of each other, but of fate and circumstances.
“I know I am what they call ‘beautiful,’ Harry,” said Mrs H. to her husband in the course of the conversation; “I can’t help knowin’ it, as a mere matter of fact, for which I take no credit to myself. I am so, simply because I was born so. But I do feel, Harry, although I love you, as if I would like ever so much to get a chance to show off a little–just a little–and to make a splurge. What’s the use of bein’ better lookin’ than other women if a woman can’t have a chance to show it?”
Then, havin’ talked herself out, the beautiful wife, in her cheap dress, without any jewelry, lay down on the old, rickety, horse-hair sofa, and fell asleep, doubtless to dream of what might be. Meanwhile, her hubby, still in his wet things, half-dried, because he had no change of garments, commenced to fix up some odds and ends connected with the drug business, which he had not time to attend to at the shop, but which must be got in readiness for the next day. And while at his tedious drudgery, the poor, half-starved, half-paid, overworked drug drudge looked at his sleepin’ wife, and, glancin’ at her wonderful beauty, felt in his soul of souls what an ornament she would be to society, what a pleasure to himself, what a pride to him if only he had money.
If–oh, what would the world be if it were not for “if”–if only he had money. But where was a drug clerk to get money! Out of drugs, to be sure. Brandeth, Jayne, Ayer, Townsend, Barnes, all these and others had risen from poverty to wealth by drugs; why not, then, Henry T. Helmbold as well? What man had done man can do. And, surely, no man could have more to inspire him in his race for wealth than he had in this lovely and lovin’ woman sleepin’ in her poverty at his side.
“I will do it,” said H. T. Helmbold. By “do it” he meant invent some “patent medicine” like the rest of the drug men who have gotten rich; invent, advertise, puff, sell and get wealthy, spend his wealth, live in style and give his wife an equipage and diamonds. “I will do it,” said Helmbold, while his wife slept on the sofa. And then and there was laid the real foundation of a once colossal business. He woke his wife with a kiss and the next day went to work with characteristic energy to carry out his resolve.
All that next day he thought upon what particular drug or plant he should “hit” to make a “hit” on, and before night he had decided on buchu.
The next day after he went to a newspaper proprietor and told him frankly just how he was fixed, and just what he wanted to do, and just for whose sake he wanted to do it. This frankness of the poor clerk pleased the newspaper mogul, and a bargain was made and big advertisin’ was commenced on credit.
The world knows the rest. Within a few years H. T. Humboldt ranked among the risin’ men of America and his wife among the most stylish and splendid women in the country.
The real foundation of the career was laid that wet, cold, dismal night, in the little lodgin’ house, and the real cause and centre of the whole thing was the beautiful woman in her almost rags, who slept, while her husband drudged, on that horse-hair sofa!
There is a romance and a woman at the bottom of everythin’, even of “buchu.”
[Editor’s notes: This is a somewhat odd take on the story of the Helmbolds. Henry, with his “Buchu” elixir, had made a fortune in the 1860s, and spent his fortune extravagantly. One expense was the Helmbold Cottage, in stylish Long Branch, New Jersey (nearby the cottage of his friend, General Grant).
But in the early 1870s, Henry Helmbold’s recklessness resulted in bankruptcy. Starting in 1872, he was confined to a series of insane asylums–a measure that his family may have been forced to take to preserve his remaining assets, including the Long Branch home. His illness was described as “epilepsy,” or alcoholism, but the intervals of lucidity he exhibited, which caused him to be released multiple times, sounds more like a chronic mental illness–perhaps schizophrenia. In one of his rational periods, he even wrote a book, Am I a Lunatic?
Henrietta (“Nettie”) divorced him; but they remarried in 1885. Both the divorce and remarriage might have been for monetary reasons. Henry died in a Trenton, New Jersey, asylum in 1894, at age 56.
One of his three sons, Masson Helmbold, seems to have inherited his father’s instability. Masson attempted a career as a poet; but resorted to robbery and forgery, in company with Frank Auburn (profiled by Thomas Byrnes in his 1886 Professional Criminals of America).]
