The story of the distribution of the Vanderbilt wealth, however, has brought discontent to many a home where happiness reigned before. It could hardly be otherwise, constituted as human nature is, and especially human nature in our highly strung commercial society, where the spirit of ambition is always strenuously aiming at higher flights. People who heretofore had considered themselves rich, and socially important, with a million or so to draw upon, felt that they were mere ciphers in the scale of wealth; they seemed to themselves to be financially blighted, and miserably poor in contrast with the colossal magnitude of the Vanderbilt possessions as exhibited in the Surrogate’s Court. The plain, cold, prosy figures brought out there read like a romance, or the story of Sinbad the Sailor and the Valley of Diamonds. But it was all stern reality. This is why the feelings which suffer from this contrast are so deeply pathetic. It is a reality, and a stern reality, that can hardly be imitated or duplicated by any other two men in this generation. The thing is possible, but just about as probable as it was for every private soldier of Napoleon the Great, who each had a Marshal’s baton in his knapsack, to become a Marshal. “Every blacksmith,” says the Rev. Robert Collyer, “might become a preacher, but it would be a great public calamity if it should happen to that extent.” The bare outlines of the Vanderbilt wills, which have made such a deep impression on the community at large, will be found in another part of this book. I think they will afford very interesting reading for generations yet unborn. [Illustration: _W H Vanderbilt_ ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XXXV. WILLIAM H. VANDERBILT.