There is, indeed, no security for wealth, which we think the chief
good of life, in the system that warrants it. When a man has gathered
his millions, he cannot be reduced to want, probably; but while he is
amassing them, while he is in the midst of the fight, or the game, as
most men are, there are ninety-five chances out of a hundred that he
will be beaten. Perhaps it is best so, and I should be glad it was
so if I could be sure that the common danger bred a common kindness
between the rich and the poor, but it seems not to do so. As far as I
can see, the rule of chance, which they all live under, does nothing
more than reduce them to a community of anxieties.
To the eye of the observer they have the monotony of the sea, where
some tenth wave runs a little higher than the rest, but sinks at last,
or breaks upon the rocks or sands, as inevitably as the other nine.
Our inequality is without picturesqueness and without distinction.
The people in the carriages are better dressed than those on foot,
especially the women; but otherwise they do not greatly differ from the
most of these. The spectacle of the driving in the Park has none of
that dignity which characterizes such spectacles in European capitals.
This may be because many people of the finest social quality are
seldom seen there, or it may be because the differences growing out of
money can never have the effect of those growing out of birth; that
a plutocracy can never have the last wicked grace of an aristocracy.
It would be impossible for instance, to weave any romance about the
figures you see in our carriages; they do not even suggest the poetry
of ages of prescriptive wrong; they are of to-day, and there is no
guessing whether they will be of to-morrow or not.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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