The Entire March Family TrilogyHowells, William Dean
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The Entire March Family Trilogy
Howells, William Dean
Fiction; Literature -- Collections
Besides these talkers, there were scattered singly, or grouped about in
twos and threes and fours, the various people one encounters on a Hudson
River boat, who are on the whole different from the passengers on other
rivers, though they all have features in common. There was that man of
the sudden gains, who has already been typified; and there was also the
smoother rich man of inherited wealth, from whom you can somehow know
the former so readily. They were each attended by their several retinues
of womankind, the daughters all much alike, but the mothers somewhat
different. They were going to Saratoga, where perhaps the exigencies
of fashion would bring them acquainted, and where the blue blood of a
quarter of a century would be kind to the yesterday's fluid of warmer
hue. There was something pleasanter in the face of the hereditary
aristocrat, but not so strong, nor, altogether, so admirable;
particularly if you reflected that he really represented nothing in the
world, no great culture, no political influence, no civic aspiration,
not even a pecuniary force, nothing but a social set, an alien
club-life, a tradition of dining. We live in a true fairy land after
all, where the hoarded treasure turns to a heap of dry leaves. The
almighty dollar defeats itself, and finally buys nothing that a man
cares to have. The very highest pleasure that such an American's money
can purchase is exile, and to this rich man doubtless Europe is a
twice-told tale. Let us clap our empty pockets, dearest reader, and be
glad.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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