David Graham Phillips

“ One day last week, in presence of his sister Aurora, I was reproving him for one of his many shortcomings, and, to enforce my reproof, was warning him that such conduct did not advance him toward the place from which his brother had been deposed.
His upper lip always twitches when he is about to launch one of those bits of craftiness he thinks so profound. The longer I live, the deeper is my contempt for craft—it so rarely fails to tangle and strangle itself in its own unwieldy nets. After his lip had twitched awhile, he looked furtively at Aurora. ”

“ In those two years I had learned much—so much that my palace near Fifty-ninth Street, which I had imagined the acme of art and splendour when I accepted its final plans, had become to me an intolerable flaunting of ignorance and tawdriness. I had intended still to retain it as the hereditary residence for the heirs-apparent of my line, and, when they should succeed to the headship of the family, the so-to-speak dowager-residence. ”

“ It has been two years and five months since I expelled James, yet my dissatisfaction with Walter has not decreased.
No doubt this is due in part to the grudge a man of my age who loves power and wealth must have against the impatient waiter for his throne and sceptre. No doubt, also, age and long familiarity with power have made me, perhaps, too critical of my fellow-beings and too sensitive to their shortcomings. ”

“ I can’t visit kitchens, do marketing, superintend housekeepers and butlers, oversee stables, and buy all the various supplies. I can’t shop for furniture and clothing, and look after the entertainments. All those things are my wife’s business and duty. And she has a secretary, and a housekeeper, and Burridge, and Ridley, to assist her. Yet the bills mount and mount; the waste grows and grows. Extravagance [59] for herself, extravagance for her children, thousands thrown away with nothing whatever to show for it! The money runs away like water at a left-on faucet. ”

“ It seemed to me that she suddenly flashed out into wonderful beauty—a strange kind of beauty, all in shades of golden brown and having an air of mystery that moved even me to note and admire and be proud—and a little uneasy. Obviously she would be able to make a magnificent marriage, if she could be controlled. The greater the prize, the greater the anxiety until it is grasped. ”

“ As I have grown older, and have seen the inferiority of other men and the superiority of my own mind and judgment, naturally my early opinion has been strengthened and deepened. But on that day I realised how my own sight of myself had been obscured by a too close view. My domestic exasperations, the necessary disagreeableness and pettiness of so many of the details of my great projects, the triviality of my routine of business and its harassments—all these had combined to make me belittle my own stature and bulk. ”

“ We would be outshone in New York by none!
To win a million is to taste blood. The million-mania—for, in a sense, I’ll admit it is a mania—is roused and put upon the scent, and it never sleeps again, nor is its appetite ever satisfied or even made less ravenous. ”

“ Gifts of all kinds, expenses of all kinds, outgo of every description, must come from new sources of revenue; my fortune and its income and the surplus over the previous year’s outgo must be treated as a sacred fund of which I was merely the trustee. That rule has put me often in straits, has forced me to many money-making measures [134] that in the narrow view would be called relentless. But to it the world owes my highest achievements, as a financier and industrial leader, and to it I owe the bulk of my fortune.
The brain earns in vain, however hugely, if the hands do not hoard ”

“ Whenever James and I have come face to face in a crisis I have always had the, to me, maddening feeling that a will as strong as my own has been lifting its head defiantly against me. My wife and my son Walter deal with me by evasion and slippery trickery. My daughter Aurora wins from me, when I choose to let her, by cajolery or tears. Little Helen has never yet had to do with me in a serious matter, and I cannot remember her ever a [73] me even the trifling favours which most children seek from their parents. ”

“ If you get only your equal share, you’ll have hard enough work keeping from not being like—him. Be sensible, Walt—and be decent!”
[293] And he left the room and the house; and a huge wave of that suffocating-sweet perfume of funeral flowers poured out through the opened street-door after him as if to overwhelm him—like subtle hate on stealthy murder bent.
That same afternoon the will was opened. There were legacies of ten millions to Walter and to Aurora, and of two millions to James’s children. The rest of the estate, seventy millions, was left unconditionally—to Helen. ”

“ But works of art, like the precious stones and metals, have come to be the conventionally accepted standards of luxury, the everywhere recognised insignia of the aristocracy of wealth. So I have them, and add to my collection steadily just as I add to my collection of finely bound books that no one ever opens. What slaves of convention and ostentation we are!
“What’s become of the Corot that used to hang there?” I asked, suspiciously, because I had had so many experiences of my family’s trifling with my possessions. ”

“ Yet I must properly marry my children and must keep my promise to my university; and to have left twelve millions of capital idle would have been to show myself unworthy of the responsibilities of great wealth. I was thus literally driven to one of those large public services which are so venomously criticised by the small and the envious. Every action of no matter what kind produces both good and bad consequences. ”

“ Nothing else is so certain to destroy a husband’s influence [224] or to unfit a wife contentedly to fill her proper place in the family as for her to be financially independent.
I have never been lacking in the courage to do right, no matter what moral quibble or personal unpleasantness has stood in the way. I resolved not to give her anything outright, but, instead, to provide for her in my will—the income of a quarter of a million, to be hers for life, unless Walter should die and she marry again. ”

“ Finally, I began to hasten my son Walter’s marriage to Natalie Bradish.
My son Walter!
It certainly isn’t lack of shrewdness that unfits him to be head of the family. Why do the qualities we most admire in ourselves, and find most useful there, so often irritate and even disgust us in another?
[102] I have not told him that he is already the principal heir under the terms of my will. He will work harder to please me so long as he thinks the prize still withheld—still to be earned. He does not know how firmly my mind is set against James. So he never loses an opportunity to clinch my purpose. ”

“ Every day I fixed my thoughts upon another million; and, as all who know anything about the million-mania will tell you, the act of fixing the thought upon a million, when one has earned the right to acquire millions, makes that million yours, makes all who stand between you and it aggressors to be clawed down and torn to pieces. ”

“ It is not the money going out that I mind so much, though I’m not ashamed to admit that it is not so agreeable to me to see money going out as it is to see money coming in. The real irritation is the waste—the wanton, wicked, dangerous waste. ”

“ Instead she was radiant, beautifully dressed, and with an assurance of manner that was immensely becoming to her—the assurance of a woman who is conscious of having married brilliantly and is determined to enjoy her good fortune to the uttermost. It was plain that she was on the best possible terms with Kirkby. As for him, he looked foolishly happy and was obviously completely under her control, as I knew he would be. He is certainly in himself not a dignified figure—short and fat and sallow and amazingly ordinary-looking for a man of such birth and breeding. ”

“ Theodora Glendenning was a widow, an adventuress from heaven knows where. She had obtained a slight footing in fairly good New York society a few years before, as a young girl, and had been invited to one or two first-class houses. She was good-looking, had the ways and voice of a siren, and a certain plausible sweetness and gentleness. She trapped young Nick Glendenning. His family promptly cast him off and they sank into obscurity, living on the income of the few hundred thousands he had inherited from a grandaunt. Then he died. We did not know where or how James met her. ”

“ I know too well what havoc self-interest works in the sense of right and wrong, and Walter would be the first of my children to insult my memory if he were to get less by a penny than any other of the family. Had I been concerning myself about what my wife and my children would think of me after I was gone, I should never have entertained the idea of founding a family. But men of large view and large wealth [106] and large ambition do not heed these minor matters. When it comes to human beings, they deal in generals, not in particulars. ”

“ Instead of being respectful to the great natural leaders and deferential to their larger vision and larger knowledge, the people regard us with suspicion and overlook our services in their envy of the trifling commissions we get—for, what is the wealth we reserve for ourselves in comparison with the benefits we confer upon the country?
At this dinner which I have mentioned, both Burridge and Ridley were silent, and so my thoughts had no distraction. As I know that it is bad for my digestion to use my brain as I eat, I tried to start a conversation. ”

“ He smiled mockingly. “I’m not such a fool as to fancy that. Even if you had a heart, your pride wouldn’t let you. And I’m not sorry—just at this moment. Perhaps I shall be later—I’m fond of cash, and your pot for me was a big one. But just now I feel as if you were doing me a favour.” He drew a long breath. “God!” he exclaimed. “I’m free! In spite of myself, I’m free! I’m a man at last!”
I did not care to listen to any more of the frothings of the silly young fool. Already I was regarding him as a stranger, was turning to his brother Walter as a possible successor to him and my principal heir. ”

“ And now luck, plus strong rowing and right steering, swept me on to another success—this time a brilliant marriage. The element of luck was particularly large in this instance, as in any matter where one of the factors is feminine. Every wise planner reduces the human element in his projects to the minimum, because human nature is as uncertain as chance itself. But while one can always rely, to a certain extent, upon the human element where it is masculine, where it is feminine there’s absolutely no more foundation than in a quicksand. ”

“ Nothing happens with me as with ordinary human beings. What could be stranger than that my new era of domestic quiet should be founded, not upon love or affection or feelings of that sort, but upon hate—upon my and her common hate for our unworthy elder son? ”

“ With my million safely achieved, I looked about me as a conqueror looks upon the conquered. A thousand dollars saved is the first step toward a competence; a million dollars achieved is the first step toward a Crœsus ”

“ Natalie’s father had seen me several times and had shown his determination to intervene in the matter of her dowry by bringing up the subject at our business conferences whenever he could force the smallest opening. Like all my associates, from capitalist to clerk, he is in awe of me. I see [143] to it that in the velvet glove there shall always be holes through which the iron hand can be plainly seen. That often saves me the exertion of using it. An iron hand, once it has an established reputation, is mightier when merely seen than when felt. ”

“ Me prodigal with my own wealth! But I did not answer her. One is at a hopeless disadvantage [71] in discussion with a woman. They are insensible to reason and logic except when they can gain an advantage by using them. It’s like having to keep to the rules in a game where your antagonist keeps to them or makes his own rules as it suits him. “Nevertheless,” I said, “the waste in my establishments must stop and your son James must come to his senses. ”

“ I went up to my apartment, half depressed, half amused—I have too keen a sense of humour not to be amused whenever I see vanity take a tumble. As I reached my sitting-room I was in the full swing of my moralisings on the physical vanity of women, and on their silliness in setting store by their beauty after [97] it has served its sole, legitimate, really useful purpose—has caught them husbands. Only mischief can come of beauty in a married woman. ”

“ Walter is a square-shouldered youth of medium height, with irregular, rather commonplace features, a rough skin, and an unpleasant habit of shifting his eyes rapidly round and round yours as you talk with him—I am as impartial a judge of my own family as a stranger would be. Walter has been a good deal of a sneak all his life—at least, he was up to the time when a man’s real character disappears behind the pose he adopts to face [80] and fool the world with. ”

“ I always work incessantly, regardless of the position of my star—no man who accomplishes great things ever takes his mind off his work.
Not that I am one of those who disbelieve in luck. Luck is the tide. ”