I looked at my host in
amazement. It was hard to believe that a man past middle age, who
after years of hardest toil could afford to put half a million into
a house for himself and his children, and store it with beautiful
things, would have the courage to look so far into the future as to
see all his work undone, his home turned to another use and himself
and his wife afloat in the world without a roof over their wealthy
old heads.
Surely this was the Spirit of the Age in its purest expression, the
more strikingly so that he seemed to feel pride rather than
anything else in his ingenious combination.
He liked the city he had built in well enough now, but nothing
proved to him that he would like it later. He and his wife had
lived in twenty cities since they began their brave fight with
Fortune, far away in a little Eastern town. They had since changed
their abode with each ascending rung of the ladder of success, and
beyond a faded daguerreotype or two of their children and a few
modest pieces of jewelry, stored away in cotton, it is doubtful if
they owned a single object belonging to their early life.
Another case occurs to me. Near the village where I pass my
summers, there lived an elderly, childless couple on a splendid
estate combining everything a fastidious taste could demand. One
fine morning this place was sold, the important library divided
between the village and their native city, the furniture sold or
given away, - everything went; at the end the things no one wanted
were made into a bon-fire and burned.
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