The Turmoil. A novel by Booth Tarkington
1915.

To Laurel.



CHAPTER I

There is a midland city in the heart of fair, open country, a dirty
and wonderful city nesting dingily in the fog of its own smoke. The
stranger must feel the dirt before he feels the wonder, for the dirt
will be upon him instantly. It will be upon him and within him, since
he must breathe it, and he may care for no further proof that wealth
is here better loved than cleanliness; but whether he cares or not,
the negligently tended streets incessantly press home the point, and
so do the flecked and grimy citizens. At a breeze he must smother in
the whirlpools of dust, and if he should decline at any time to inhale
the smoke he has the meager alternative of suicide.

The smoke is like the bad breath of a giant panting for more and more
riches. He gets them and pants the fiercer, smelling and swelling
prodigiously. He has a voice, a hoarse voice, hot and rapacious
trained to one tune: "Wealth! I will get Wealth! I will make
Wealth! I will sell Wealth for more Wealth! My house shall be dirty,
my garment shall be dirty, and I will foul my neighbor so that he
cannot be clean--but I will get Wealth! There shall be no clean thing
about me: my wife shall be dirty and my child shall be dirty, but I
will get Wealth!" And yet it is not wealth that he is so greedy for:
what the giant really wants is hasty riches. To get these he