to accept a call from the congregation which offers the best salary, and
probing men of science do not hesitate to reap the harvest from a
wonderful invention. Yet it is the fashion with most of the people in
this country who possess little to prate about the wickedness of
money-getters and to think evil of the rich. That proceeds chiefly from
envy, and it is sheer cant. The people of the United States are engaged
in an eager struggle to advance themselves--to gain individual
distinction, comfort, success, and in New York to a greater extent than
in any other place can the capable man or woman sell his or her wares to
the best advantage--be they what they may, stocks, merchandise, law,
medicine, pictures. The world pays well for the things it wants--and the
world is pretty just in the long run. If it doesn't like my designs,
that will be because they're not worth buying. The great thing--the
difficult thing to guard against in the whirl of this great city, where
we are all striving to get ahead--is not to sell one's self for money,
not to sacrifice the thing worth doing for mere pecuniary advantage.
It's the great temptation to some to do so, for only money can buy fine
houses, and carriages and jewels--yes, and in a certain sense, social
preferment. The problem is presented in a different form to every man.
Some can grow rich honestly, and some have to remain poor in order to be
true to themselves. We may have to remain poor, Selma mia." He spoke
gayly, as though that prospect did not disturb him in the least.

"And we shall be just as good as the people who own these houses." She
said it gravely, as if it were a declaration of principles, and at the
same moment her gaze was caught and disturbed by a pair of blithe,
fashionably dressed young women gliding by her with the quiet,
unconscious grace of good-breeding. She was inwardly aware, though she
would never acknowledge it by word or sign, that such people troubled
her. More even than Mrs. Taylor had troubled her. They were different