button. Probably the adventurous spirit of his forefathers played a
greater part in his development and in the story of his days than
anything else. He was wide-eyed, and he had a big soul. He trained
himself to believe in himself and to follow his own judgment; therefore,
he invited loss upon loss, he made mistake upon mistake, he heaped
financial adventure upon financial adventure, he ran great risks; and it
is possible that his vast belief in himself kept him going when other men
would have dropped by the wayside. He loved his wife and daughter, and
he lost them both. He loved his farms, his mills and his manor, and they
disappeared from his control.

It must be remembered that the story of The Money Master really runs for
a generation, and it says something for Jean Jacques Barbille that he
could travel through scenes, many of them depressing, for long years, and
still, in the end, provoke no disparagement, by marrying the woman who
had once out of the goodness of her heart offered him everything--
herself, her home, her honour; and it was to Jean Jacques's credit
that he took neither until the death of his wife made him free; but the
tremendous gift offered him produced a powerful impression upon his mind
and heart.

One of the most distinguished men of the world to-day wrote me in praise
and protest concerning The Money Master. He declared that the first half
of the book was as good as anything that had been done by anybody, and
then he bemoaned the fact, which he believed, that the author had
sacrificed his two heroines without real cause and because he was tired
of them. There he was wrong. In the author's mind the story was planned
exactly as it worked out. He was never tired; he was resolute. He was
intent to produce, if possible, a figure which would breed and develop
its own disasters, which would suffer profoundly for its own mistakes;