Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1881-12-17
The ssEccentrtcities,, Of the Rich.

The wonder about milliOnaires is. not that
they should be sometimes eccentric. but that
they are usually so ordinary. Power turns al
heads more or less. and the absence of resist.
anee develops wilfulness till. as We often see In
| the east. it becomes mOnstrOus caprice. Now
| there Is no power in modern times which is &c
like executive vOlitiOn as that Of the million
aire-Of the man, we mean, with a really great
fortune to use outside his usual wants He has
only to will strongly enough to draw his cheque
and all mankind is eager to carry out his wishes.
Architects, builders. gardeners i'm hundreds
w0rknen in tribes, are only too glad that he has
been graciOusly pleased to will. If he is a Euro
pean, there is hardly anything he cannot obtain,
and even time may. with adequate expenditure.
be made to give way. 1t is supposed
that the one thing unattainable is park if there
are no trees but Louis XIV. created park i'm a
bare plain, with old trees and verdure and silent
glades. in few weeks though at cost which.
it is said, daunted even him. The very rich
man must know this quite well, must be aware
that there is in him potent!ality Of patronage
greater than that of most ministers must recOy-
nize his own capacity for sudden and uneX-
planned acquisition; yet millienaires very rarely
do anything which at all interests the world or
rOuses its horror of the unusual. They are a
little obstinate, sometimes, about making
places. They will spend unheard of sums in
perfecting al interior, which would be
lar more perfect were much less money
wasted. They will collect, at great cost some
thing which, when collected. interests no one
but themselves. But they very rarely do
anything that is striking or magnificent
or even exceptionally odd Nobody in our DAYS
feeds horses out of gold, as Nero did, though
one man did build a set of pigsties of polished
mahOgany-and kept them polished. too. There
is, We believe, one noble in Europe whose daily
dinner is served in Spain as if he were present,
though he is absent in Russia; but that, though
it seems so bizarre. is not really exceptional
Scores of men keep up places in such cOndi-
ton that if they arrived without notice all
would be ready. though they know, as well as
thew know anything. that they are not going
there. The readiness gratifies some internal de-
sire to be free upon the subject of going or not,
and the money is not regarded Such freaks
pass unnoticed, unless the within costs some
thing which men with ordinary incomes
think great, and then the spenders are pro-
nounced half cracked. Some of our readers
know what it costs to keep steam yacht i'm
harbOr in such condition that on receipt of
a telegram steam can be got up, yet that is
done in more than one or two cases. 1t is or
may be atrOciOus waste, but it no more indi-
Gates mental alteration than the boat of the re-
washed. and ready, though nothing would in
duce its proprietor to enter it. The pressure Of
the Usual is felt by the milOnaires as much as
by everybody else. perhaps more So because
they have in our modern society such dislike
to be conspicuous, and such q self-distrust of
their own capability to be original 1t will be
from America. where fortunes are vast and in
dlvlduality respected, that We shall before long
import m'ili0naires with genuinely savage wills,
those OF the Duke Of Portland seem very tame