Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1908-05-23
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destructive force in the son. But he
Y had inherited no sense of the respon-
sibilities of wealth; no school or col
4 lege had taught him how it was made,
= or that 1t was concentrated essence Of
labour, dangerous to spend without
! much thought, equally dangerous to
J keep and accumulate. An explosive
: in the hands of a boy, and that boy
playing with it in crowded thorough
fares.
| He could not see the danger Of
\ such concentrated wealth, either to
I himself or to the community which
had helped in its concentration; but
he could see great possibilities OF
personal enjoyment 1t would, Of
B course, take. careful planning. He
mapped off his life into sections: SO
1 many years for the lust of the flesh. so
Z many for the desire of the eye. LooS-
: Ing forward, he saw clearly that en-.
: joyment existed only in contrast. He
/ was a materialist born and bred; he
4 was as material as all his world will
be in few years, unless some great
D reaction sets in They say that the
Z worship instinct exists in everyone,
Vandraken worshipped the physical;
the spiritual had no meaning for him.
Something which was called concience
D bothered him, but he only regarded it
as an inconvenient survival from
Puritan days, much as the surgeon re-
Il CARDS the survival of the appendix;
that conscience was call from the
y spiritual world would have seemed
absurd to him.
Consequences were something to be
4 reckoned with, rocks to be carefully
navigated. The. appalling fact that
9 vast wealth carried no added capacity
: of enjoyment was another difficulty in
the way of mapping out his life. But
as his father and grandfather had
n overcome problems in the steel busi-
ness, he hoped to find way out Of
the circumscribed physical limits he
D found so annoying.
Z In the map of his future life the
( largest space was given up to mar
h riage; only it must be with his ideal
4 woman, and after he had created
background of stormy joys, as a con-
Z trast against which the calm Of mar
4 ried life would be peacefully restful.
= In the pride Of youth and wealth. he
thought that he could plan his life. He
Z m1stook the laughter of the gods for
: the smiles of the world.
Chapter III.
D Vandraken had not slept much after
a leaving Ancestors rooms He was
3 paying hundred pounds daily for his
h quarters, and there were thousands
= that night, in the doss-houses of Lon.
don, getting more sleep for twopence,
q Abdul Won Tarsenheim's letter had
4 taken firm grip on his imagination.
n Chimerical, fantastic, as the idea
9 seemed, he chung to the possibility of it
3 with both hands. He knew he would
q be laughed at for entertaining it-that
n niney-nine out of hundred would
= have regarded it as one more scheme
for trapping the willy millionaire. But
he also knew that it is not the ninety
: nine, but the one, who has always
d done the impossible in this worl.:.
e Hypnotism? Now, what could have
u seemed more unlikely than that, be-.
S fore it was demonstrated? The vast
a wealth his father had made SO quick
S ly men would have regarded as an
0 impossibility few years before A
q French novelist had once projected
s the idea of the possession of fab
s ulous fortune. For few years, peo-
y pie had said, What woncerous imagf-
Q nation And now-why, he himself
n could have bought up a dozen Monte
n Cristos and kept them for pets. He
n remembered his father saying to him
once, Anything which can be thought
Q of can be DONE" and the judgment of
} father who had made two hundred
$ millions is not to be despised.
= Vandraken was possessed with the
= idea Of spending, but had, as yet, no
= very clear idea of how he would go
= about it. He had come over to Eng
= land, believing it to contain more
= money-spending machinery than other
= countries. He felt the ferment Of
q youth working within him, urging him
= on to all manner of physical gratiff-
. cation; but that, he knew, would pass
:, after few years, and be replaced by
- other desires. Still, while that part
= Of his life lasted, he wanted to live
= = it to the utmost, SO that he could look
= back and see that, from his point of
:. view, as spender, those years had
!, not been wasted.
But spectre always sta1ked in upon
\, these dreams. 1t was picture OF
n himself as he would be after a few
d years of the life "a bloated, purple
faced creature, to whom women sold
= themselves with shudder; whose APP
y petites were nothing but habits;
whose nerves were so blunted that he
could no longer distinguish between
IS pleasure and pain, between the ugly
n and the beautiful. A creature so re-
II pulsive, that no matter how tired he
y got Of the life, he could never lead
a any other: win the love of some really
a nice girl, be the patron and promoter
r Of all that was best in art, literature,
q and the drama, be the best shot and
le the best rider Of his day, carry out a
. single one Of the plans for the next
- phase of his life.
10 (To be Continually
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