The Gilded Age


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CHAPTER XII  
"
"
"
Oh, it's easy enough to make a fortune," Henry said.  
It seems to be easier than it is, I begin to think," replied Philip.  
Well, why don't you go into something? You'll never dig it out of the  
Astor Library."  
If there be any place and time in the world where and when it seems easy  
to "go into something" it is in Broadway on a spring morning, when one is  
walking city-ward, and has before him the long lines of palace-shops with  
an occasional spire seen through the soft haze that lies over the lower  
town, and hears the roar and hum of its multitudinous traffic.  
To the young American, here or elsewhere, the paths to fortune are  
innumerable and all open; there is invitation in the air and success in  
all his wide horizon. He is embarrassed which to choose, and is not  
unlikely to waste years in dallying with his chances, before giving  
himself to the serious tug and strain of a single object. He has no  
traditions to bind him or guide him, and his impulse is to break away  
from the occupation his father has followed, and make a new way for  
himself.  
Philip Sterling used to say that if he should seriously set himself for  
ten years to any one of the dozen projects that were in his brain, he  
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Page
119 120 121 122 123

Quick Jump
1 170 341 511 681