"
Here, to my great delight, Aristides spoke up:
"If the American practice were half as depraving as it ought logically to
be in their conditions, their social system would drop to pieces. It was
always astonishing to me that a people with their facilities for evil,
their difficulties for good, should remain so kind and just and pure."
"That is what I understood from your letters to me, my dear Aristides. I
am willing to leave the general argument for the present. But I should
like to ask Mr. Thrall a question, and I hope it won't be offensive."
Mr. Thrall smiled. "At any rate I promise not to be offended."
"You are a very rich man?"
"Much richer than I would like to be."
"How rich?"
"Seventy millions; eighty; a hundred; three hundred; I don't just know."
"I don't suppose you've always felt your great wealth a great blessing?"
"A blessing? There have been times when I felt it a millstone hanged
about my neck, and could have wished nothing so much as that I were
thrown into the sea.
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