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But, for the most part, March was satisfied to read. He was proud of reading critically, and he kept in the current of literary interests and controversies. It all seemed to him, and to his wife at second-hand, very meritorious; he could not help contrasting his life and its inner elegance with that of other men who had no such resources. He thought that he was not arrogant about it, because he did full justice to the good qualities of those other people; he congratulated himself upon the democratic instincts which enabled him to do this; and neither he nor his wife supposed that they were selfish persons. On the contrary, they were very sympathetic; there was no good cause that they did not wish well; they had a generous scorn of all kinds of narrow-heartedness; if it had ever come into their way to sacrifice themselves for others, they thought they would have done so, but they never asked why it had not come in their way. They were very gentle and kind, even when most elusive; and they taught their children to loathe all manner of social cruelty. March was of so watchful a conscience in some respects that he denied himself the pensive pleasure of lapsing into the melancholy of unfulfilled aspirations; but he did not see that, if he had abandoned them, it had been for what he held dearer; generally he felt as if he had turned from them with a high, altruistic aim. The practical expression of his life was that it was enough to provide well for his family; to have cultivated tastes, and to gratify them to the extent of his means; to be rather distinguished, even in the simplification of his desires. He believed, and his wife believed, that if the time ever came when he really wished to make a sacrifice to the fulfilment of the aspirations so long postponed, she would be ready to join with heart and hand. When he went to her room from his library, where she left him the whole evening with the children, he found her before the glass thoughtfully removing the first dismantling pin from her back hair. "I cant help feeling," she grieved into the mirror, "that its I who keep you from accepting that offer. I know it is! I could go West with you, or into a new country--anywhere; but New York terrifies me. I dont like New York, I never did; it disheartens and distracts me; I cant find myself in it; I shouldnt know how to shop. I know Im foolish and narrow and provincial," she went on, "but I could never have any inner quiet in New York; I couldnt live in the spirit there. I suppose people do. It cant be that all these millions-- "Oh, not so bad as that!" March interposed, laughing. "There arent quite two." "I thought there were four or five. Well, no matter. You see what I am, Basil. Im terribly limited. I couldnt make my sympathies go round two million people; I should be wretched. I suppose Im standing in the way of your highest interest, but I cant help it. We took each other for better or worse, and you must try to bear with me--" She broke off and began to cry. "Stop it!" shouted March. "I tell you I never cared anything for Fulkersons scheme or entertained it seriously, and I shouldnt if hed proposed to carry it out in Boston." This was not quite true, but in the retrospect it seemed sufficiently so for the purposes of argument. "Dont say another word about it. The things over now, and I dont want to think of it any more. We couldnt change its nature if we talked all night. But I want you to understand that it isnt your limitations that are in the way. Its mine. I shouldnt have the courage to take such a place; I dont think Im fit for it, and thats the long and short of it." "Oh, you dont know how it hurts me to have you say that, Basil." The next morning, as they sat together at breakfast, without the children, whom they let lie late on Sunday, Mrs. March said to her husband, silent over his fish-balls and baked beans: "We will go to New York. Ive decided it." "Well, it takes two to decide that," March retorted. "We are not going to New York." "Yes, we are. Ive thought it out. Now, listen." "Oh, Im willing to listen," he consented, airily. "Youve always

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