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Updated: May 26, 2025
The same generation habitually addicted to cursing the memory of Jay Gould, and taunting his children and grandchildren with the reminders of his thefts, speaks with traditional respect of the wealth of such families as the Astors and the Vanderbilts.
Regis and the Gotham, he favoured the great hostelries with contemplative, calculating eyes; he even looked with speculative envy upon the mansions of the Astors, the Vanderbilts and the Huntingtons. She was born and reared in a house of vast dimensions. Even the Vanderbilt places were puny in comparison. His reflections carried him back to the Plaza.
"As soon as ever this Vanderbilt Injun stiffens his hand with the hearse, he comes troopin' back to camp with it, himse'f on the box drivin', an' puttin' on enough of lordly dog to make a pack of hounds. Which he shorely squelches the Astors; they jest simply lay down an' wept at sech grandeur. Their Rockaway ain't one, two, three, ain't in the money.
The Astors are distinguished for their literary ability; William Waldorf Astor and his cousin, John Jacob, are authors of great merit. The Lees, of Virginia, have ever been distinguished for energy, intellect, and a capacity for hard work. And so we might cite a hundred examples to prove that even in America, want is not the greatest incentive to effort.
No one but the Astors themselves know what are their holdings in bonds and stocks of every description. It is safe to venture the opinion that their fortune far exceeds $450,000,000. Their surplus wealth piles up so fast that a large part of it is incessantly being invested in buying more land.
Thus, like the Astors and other rich landholders, partly by investments made in trade, and largely by fraud, the Goelets finally became not only great landlords but sharers in the centralized ownership of the country's transportation systems and industries.
But I should just like to take him round in this little old metropolis awhile, and show him 'Every Other Week' on the centre tables of the millionaires the Vanderbilts and the Astors and in the homes of culture and refinement everywhere, and let him judge for himself.
It's words more than warts, talk more than talcum, palaver more than powder, blarney more than bloom that counts the phonograph instead of the photograph. But I was going to tell you. "The local Astors put me and Fergus up at the Centipede Club, a frame building built on posts sunk in the surf. The tide's only nine inches.
"It was a crazy thing, but John had really persuaded him, and John was too young to have any judgment. But he said the Astors were buying up there, and land was almost given away." "I don't know what it's good for," declared Aunt Frasie. "Why it'll be forty years before the city'll go out there. Well, it may be good for his grandchildren." They all gave a little laugh.
Conant were very happy. He announced their engagement at the Hotel Orilla del Mar. Eight foreigners and four native Astors pounded his back and shouted insincere congratulations at him. Pedrito, the Castilian-mannered barkeep, was goaded to extra duty until his agility would have turned a Boston cherry-phosphate clerk a pale lilac with envy. They were both very happy.
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