A Social Meteor — page 142: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

132 A SOCIAL METEOR. Peter shook his head solemnly. “Vou’re wrong, my dear boy, dead wrong,” he said. “If your conscience troubles you, travel; change of scene will often work wonders with that demon commonly called the blues. Send the ungrateful youngster away from home; re- fuse to pay his debts, and then if he doesn’t mend his ways, disinherit him and try to forget that he ever existed. As for the wife who has no respect for you, why, get a divorce from her, and consider yourself lucky to be rid of her. All this you can do with money. If misfortune comes to you and you are rich, a hundred comforters rise up to console you. But if you are poor, what then? You may weep until you are blind, for all any one cares—you’re of no importance in the world, and are unable to feed and amuse society, so why should society bother its head about you or your woes? If you’ve once moved within its sacred precincts, and it still remembers you, it may pos- sibly cast you a pitying glance and tell you it sympathizes with you, but does it help you? Oh, no, it wraps itself up in its purple and fine linen, and gently but firmly pushes you out of its way, for there are so many whom it must look after, that it has no time to waste upon you. It no EMLMICLOOO|KSn(E©