"Well, then, if you mean to make a fortune quickly, you must either be
rich to begin with, or make people believe that you are rich. It is no
use playing here except for high stakes; once take to low play, it is
all up with you. If in the scores of professions that are open to you,
there are ten men who rise very rapidly, people are sure to call them
thieves. You can draw your own conclusions. Such is life. It is no
cleaner than a kitchen; it reeks like a kitchen; and if you mean to
cook your dinner, you must expect to soil your hands; the real art is
in getting them clean again, and therein lies the whole morality of
our epoch. If I take this tone in speaking of the world to you, I have
the right to do so; I know it well. Do you think that I am blaming it?
Far from it; the world has always been as it is now. Moralists'
strictures will never change it. Mankind are not perfect, but one age
is more or less hypocritical than another, and then simpletons say
that its morality is high or low. I do not think that the rich are any
worse than the poor; man is much the same, high or low, or wherever he
is. In a million of these human cattle there may be half a score of
bold spirits who rise above the rest, above the laws; I am one of
them. And you, if you are cleverer than your fellows, make straight to
your end, and hold your head high. But you must lay your account with
envy and slander and mediocrity, and every man's hand will be against
you. Napoleon met with a Minister of War, Aubry by name, who all but
sent him to the colonies.

"Feel your pulse. Think whether you can get up morning after morning,
strengthened in yesterday's purpose. In that case I will make you an
offer that no one would decline. Listen attentively. You see, I have
an idea of my own. My idea is to live a patriarchal life on a vast
estate, say a hundred thousand acres, somewhere in the Southern States