on upon
his mind and heart.

One of the most distinguished men of the world to-day wrote me in praise
and protest concerning The Money Master. He declared that the first half
of the book was as good as anything that had been done by anybody,
and then he bemoaned the fact, which he believed, that the author had
sacrificed his two heroines without real cause and because he was tired
of them. There he was wrong. In the author's mind the story was planned
exactly as it worked out. He was never tired; he was resolute. He was
intent to produce, if possible, a figure which would breed and develop
its own disasters, which would suffer profoundly for its own mistakes;
but which, in the end, would triumph over the disasters of life and
time. It was all deliberate in the main intention and plan. Any failures
that exist in the book are due to the faults of the author, and to
nothing else.

Some critics have been good enough to call 'The Money Master' a
beautiful book, and there are many who said that it was real, true, and
faithful. Personally I think it is real and true, and as time goes on,
and we get older, that is what seems to matter to those who love life
and wish to see it well harvested.

I do not know what the future of the book may be; what the future of
any work of mine will be; but I can say this, that no one has had the
pleasure in reading my books which I have had in making them. They have
been ground out of the raw material of the soul. I have a hope that they
will outlast my brief day, but, in any case, it will not matter. They
have given me a chance of showing to the world life as I have seen it,
and indirectly, and perhaps indistinctly, my own ideas of that life.
'The Money Master' is a vivid and somewhat emotional part of it.

EPOCH THE FIRST

CHAPTER I. THE GRAND TOUR OF JEAN JACQUES BARBILLE

"Peace and plenty, peace and plenty"--that was the phrase M. Jean
Jacques Barbille, miller and moneymaster, applied to his home-scene,
when he was at the height of his career. Both winter and summer the
place had a look of content and comfort, even a kind of opulence. There
is nothing like a grove of pines to give a sense of warmth in winter
and an air of coolness in summer, so does the slightest breeze make the
pine-needles swish like the freshening sea. But to this scene, where
pines made a friendly background, there were added oak, ash, and hickory
trees, though in less quantity on the side of the riv