Quickness of mind, subtlety of idea, fortuitousness of opportunity, made it possible for some people to right their matrimonial and social infelicities; whereas for others, because of dullness of wit, thickness of comprehension, poverty, and lack of charm, there was no escape from the slough of their despond.

They were compelled by some devilish accident of birth or lack of force or resourcefulness to stew in their own juice of wretchedness, or to shuffle off this mortal coil--which under other circumstances had such glittering possibilities--via the rope, the knife, the bullet, or the cup of poison.
"I would die, too," he thought to himself, one day, reading of a man who, confined by disease and poverty, had lived for twelve years alone in a back bedroom attended by an old and probably decrepit housekeeper.
A darning-needle forced into his heart had ended his earthly woes.

"To the devil with such a life! Why twelve years?
Why not at the end of the second or third ?" Again, it was so very evident, in so many ways, that force was the answer--great mental and physical force.

Why, these giants of commerce and money could do as they pleased in this life, and did.

He had already had ample local evidence of it in more than one direction.