Talk about cheering up the poor: I think the rich are usually far more in need of it! But I couldn't keep the conversation in these delightful channels.
Evidently the strike and all that it meant lay heavy upon Mr.Vedder's consciousness, for he pushed back his coffee and began talking about it, almost in a tone of apology.

He told me how kind he had tried to make the mill management in its dealings with its men.
"I would not speak of it save in explanation of our true attitude of helpfulness; but we have really given our men many advantages"-- and he told me of the reading-room the company had established, of the visiting nurse they had employed, and of several other excellent enterprises, which gave only another proof of what I knew already of Mr.Vedder's sincere kindness of heart.
"But," he said, "we find they don't appreciate what we try to do for them." I laughed outright.
"Why," I exclaimed, "you are having the same trouble I have had!" "How's that ?" he inquired, I thought a little sharply.

Men don't like to have their seriousness trifled with.
"No longer ago than this morning," I said, "I had exactly that idea of giving them advantages; but I found that the difficulty lies not with the ability to give, but with the inability or unwillingness to take.
You see I have a great deal of surplus wealth myself--" Mr.Vedder's eyes flickered up at me.
"Yes," I said.

"I've got immense accumulations of the wealth of the ages--ingots of Emerson and Whitman, for example, gems of Voltaire, and I can't tell what other superfluous coinage!" (And I waved my hand in the most grandiloquent manner.) "I've also quite a store of knowledge of corn and calves and cucumbers, and I've a boundless domain of exceedingly valuable landscapes.

I am prepared to give bountifully of all these varied riches (for I shall still have plenty remaining), but the fact is that this generation of vipers doesn't appreciate what I am trying to do for them.