Explore "The Noise of the World" by Adriana Spadoni on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It was a few weeks after the Mitchell dinner that Roger came back to the office one afternoon to find Hilary Wainwright pacing up and down in a frank perplexity that he did not often permit himself to show; although, as the months had passed, Roger had come to feel very keenly that Hilary Wainwright, who never doubted his own point of view on a business matter, was growing more and more uncertain of his former enthusiasm for carrying out what he always called "the responsibilities of wealth."
Hilary Wainwright had been born to wealth, in a generation that had begun to question the right of such inheritance. Roger had always felt that Hilary was glad of this generation, which permitted him to enjoy his wealth, and, at the same time, by discussing his right to it, admitted him to the inner circle of intellectuals who doubt and lead civilization. He owned vast shipping interests, many sugar plantations in Hawaii and was often called upon by other capitalists to arbitrate their difficulties with labor. He went to strike meetings in a limousine.