A Hazard of New Fortunes · Chapter
XII explained
March visits Lindau in his impoverished tenement room, where they discuss Lindau's deliberate choice to live among the poor to avoid forgetting their suffering.
What happens
March visits Lindau in his impoverished tenement room, where they discuss Lindau's deliberate choice to live among the poor to avoid forgetting their suffering. March offers Lindau translation work for the new magazine, and Lindau accepts, though he expresses radical views on wealth and injustice.
Themes in this chapter
Social Class and Mobility
Lindau's deliberate move to a poor tenement highlights the chasm between social classes and his rejection of upward mobility.
Capitalism and Moral Compromise
Lindau's tirade against millionaires and his critique of 'giving work' as a form of exploitation embody the moral conflicts of capitalism.
Labor and Social Justice
Lindau's radical views on the injustice of wealth and his identification with the poor reflect themes of labor and social justice.
Characters to notice
- Basil March
Visits Lindau in his tenement, offers him translation work, and engages in philosophical debate about wealth and poverty.
- Mr. Lindau
Living in a poor tenement by choice to stay connected to the poor; accepts translation work but criticizes capitalism and millionaires.
Key passages
“No man deserves to suffer at the hands of another. I lose myself when I think of the injustice in the world. But I must not forget that I am like the worst of them.”
Lindau says no one should cause another to suffer, and he becomes overwhelmed by the world's injustice, but reminds himself he is no better than the worst offenders.
Lindau expresses his radical egalitarian philosophy and self-awareness of his own fallibility.
“I was begoming a ploated aristograt. I thought I was nodt like these beople down here, when I gome down once to look aroundt; I thought I must be somethings else, and zo I zaid I better take myself in time, and I gome here among my brothers—the beccars and the thiefs!”
Lindau explains he moved to the tenement because he felt he was becoming an aristocrat and forgetting the poor, so he chose to live among beggars and thieves to stay humble.
Lindau's deliberate descent into poverty reflects his commitment to solidarity with the oppressed.
“Not the most gifted man that ever lived, in the practice of any art or science, and paid at the highest rate that exceptional genius could justly demand from those who have worked for their money, could ever earn a million dollars.”
Lindau argues that no artist, scientist, or genius could honestly earn a million dollars; only exploiters like landlords and industrialists can amass such wealth.
Lindau's critique of wealth accumulation as inherently exploitative.