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“Just remember, ‘Have more than thou showest.’” “‘Speak less than thou knowest.’”
Lend less than thou owest.’”
Lillian, may I introduce my uncle, Mr. George Washington Vanderbilt II.
So, then: here was Mr. George Washington Vanderbilt II. Intellectual. Shy. And unafraid of strong women.
If the meek could inherit the earth, maybe the kind could capture the truth.
Like everyone else, he might’ve sold out to Vanderbilt by now.
“I learned early in life, child: don’t never say never.”
She and drunken stupors and death were none of them strangers.
“Biltmore,” he said aloud. And then, for Nico’s amusement, he added, “The place of work—and the home—of the gifted Salvatore Francis Catalfamo and Nicholas Peter Catalfamo. Sicilians. Poets. Horsemen. Gentlemen.” He paused. “E fuorilegge. Al tuo servizio.” And outlaws. At your service.
Books will remind you, Miss Hopson had said, you can make of your life what you want it to be.
“Two hundred and fifty rooms,
“Forty-three bathrooms. And what a display of innate talent and taste.”
“Twelve thousand square feet, Lil, in the stables alone.
Mountains and art and philanthropy were all roads to their host’s heart.
“More than ten thousand volumes,” Emily was announcing. “That’s what it will hold when it’s finished
He’s had most of them rebound to match in their literary series and groups. Things like that matter to George.”
Whereas books, once read, become fully a part of us.”
The others pressed forward into the library’s center to study the painting on the ceiling. “The Chariot of Aurora,” their host was saying, “by Pellegrini.
I believe I’d have stayed in Florence forever, surrounded only by art and the River Arno—had I not already found these mountains. My own canvas.”
“Ah. Well, then. Welcome also to the most beautiful mountains in the world.
“The insides,” Rema liked to muse, “is what the good Lord signifies by—
the heart. Most other folks, though, calculate by the outsides. So if you’re wanting to get on in this world, you got to smooth out the packaging some.”
remember, please, that mountain people should be allowed their dignity.”
But Kerry allowed her first thought, bitter as ginger root, to go where most first thoughts should go: unsaid.
Skimmed off to leave something kinder beneath.
There’s days for wings like eagles, but most of life’s just the walking and trying not to faint facedown in the mud.”
skedaddle on back.
“It’s part of the role mountains play in our lives. To make us feel small. Humbled.”
But surely you’re not suggesting people are poor because they’re genetically inferior.”
Mrs. Smythe pivoted. “Innocent until proven guilty. With just one exception.” “Which is?” “If that person’s a man, the opposite should be assumed.” Chapter 20
“Reckon none of us live past thirteen without something we wish we’d lived better.”
“So John Cabot and I had already connected over our mutual interests in philanthropy.
What a gift to be young, Kerry thought. To not envy the glittering Biltmore and its acres of rooms. To not worry about how you’ll be eating or where you’ll be sleeping tomorrow. To just enjoy the moment, the snow, the beauty, the bells.
“You strike me as a person of great compassion. I suspect you’ve seen your own share of loss. All people of real compassion have, I believe.” He turned. They looked at each other across the flickering dark. “Losses change us. I’ve become a much less jovial man. Less . . . fun, I’m afraid, to be around.” One end of his mouth attempted a smile. “But I hope I’ve become a kinder, more compassionate
man without fortune than I was with.”
You’re not just a silly, self-important, ignorant man. You’re a lethally ignorant one.”
And the part that had been hardened against her father for years broke fully open now—not in forgiveness, not yet, but in raw, unguarded sorrow.
Some of them openly weeping. Not for Johnny Mac, Kerry suspected, so much as the strange and disturbing injustice of grace.
it was like a burial of our whole family. Our pride.” Rema shook her head. “Can’t nobody bury your pride but you. You just recollect that, hear?
The Biltmore Estate, still owned by George Vanderbilt’s descendants, remains the largest private residence in the United States and has become one of the largest employers and tourist destinations in the Asheville, North Carolina, area.
Dog-loving readers will be pleased to learn that the four-legged character Cedric, the faithful, drooling Saint Bernard, is based on the historical canine, and was beloved by George Vanderbilt. A pub in Antler Village on Biltmore Estate is named in Cedric’s honor.
Did it surprise you to learn or be reminded that people of Southern Italian and Chinese descent were among the groups discriminated against in the 1890s?
