主题：【新年献礼】E舅公的故事：你们不让我当老大很久了 -- wqnsihs

Speaking about the so called the nobles of USA, I remembered my tour of Biltmore a few years ago, and all that I saw and heard over there, as well as my thoughts about the Vanderbilts then and now.

Even in a wealthy and prosperious country like the US, very few families would surpass the Vanderbilts -- the railroads, the steel mills, the university, and even the national Bridge tournament (ACBL Championship team matches) Vanderbilt Cup.

And fortunately, we have the Biltmore House to visit, and we are able to see what it's like at the full bloom of the Gilded Age. (Usually the so called old money lives quite seclusively, for example, the many fine estates in Hudson Vally are not for the "little people" such as you and me to see).

From what I saw in Ashville that giant house of the Vanderbilts, the impression I have is not quite as Mang zong said about the nobles, none of the confidence, none of the peace of mind from deep self awareness. Rather, I saw a family of entrenched loneliness and insecure and uncertain of who they are and what they want.

They sure have things of antiquity -- the rugs of midieval castles, the chess that once owned and played by Napoloen, so on and so forth. And they have spare no cost of construct a nest of creature comfort -- the state of the art kitchen and full restaurant scale meals preparing and serving system, the full spectrum of indoor exercise and sports facility that you can dream of, including a full size in door swimming pool in the basement.

However, the pictures of the family of three -- Dad, Mom, and the later famous little Gloria, situated in the almost Cathedral sized living room, tells a story of gloomy lonesomeness. The very idea of building the largest family house in the country, according to certain rumor, is the wife of Mr. Vanderbilt (well, the son of the original capitalist who made the Vanderbilt fortune and estate) cannot bear to live under the same roof of her mother in law. And there lives only the three of them in this giant house, surrounded by hundreds of servents. And inside this castle, Mr and Mrs Vanderbilt each has his or her tower and a full set of suites of master bedroom and living rooms, and the two suites are quite apart form each other.

The loneliness of the family is more evident as I tour the quarters for the so called "family friends" -- they have full size bed rooms and living areas for each and every single one of the several dozen "friends" they invite to stay with them over the year, especially at the holiday times, on days like Thanksgiving. The "friends" are so well taken care of that when they go exercise or playing sports games, each of them have their individual locker rooms right beside the sports area of the house. Quite a few of the famous painters, writers at the time are among the "friends" that frequent the estate. We still can see the fairly impressive painting and frescos on basement walls by these friends on topics like Halloween and other things.

The urge of getting dozens and dozens of "friends" that money can buy, IMHO, greatly maginified the loneliness the family experienced, that even casual visitors like us can very easily see after 60, 70 years.