““Yes, he scorned his family’s decadent ways, but perhaps that wasn’t so much about the money per se , but rather the wastefulness of it; the lack of energy and drive it represented, as if the Ransomes were—like that postmodern throng of the famous-for-being-famous set—some odd collection of spoiled Emperor-brats walking a red carpet without any discernible talent to clothe them. The things the Ransomes—and their once-large fortune—could have accomplished . . . they could have changed the world, or at least impacted it in positive ways.””
