Michael Shnayerson

In the Eisenhower era, when earnings over $400,000 were subject to 91 percent taxes and the world was a smaller place, you could count the truly wealthy on one hand: Getty, Dupont, Mellon, Rockefeller, though even those fortunes were being dispersed to children as the old robber barons died off.

For rather particular reasons, the interior-design industry moved more quickly than fashion to cope with AIDS. One reason is that it is made up of generally smaller businesses than fashion. The human losses were more quickly noticed.

If a man made himself an expert in any particular branch of human activity, there would result the strong tendency that a peculiar aptitude towards the same branch would be found among some of his descendants.