This is a rather familiar story. Kane came from a blue blooded family with old wealth. Abel was an immigrant from Eastern Europe who clawed his way into the American dream.
While the two fathers had a misunderstanding that developed into a family feud, Kane's son and Abel's only daughter fell in love and eloped. Of course as epic stories went, Kane's son was handsome and intelligent. Abel's daughter was beautiful and had a flair for making millions(like her father) too.
The part of Abel's childhood, being an illegitimate baby brought up by a trapper's family who were on subsistence survival on estate land. I found that part of the feudal life eye opening. While the Baron owned land, buildings, gold and other forms of wealth, all other families living on the estate were equally poor as the hill tribe folks I saw in northern Thailand. That kind of poverty meant basic shelter, clean water miles away down hill, hardly enough to eat to keep body and soul together, probably one or two sets of basic clothing per person to cover nudity and family members having to share blankets if there was any in the family home.
The villages of aborigines in my country which I have visited are much more affluent in comparison. I suppose at every age there are hundreds of poor people found compared to one rich individual. Will civilization progresses further until more countries are like the northern European countries where the difference between the richest and the poorest is not so abysmal ?
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