The fifth volume of A Hazard of New Fortunes opens not with action but with a residue: March feels "a feeling of impermanency" after the Lindau-Dryfoos dinner, and a "fantastic sense of shame toward Lindau." Howells immediately establishes a psychological aftermath, where the surface calm of Every Other Week conceals unresolved tensions. March's self-reproach—that he ought to have told Lindau about Dryfoos's ownership—is rendered with precise, uncomfortable honesty. The narrator notes March's "moments of revolt against his own humiliation," a phrase that captures the character's divided conscience. Mrs. March's resentment, directed at both Lindau and Dryfoos, adds a domestic dimension to the moral unease. This opening signals that the volume will dwell not on plot developments but on the quiet, corrosive effects of a crisis that has already passed.

The Weight of Unspoken Things

Howells builds the volume's tension through what is not said. March and Dryfoos never speak of Lindau's renunciation; March avoids Conrad, fearing he might be drawn into the son's differences with his father. Even the friendship between March and Fulkerson is shadowed: March notes "a want of their old perfect friendliness" and measures Fulkerson's character as "smaller than he could have wished." The prose lingers on these subtle deteriorations. March's inability to name his own convictions—"I don't know what they are"—underscores a central ambiguity. The narrative refuses to assign clear moral victory, instead tracing how a single event can quietly fray multiple relationships.

Fulkerson's Pragmatic Grief

Fulkerson's conversation with March after Conrad's death reveals a strikingly unsentimental view of loss. He muses that "you always can get along in this world without the man that is simply indispensable" and wonders at Providence's waste of "the raw material of all kinds." His immediate concern shifts to who will fill Conrad's place at the magazine. This is not callousness but a form of practical resilience. Howells lets Fulkerson voice a hard truth—that even the best and wisest are unnecessary to Providence—while March silently registers the discomfort of that thought. The dialogue moves from philosophical reflection to a practical question about Lindau's condition, linking the two threads of the volume.

The Hospital as Moral Stage

The hospital scenes concentrate the volume's ethical weight. March's daily visits to Lindau become a ritual of obligation; his decision to skip a day produces a "pang at heart" and the recognition that Lindau would never have left his side. Howells renders the setting with clinical spareness: the white canvas screen, the foreshortened patriarchal head, the sheet that "heaved." The young doctor's remark that Lindau "wouldn't have a clergyman—sort of agnostic" places the old German's convictions in a final, unyielding frame. The narrative does not sentimentalize death. Instead, it shows March confronting the limits of his own sympathy and the irreversibility of choices made.

Recurring Motifs: Money, Conviction, and Shame

Throughout the excerpts, money and conviction are repeatedly entangled. March feels shame that he "return Dryfoos's money as if it had been the spoil of a robber." Fulkerson recalls March's willingness to "kick the trough over" over Lindau's dismissal, yet March remains uncertain what his convictions actually were. The word "convictions" appears with ironic weight. Lindau's refusal of Dryfoos's money is the act that set the crisis in motion, and its echo persists. Howells uses these recurrences to suggest that moral positions are rarely clean; they are compromised by circumstance, pride, and the messy web of personal relationships. The volume's power lies in its refusal to resolve these tensions.

Readers approaching this volume should attend to Howells's method of indirection: the most significant events—Conrad's death, Lindau's decline—occur offstage or are reported in retrospect. The drama lies in the characters' internal adjustments, their half-spoken recognitions, and the slow erosion of easy certainties. March's journey through shame, doubt, and reluctant duty offers no catharsis, only a more complicated understanding of what it means to live with one's choices.