Britain's medium-term prosperity and status is at stake.
They commissioned such works to show off to their neighbours, or maybe even simply to delight themselves with their prosperity and status.
It is crazy, for example, that people have to build their careers at the same time that their children are young; that lifetime prosperity and status hinge so crucially on the effort of a few years.
In addition, attainment of these ends depends in part on external factors such as health, material prosperity, social status, or even good looks or sheer luck.
In a keynote speech later, he said Russians "will recognise that they cannot achieve security, prosperity and status... through brute force".
Reading "The Sticky Ladder," one would assume that America had always been -- until recently -- a land where hard work and talent were rewarded with prosperity and social status.
"With time, so long as we remain united, the Russian people will recognise that they cannot achieve the security, prosperity and the status that they seek through brute force," he said.
Foley considers these far beneath his talents and would rather devote himself to creating a portfolio of cherub lamps that will enable him "before long to escape from his servitude to the pixies and the wheel of seasons, into prosperity and enhanced status".
"The peony is still a popular motif because it is a symbol of so many good things: it brings prosperity and high social status," Ms. Chang said.
The descendant of Revolutionary War heroes on both sides, Melville was born in 1819 to a status and prosperity that abruptly vanished when his father failed in business.
