Cites Folly of Worrying

1917

Retired Business Man Offers Some Good, Homely Philosophy Based on Long Experience

A retired business man now living in a soldiers' home writes the following letter to a friend in the dry goods market, and its homely philosophy and confidence will be found refreshing:

"Since I saw you I have entered on my seventy-seventh year. My experience has taught me the folly of worrying over events I cannot control. I have much reason for gratitude, as I have been allowed to live long. My lines are cast in pleasant places, and that is more than many a millionaire can truly say. I have little sympathy for people who mourn their former prosperity, just making themselves miserable and their hearers uncomfortable.

"My five months' captivity in a rebel prison showed me how little, after all, a person requires to be perfectly happy and contented. One good square meal to the prisoners would have converted the prison yard into a picnic grove. . . . Even if you may meet with ingratitude, your kind deed is recorded somewhere, and will be remembered. I must stop prosing, perhaps you will think I am getting into my dotage." — New York Journal of Commerce and Commercial Bulletin.