Words for the Wise by T. S. Arthur

Author:T. S. Arthur
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781634213585
Publisher: Duke Classics

Making Haste to Be Rich

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"CENT to cent, shilling to shilling, and dollar to dollar, slowly and steadily, like the progress of a mole in the earth! That may suit some, but it will never do for Sidney Lawrence. There is a quicker road to fortune than that, and I am the man to walk in it. 'Enterprise' is the word. Yes, enterprise, enterprise, enterprise! Nothing venture, nothing gain, is my motto."

"Slow and sure is the safer motto, my young friend, and if you will take my advice, you will be content to creep before you walk, and to walk before you run. The cent to cent and dollar to dollar system is the only sure one."

This was the language of an old merchant, who had made his fortune by the system he recommended, and was addressed to a young man just entering business with a capital of ten thousand dollars, the joint property of himself and an only sister.

Sidney Lawrence had been raised in a large mercantile establishment, that was doing an immense business and making heavy profits. But all its operations were based upon adequate capital and enlarged experience. When he commenced for himself, he could not brook the idea of keeping near the shore, like a little boat, and following its safer windings; he felt like launching out boldly into the ocean and reaching the desired haven by the quickest course. He wished to accumulate money rapidly, and believed that, on the capital he possessed, five or six thousand dollars a year might as easily be made as one thousand, if a man only had sufficient enterprise to push business vigorously. The careful, plodding course pursued by some, and strongly recommended to him, he despised. It was beneath a man of true business capacity.

"As I said before, nothing venture, nothing gain," replied Lawrence to the old merchant's good advice. "I am not content to eke out a thousand or two dollars every year, and, at the age of fifty or sixty, retire from business on a paltry twenty or thirty thousand dollars. I must get rich fast, or not at all."

"Remember the words of Solomon, my young friend," returned the merchant. "'He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.' Among all the sayings of the wise man, there is not one truer than that. I have been in business for thirty years, and have seen the rise and fall of a good many 'enterprising' men, who were in a hurry to get rich. Their history is an instructive lesson to all who will read it. Some got rich, or at least appeared to get rich, in a very short space of time. They grew up like mushrooms in a night. But they were gone as quickly. I can point you to at least twenty elegant mansions, built by such men in their heyday of prosperity, that soon passed into other hands. And I can name to you half a dozen and more, who, when reverses

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