Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie
Autobiography of Andrew
Carnegie

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Title: Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie
Author: Andrew Carnegie
Editor: John C. Van Dyke
Release Date: March 13, 2006 [EBook #17976]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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AUTOBIOGRAPHY

OF
ANDREW CARNEGIE
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
[Illustration: [signature] Andrew Carnegie]
London CONSTABLE & CO. LIMITED 1920
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY LOUISE WHITFIELD CARNEGIE ALL
RIGHTS RESERVED

PREFACE
After retiring from active business my husband yielded to the earnest
solicitations of friends, both here and in Great Britain, and began to jot
down from time to time recollections of his early days. He soon found,
however, that instead of the leisure he expected, his life was more
occupied with affairs than ever before, and the writing of these
memoirs was reserved for his play-time in Scotland. For a few weeks
each summer we retired to our little bungalow on the moors at
Aultnagar to enjoy the simple life, and it was there that Mr. Carnegie
did most of his writing. He delighted in going back to those early times,
and as he wrote he lived them all over again. He was thus engaged in
July, 1914, when the war clouds began to gather, and when the fateful
news of the 4th of August reached us, we immediately left our retreat in
the hills and returned to Skibo to be more in touch with the situation.
These memoirs ended at that time. Henceforth he was never able to
interest himself in private affairs. Many times he made the attempt to
continue writing, but found it useless. Until then he had lived the life of
a man in middle life--and a young one at that--golfing, fishing,
swimming each day, sometimes doing all three in one day. Optimist as
he always was and tried to be, even in the face of the failure of his
hopes, the world disaster was too much. His heart was broken. A severe
attack of influenza followed by two serious attacks of pneumonia

precipitated old age upon him.
It was said of a contemporary who passed away a few months before
Mr. Carnegie that "he never could have borne the burden of old age."
Perhaps the most inspiring part of Mr. Carnegie's life, to those who
were privileged to know it intimately, was the way he bore his "burden
of old age." Always patient, considerate, cheerful, grateful for any little
pleasure or service, never thinking of himself, but always of the
dawning of the better day, his spirit ever shone brighter and brighter
until "he was not, for God took him."
Written with his own hand on the fly-leaf of his manuscript are these
words: "It is probable that material for a small volume might be
collected from these memoirs which the public would care to read, and
that a private and larger volume might please my relatives and friends.
Much I have written from time to time may, I think, wisely be omitted.
Whoever arranges these notes should be careful not to burden the
public with too much. A man with a heart as well as a head should be
chosen."
Who, then, could so well fill this description as our friend Professor
John C. Van Dyke? When the manuscript was shown to him, he
remarked, without having read Mr. Carnegie's notation, "It would be a
labor of love to prepare this for publication." Here, then, the choice was
mutual, and the manner in which he has performed this "labor" proves
the wisdom of the choice--a choice made and carried out in the name of
a rare and beautiful friendship.
LOUISE WHITFIELD CARNEGIE
New York April 16, 1920

EDITOR'S NOTE
The story of a man's life, especially when it is told by the man himself,
should not be interrupted by the hecklings of an editor. He should be
allowed to tell the tale in his own way, and enthusiasm, even

extravagance in recitation should be received as a part of the story. The
quality of the man may underlie exuberance of spirit, as truth may be
found in apparent exaggeration. Therefore, in preparing these chapters
for publication the editor has done little more than arrange the material
chronologically and sequentially so that the narrative might run on
unbrokenly to the end. Some footnotes by way of explanation, some
illustrations that offer sight-help to the text, have been added;
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