"I do not mean to grow poetic, True, but I have always
thought about such a place as that, and to me it has seemed
just as I have tried to make it appear to you. I know you
will understand, too, and your artist fancy will conceive
things of which I do not even dream. I never hoped that it
could be possible for me to realize this vision, though it
has always been very near my heart, and once I even spoke
about it to papa. But then, he isn't rich like that, and,
besides, our family is large and the boys have to be started
in life.
"I was perfectly crazy at first to tell papa about the 'cash
for names' plan, and should have done so if you hadn't
pledged me to solemn secrecy. Of course, I know how
dangerous it would be for any other paper to find it out
before you get started, but I know papa would not tell a
soul if I told him not to. Only I am glad now that I
couldn't, for he is so conservative, you know, in his
business methods that I am sure he would have laughed at the
plan, and perhaps proved to me in some way that it wasn't
practical-- I mean, of course, he might have _made me_
believe it wasn't practical, for he knows so much about
business and is always so matter-of-fact that I can't argue
with him at all. Then I should have been discouraged and
uneasy, instead of overflowing with happiness and dreams.
"I am glad you are going to have a good man to solicit
advertising right away; and how fine it is that he can get
those cash contracts before the paper starts, so you can
have ample means right from the first! It all seems so
simple and easy now that I wonder people have not done these
things long ago. But it is always that way--the simple
things are the great ones and the last to be found out. It
isn't often, either, that those who discover them get the
benefit, and that seems too bad; but it is a comfort to feel
that at last genius is to have its just reward, especially
when it is the genius of those near and dear to us, and when
through it so many others will be benefited and made happy,
too.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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