Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie
Carnegies to move to that town.]
My Grandfather Carnegie was well known throughout the district for his
wit and humor, his genial nature and irrepressible spirits. He was
head of the lively ones of his day, and known far and near as the
chief of their joyous club--"Patiemuir College." Upon my return to
Dunfermline, after an absence of fourteen years, I remember being
approached by an old man who had been told that I was the grandson of
the "Professor," my grandfather's title among his cronies. He was the
very picture of palsied eld;
"His nose and chin they threatened ither."
As he tottered across the room toward me and laid his trembling hand
upon my head he said: "And ye are the grandson o' Andra Carnegie! Eh,
mon, I ha'e seen the day when your grandfaither and I could ha'e
hallooed ony reasonable man oot o' his jidgment."
Several other old people of Dunfermline told me stories of my
grandfather. Here is one of them:
One Hogmanay night[2] an old wifey, quite a character in the
village, being surprised by a disguised face suddenly thrust in at the
window, looked up and after a moment's pause exclaimed, "Oh, it's jist
that daft callant Andra Carnegie." She was right; my grandfather at
seventy-five was out frightening his old lady friends, disguised like
other frolicking youngsters.
[Footnote 2: The 31st of December.]
I think my optimistic nature, my ability to shed trouble and to laugh
through life, making "all my ducks swans," as friends say I do, must
have been inherited from this delightful old masquerading grandfather
whose name I am proud to bear.[3] A sunny disposition is worth more
than fortune. Young people should know that it can be cultivated; that
the mind like the body can be moved from the shade into sunshine. Let
us move it then. Laugh trouble away if possible, and one usually can
if he be anything of a philosopher, provided that self-reproach comes
not from his own wrongdoing. That always remains. There is no washing
out of these "damned spots." The judge within sits in the supreme
court and can never be cheated. Hence the grand rule of life which
Burns gives:
"Thine own reproach alone do fear."
[Footnote 3: "There is no sign that Andrew, though he prospered in his
wooing, was specially successful in acquisition of worldly gear.
Otherwise, however, he became an outstanding character not only in the
village, but in the adjoining city and district. A 'brainy' man who
read and thought for himself he became associated with the radical
weavers of Dunfermline, who in Patiemuir formed a meeting-place which
they named a college (Andrew was the 'Professor' of it)." (_Andrew
Carnegie: His Dunfermline Ties and Benefactions_, by J.B. Mackie,
F.J.I.)]
This motto adopted early in life has been more to me than all the
sermons I ever heard, and I have heard not a few, although I may admit
resemblance to my old friend Baillie Walker in my mature years. He was
asked by his doctor about his sleep and replied that it was far from
satisfactory, he was very wakeful, adding with a twinkle in his eye:
"But I get a bit fine doze i' the kirk noo and then."
On my mother's side the grandfather was even more marked, for my
grandfather Thomas Morrison was a friend of William Cobbett, a
contributor to his "Register," and in constant correspondence with
him. Even as I write, in Dunfermline old men who knew Grandfather
Morrison speak of him as one of the finest orators and ablest men they
have known. He was publisher of "The Precursor," a small edition it
might be said of Cobbett's "Register," and thought to have been the
first radical paper in Scotland. I have read some of his writings, and
in view of the importance now given to technical education, I think
the most remarkable of them is a pamphlet which he published
seventy-odd years ago entitled "Head-ication versus Hand-ication." It
insists upon the importance of the latter in a manner that would
reflect credit upon the strongest advocate of technical education
to-day. It ends with these words, "I thank God that in my youth I
learned to make and mend shoes." Cobbett published it in the
"Register" in 1833, remarking editorially, "One of the most valuable
communications ever published in the 'Register' upon the subject, is
that of our esteemed friend and correspondent in Scotland, Thomas
Morrison, which appears in this issue." So it seems I come by my
scribbling propensities by inheritance--from both sides, for the
Carnegies were also readers and thinkers.
My Grandfather Morrison was a born orator, a keen politician, and the
head of the advanced wing of the radical party in the district--a
position which his son, my Uncle Bailie Morrison, occupied as his
successor. More than one well-known Scotsman in America has called
upon me, to shake hands with "the grandson of Thomas Morrison." Mr.
Farmer, president of the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroad Company,
once said to me, "I owe all that I have of learning and culture to the
influence of your grandfather"; and Ebenezer Henderson, author of the
remarkable history of Dunfermline, stated that he largely owed his
advancement in life to the fortunate fact that while a boy he entered
my grandfather's service.
I have not passed so far through life without receiving some
compliments, but I think nothing of a complimentary character has ever
pleased me so much as this from a writer in a Glasgow newspaper, who
had been a listener to a speech on Home Rule in America which I
delivered in Saint Andrew's Hall. The correspondent wrote that much
was then being said in Scotland with regard to myself and family and
especially my grandfather Thomas Morrison, and he went on to say,
"Judge my surprise when I found in the grandson on the platform, in
manner, gesture and appearance, a perfect _facsimile_ of the Thomas
Morrison of old."
My surprising likeness to my grandfather, whom I do not remember to
have ever seen, cannot be doubted, because I remember well upon my
first return to Dunfermline in my twenty-seventh year, while sitting
upon a sofa with my Uncle Bailie Morrison, that his big black eyes
filled with tears. He could not speak and rushed out of the room
overcome. Returning after a time he explained that something in me now
and then flashed before him his father, who would instantly vanish but
come back at intervals. Some gesture it was, but what precisely he
could not make out. My mother continually noticed in me some of my
grandfather's peculiarities. The doctrine of inherited tendencies is
proved every day and hour, but how subtle is the law which transmits
gesture, something as it were beyond the material body. I was deeply
impressed.
My Grandfather Morrison married Miss Hodge, of Edinburgh, a lady in
education, manners, and position, who died while the family was still
young. At this time he was in good circumstances, a leather merchant
conducting the tanning business in Dunfermline; but the peace after
the Battle of Waterloo involved him in ruin, as it did thousands; so
that while my Uncle Bailie, the eldest son, had been brought up in
what might be termed luxury, for he had a pony to ride, the younger
members of the family encountered other and harder days.
The second daughter, Margaret, was my mother, about whom I cannot
trust myself to speak at length. She inherited from her mother the
dignity, refinement, and air of the cultivated lady. Perhaps some day
I may be able to tell the world something of this heroine, but I doubt
it. I feel her to be sacred to myself and not for others to know. None
could ever really know her--I alone did that. After my father's early
death she was all my own. The dedication of my first book[4] tells the
story. It was: "To my favorite Heroine My Mother."
[Footnote 4: _An American Four-in-Hand in Great Britain._ New York,
1888.]
Fortunate in my ancestors I was supremely so in my birthplace. Where
one is born is very important, for different surroundings and
traditions appeal to and stimulate different latent tendencies in the
child. Ruskin truly observes that every bright boy in Edinburgh is
influenced by the sight of the Castle. So is the child of Dunfermline,
by its noble Abbey, the Westminster of Scotland, founded early in the
eleventh century (1070) by Malcolm Canmore and his Queen Margaret,
Scotland's patron saint. The ruins of the great monastery and of
the Palace where kings were born still stand, and there, too, is
Pittencrieff Glen, embracing Queen Margaret's shrine and the ruins of
King Malcolm's Tower, with which the old ballad of "Sir Patrick Spens"
begins:
"The King sits in Dunfermline _tower_,[5]
Drinking the bluid red wine."
[Footnote 5: _The Percy Reliques_ and _The Oxford Book of Ballads_
give "town" instead of "tower"; but Mr. Carnegie insisted that it
should be "tower."]
The tomb of The Bruce is in the center of the Abbey, Saint Margaret's
tomb is near, and many of the "royal folk" lie sleeping close around.
Fortunate, indeed, the child who first sees the light in that romantic
town, which occupies high ground three miles north of the Firth of
Forth, overlooking the sea, with Edinburgh in sight to the south, and
to the north the peaks of the Ochils clearly in view. All is still
redolent of the mighty past when Dunfermline was both nationally and
religiously the capital of Scotland.
The child privileged to develop amid such surroundings absorbs poetry
and romance with the air he breathes, assimilates history and
tradition as he gazes around. These become to him his real world in
childhood--the ideal is the ever-present real. The actual has yet to
come when, later in life, he is launched into the workaday world of
stern reality. Even then, and till his last day, the early impressions
remain, sometimes for short seasons disappearing perchance, but only
apparently driven away or suppressed. They are always rising and
coming again to the front to exert their influence, to elevate his
thought and color his life. No bright child of Dunfermline can escape
the influence of the Abbey, Palace, and Glen. These touch him and set
fire to the latent spark within, making him something different and
beyond what, less happily born, he would have become. Under these
inspiring conditions my parents had also been born, and hence came, I
doubt not, the potency of the romantic and poetic strain which
pervaded both.
As my father succeeded in the weaving business we removed from Moodie
Street to a much more commodious house in Reid's Park. My father's
four or five looms occupied the lower story; we resided in the upper,
which was reached, after a fashion common in the older Scottish
houses, by outside stairs from the pavement. It is here that my
earliest recollections begin, and, strangely enough, the first trace
of memory takes me back to a day when I saw a small map of America. It
was upon rollers and about two feet square. Upon this my father,
mother, Uncle William, and Aunt Aitken were looking for Pittsburgh and
pointing out Lake Erie and Niagara. Soon after my uncle and Aunt
Aitken sailed for the land of promise.
At this time I remember my cousin-brother, George Lauder ("Dod"), and
myself were deeply impressed with the great danger overhanging us
because a lawless flag was secreted in the garret. It had been painted
to be carried, and I believe was carried by my father, or uncle, or
some other good radical of our family, in a procession during the Corn
Law agitation. There had been riots in the town and a troop of cavalry
was quartered in the Guildhall. My grandfathers and uncles on both
sides, and my father, had been foremost in addressing meetings, and
the whole family circle was in a ferment.