Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie
eleven, to enjoy one of the happiest excursions of my life. It was one
of the holidays from business that kept me young and happy--worth all
the medicine in the world.
All the notes I made of the coaching trip were a few lines a day in
twopenny pass-books bought before we started. As with "Round the
World," I thought that I might some day write a magazine article, or
give some account of my excursion for those who accompanied me; but
one wintry day I decided that it was scarcely worth while to go down
to the New York office, three miles distant, and the question was how
I should occupy the spare time. I thought of the coaching trip, and
decided to write a few lines just to see how I should get on. The
narrative flowed freely, and before the day was over I had written
between three and four thousand words. I took up the pleasing task
every stormy day when it was unnecessary for me to visit the office,
and in exactly twenty sittings I had finished a book. I handed the
notes to Scribner's people and asked them to print a few hundred
copies for private circulation. The volume pleased my friends, as
"Round the World" had done. Mr. Champlin one day told me that Mr.
Scribner had read the book and would like very much to publish it for
general circulation upon his own account, subject to a royalty.
The vain author is easily persuaded that what he has done is
meritorious, and I consented. [Every year this still nets me a small
sum in royalties. And thirty years have gone by, 1912.] The letters I
received upon the publication[37] of it were so numerous and some so
gushing that my people saved them and they are now bound together in
scrapbook form, to which additions are made from time to time. The
number of invalids who have been pleased to write me, stating that the
book had brightened their lives, has been gratifying. Its reception in
Britain was cordial; the "Spectator" gave it a favorable review. But
any merit that the book has comes, I am sure, from the total absence
of effort on my part to make an impression. I wrote for my friends;
and what one does easily, one does well. I reveled in the writing of
the book, as I had in the journey itself.
[Footnote 37: Published privately in 1882 under the title _Our
Coaching Trip, Brighton to Inverness_. Published by the Scribners in
1883 under the title of _An American Four-in-Hand in Britain_.]
The year 1886 ended in deep gloom for me. My life as a happy careless
young man, with every want looked after, was over. I was left alone in
the world. My mother and brother passed away in November, within a few
days of each other, while I lay in bed under a severe attack of
typhoid fever, unable to move and, perhaps fortunately, unable to
feel the full weight of the catastrophe, being myself face to face
with death.
I was the first stricken, upon returning from a visit in the East to
our cottage at Cresson Springs on top of the Alleghanies where my
mother and I spent our happy summers. I had been quite unwell for a
day or two before leaving New York. A physician being summoned, my
trouble was pronounced typhoid fever. Professor Dennis was called from
New York and he corroborated the diagnosis. An attendant physician and
trained nurse were provided at once. Soon after my mother broke down
and my brother in Pittsburgh also was reported ill.
I was despaired of, I was so low, and then my whole nature seemed to
change. I became reconciled, indulged in pleasing meditations, was
without the slightest pain. My mother's and brother's serious
condition had not been revealed to me, and when I was informed that
both had left me forever it seemed only natural that I should follow
them. We had never been separated; why should we be now? But it was
decreed otherwise.
I recovered slowly and the future began to occupy my thoughts. There
was only one ray of hope and comfort in it. Toward that my thoughts
always turned. For several years I had known Miss Louise Whitfield.
Her mother permitted her to ride with me in the Central Park. We were
both very fond of riding. Other young ladies were on my list. I had
fine horses and often rode in the Park and around New York with one or
the other of the circle. In the end the others all faded into ordinary
beings. Miss Whitfield remained alone as the perfect one beyond any I
had met. Finally I began to find and admit to myself that she stood
the supreme test I had applied to several fair ones in my time. She
alone did so of all I had ever known. I could recommend young men to
apply this test before offering themselves. If they can honestly
believe the following lines, as I did, then all is well:
"Full many a lady
I've eyed with best regard: for several virtues
Have I liked several women, never any
With so full soul, but some defect in her
Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed,
And put it to the foil; but you, O you,
So perfect and so peerless are created
Of every creature's best."[38]
[Footnote 38: Ferdinand to Miranda in _The Tempest_.]
In my soul I could echo those very words. To-day, after twenty years
of life with her, if I could find stronger words I could truthfully
use them.
My advances met with indifferent success. She was not without other
and younger admirers. My wealth and future plans were against me. I
was rich and had everything and she felt she could be of little use or
benefit to me. Her ideal was to be the real helpmeet of a young,
struggling man to whom she could and would be indispensable, as her
mother had been to her father. The care of her own family had largely
fallen upon her after her father's death when she was twenty-one. She
was now twenty-eight; her views of life were formed. At times she
seemed more favorable and we corresponded. Once, however, she returned
my letters saying she felt she must put aside all thought of accepting
me.
Professor and Mrs. Dennis took me from Cresson to their own home in
New York, as soon as I could be removed, and I lay there some time
under the former's personal supervision. Miss Whitfield called to see
me, for I had written her the first words from Cresson I was able
to write. She saw now that I needed her. I was left alone in the
world. Now she could be in every sense the "helpmeet." Both her heart
and head were now willing and the day was fixed. We were married in
New York April 22, 1887, and sailed for our honeymoon which was passed
on the Isle of Wight.
Her delight was intense in finding the wild flowers. She had read of
Wandering Willie, Heartsease, Forget-me-nots, the Primrose, Wild
Thyme, and the whole list of homely names that had been to her only
names till now. Everything charmed her. Uncle Lauder and one of my
cousins came down from Scotland and visited us, and then we soon
followed to the residence at Kilgraston they had selected for us in
which to spend the summer. Scotland captured her. There was no doubt
about that. Her girlish reading had been of Scotland--Scott's novels
and "Scottish Chiefs" being her favorites. She soon became more Scotch
than I. All this was fulfilling my fondest dreams.
We spent some days in Dunfermline and enjoyed them much. The haunts
and incidents of my boyhood were visited and recited to her by all and
sundry. She got nothing but flattering accounts of her husband which
gave me a good start with her.
I was presented with the Freedom of Edinburgh as we passed
northward--Lord Rosebery making the speech. The crowd in Edinburgh was
great. I addressed the working-men in the largest hall and received a
present from them as did Mrs. Carnegie also--a brooch she values
highly. She heard and saw the pipers in all their glory and begged
there should be one at our home--a piper to walk around and waken us
in the morning and also to play us in to dinner. American as she is to
the core, and Connecticut Puritan at that, she declared that if
condemned to live upon a lonely island and allowed to choose only one
musical instrument, it would be the pipes. The piper was secured
quickly enough. One called and presented credentials from Cluny
McPherson. We engaged him and were preceded by him playing the pipes
as we entered our Kilgraston house.
We enjoyed Kilgraston, although Mrs. Carnegie still longed for a
wilder and more Highland home. Matthew Arnold visited us, as did Mr.
and Mrs. Blaine, Senator and Mrs. Eugene Hale, and many friends.[39]
Mrs. Carnegie would have my relatives up from Dunfermline, especially
the older uncles and aunties. She charmed every one. They expressed
their surprise to me that she ever married me, but I told them I was
equally surprised. The match had evidently been predestined.
[Footnote 39: John Hay, writing to his friend Henry Adams under date
of London, August 25, 1887, has the following to say about the party
at Kilgraston: "After that we went to Andy Carnegie in Perthshire, who
is keeping his honeymoon, having just married a pretty girl.... The
house is thronged with visitors--sixteen when we came away--we merely
stayed three days: the others were there for a fortnight. Among them
were your friends Blaine and Hale of Maine. Carnegie likes it so well
he is going to do it every summer and is looking at all the great
estates in the County with a view of renting or purchasing. We went
with him one day to Dupplin Castle, where I saw the most beautiful
trees I ever beheld in my wandering life. The old Earl of ---- is
miserably poor--not able to buy a bottle of seltzer--with an estate
worth millions in the hands of his creditors, and sure to be sold one
of these days to some enterprising Yankee or British Buttonmaker. I
wish you or Carnegie would buy it. I would visit you frequently."
(Thayer, _Life and Letters of John Hay_, vol. II, p. 74.)]
We took our piper with us when we returned to New York, and also our
housekeeper and some of the servants. Mrs. Nicoll remains with us
still and is now, after twenty years' faithful service, as a member of
the family. George Irvine, our butler, came to us a year later and is
also as one of us. Maggie Anderson, one of the servants, is the same.
They are devoted people, of high character and true loyalty.[40]
[Footnote 40: "No man is a true gentleman who does not inspire the
affection and devotion of his servants." (_Problems of To-day_, by
Andrew Carnegie. New York, 1908, p. 59.)]
The next year we were offered and took Cluny Castle. Our piper was
just the man to tell us all about it. He had been born and bred there
and perhaps influenced our selection of that residence where we spent
several summers.
On March 30, 1897, there came to us our daughter. As I first gazed
upon her Mrs. Carnegie said,
"Her name is Margaret after your mother. Now one request I have to
make."
"What is it, Lou?"
"We must get a summer home since this little one has been given us. We
cannot rent one and be obliged to go in and go out at a certain date.
It should be our home."
"Yes," I agreed.
"I make only one condition."
"What is that?" I asked.
"It must be in the Highlands of Scotland."
"Bless you," was my reply. "That suits me. You know I have to keep out
of the sun's rays, and where can we do that so surely as among the
heather? I'll be a committee of one to inquire and report."
Skibo Castle was the result.
It is now twenty years since Mrs. Carnegie entered and changed my
life, a few months after the passing of my mother and only brother
left me alone in the world. My life has been made so happy by her that
I cannot imagine myself living without her guardianship. I thought I
knew her when she stood Ferdinand's test,[41] but it was only the
surface of her qualities I had seen and felt. Of their purity,
holiness, wisdom, I had not sounded the depth. In every emergency of