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I would give the world if I
possessed it. I have watched him many a time at Eton and at Oxford and
elsewhere, when he was surrounded by a lot of London swells, young lords
and sons of earls, who would cut me dead, but who took to the American
at once and made him more than their equal. Once I asked him how he did
it and if it were not an awful bore always to consider others before
himself. I shall never forget the expression of his face as he hesitated
a moment and seemed to be looking far off at something in the past.
Then he said: 'Sometimes it is hard; but long ago, when I was a boy, I
made a vow to live for others rather than myself, to try to make
somebody happy every day with a kind word or act or look, and only
think, if I live to a good old age, how many people's lives will have
been a little sunnier because of me. Suppose I commenced this plan at
fourteen and that I live to be seventy, which is not very old, it will
make over twenty thousand, and that surely ought to atone for a great
deal--don't you think so?--and in a way my life is a kind of atonement.


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