Retiring from Business CHAPTER 1.
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REASONS FOR RETIRING.
For twenty-five years, Howard Franklin had been the manufacturer of a useful article. Industrious, shrewd, and prudent, from a small beginning, his business had grown into importance, and at the age of fifty he found himself worth over a hundred thousand dollars. It had happened in his case, as it sometimes happens with men, that everything he engaged in, prospered; and this Mr. Franklin confidently attributed to his own superior intelligence. To some extent he was right; for, thinking only of business, it was but rational that he should see more clearly, and as a consequence, operate with more certainty of success, than men whose attention was often turned, with interest, to matters and things entirely apart from their regular pursuits. But, all was not from human prudence in his case; all is not from human prudence in any case. Men are often permitted to obtain wealth, in order that its possession may correct the false ideas they hold in regard to money as the greatest good; and such men are, in all cases — more unhappy as rich men, than they were as poor men.
The effect of wealth upon the minds of those who acquire it by their own exertions, always depends upon the end which prompted to its attainment; and this, in a measure, explains the meaning of the different aspects presented in the affairs, personal, social, and otherwise, of men who have risen from moderate circumstances into affluence.
Some men, as their external circumstances improve, use the means that come into their hands with a generous reference to the common good; while others never spend a dollar, that is not intended to gratify some selfish desire, while their acts of apparent benevolence are merely propitiatory, and intended to "cover a multitude of sins."
It is but natural to conclude, as, under Providence, all man's external circumstances are intended to react upon his internal states, and thus aid in his elevation out of evil desires and depraved sensitivities, that the attainment of wealth will produce very different results in these two classes, and that the tenure by which they hold it, will be of a very different character.
Howard Franklin belonged to the latter class. He had not the inordinate love of money possessed by some men, and his pursuit of wealth was governed less by the desire toaccumulate an immense estate, than by a wish to acquire what he deemed an independence. From the day he first commenced business, until satisfied with his gains, he withdrew from a life of active usefulness in the world; he had ever intended retiring from business when all things conspired to justify his doing so; and this with a view to his own ease.
Mr. Franklin's ideas of a competency, as might be supposed, gradually changed as his external condition improved. Thirty or forty thousand dollars he, at one time of life, considered a handsome little fortune, and as much as any reasonable man ought to desire. But as his external circumstances gradually improved, his wants increased, and his ideas of things enlarged. Sixty or seventy thousand next appeared as sufficient for all purposes. But, when that mark was attained, business was too prosperous for Mr. Franklin to think of abandoning it; the more especially, as his plans for the future, had, to some extent, changed, and he would be less circumscribed in the sphere he wished to occupy, were he in the enjoyment of an income based upon a hundred thousand dollars, instead of sixty.
After having passed the hundred thousand dollar mark, a slight depression in business, caused Mr. Franklin to retire, in order to live the rest of his life at ease. Such a life, it had always seemed to him, was one, of all others, most delightful. While in business, his anxiety to acquire a competency was so great, that he permitted himself little or no relaxation. Early and late, he was at his manufactory, and every part of it was under his superintendence. All his thoughts were bent upon adding dollar to dollar, in order to gain, at the earliest possible time, an amount of money adequate to his support, during the remainder of his life.
Mr. Franklin was in the full possession of all his faculties, bodily and mental, at the time he resolved to close up his business, and could have conducted it with advantage to himself, so far as money was concerned, and benefit to the community, for many years longer. But, he had acquired property enough to make him comfortable all his life, and what use was there, he argued, in making a slave of himself any longer, in order to hoard up money for the mere sake of accumulation.
When it became known that Mr. Franklin was about to sell out his business, everybody expressed surprise, as everybody will at almost any step taken by other people, whether the step is dictated by right or wrong motives. This was nothing strange. Those more intimate with Mr. Franklin than others, made free to speak out what they thought on the subject, and when his true reason for the step was known, nearly all commended his prudence.
"Some men are never satisfied with getting," remarked an acquaintance. "They are never rich enough. With increasing wealth, come increasing wants. But you have, wisely, prescribed a limit to your desires. Pity that there were not more like you."
"I have as much money now as I can spend," replied Mr. Franklin, "Why, then, should I toil for more? It is time that I retired from the field and left it to others. I am not greedy of gain. As for the mere love of money, I never had the feeling. All that I ever desired, was a competency, and having obtained that, I am content to enjoy it. What folly for a man to tug at the oar, after he has enough, just for the sake of getting more — when he can't use what he already has."
"True. It is the worst of folly," was answered, "and evinces a greedy spirit. I only wish that I was worth what you are, or even half of it, you would not see me long in the stifled atmosphere of a counting-room. The ambition of being known as a very rich man, which some feel, I never had; and I am just as far from being influenced by the base desire ofmere possession."
"In that we are alike," said Mr. Franklin.
"What is the use of money, except as the means of supplying our needs? I am sure that I value it from no other consideration; and having secured as much as I need for this purpose, I am very far from being disposed to work on and lay up thousands upon thousands — just for others to squander when I am dead."
Another said, "I think, Mr. Franklin, that I would hold on a little longer. Your business is too good to throw away. Before retiring, you might easily add to your present wealth the convenient sum of fifty or a hundred thousand dollars."
"Perhaps I might," was answered. "But what of that? I have as much as I want now. Fifty thousand dollars more could not give me a single comfort that I may not now possess, nor add a drop to my cup of happiness. There is, therefore, no motive for giving up ten or fifteen years more of my life to the drudgery of business. No, no. While I have health and a sound mind, let me enjoy what I have."
"But see what good a surplus of fifty thousand dollars would put it in your power to do!"
Mr. Franklin shrugged his shoulders.
"Yes," said he, "no doubt, I might do a great deal of good. But it is asking almost too much of a man fifty years old, who has been working all his life, like a horse, to give ten years to the public, when he needs rest and relaxation. I believe that I am as benevolent as most men, and as willing to do my part, but to tax me as high as fifty thousand dollars for charitable purposes, is going rather beyond the mark."
There was one friend who took rather a different view from all the rest, and who did not hesitate to express himself freely.
"Is it true," he said, on meeting Mr. Franklin about this time, "that you are about giving up your business?"
"Yes. I have already arranged the preliminaries of a sale of my whole establishment."
"Into what new channel do you think of directing your capital and energies?"
"Into none. I shall retire from all business."
"Your health is yet unbroken."
"I consider myself in the prime of life."
"Then why do you retire?"
"I have made as much money as I want."
"Indeed! You are the first man I ever heard say that. And, I rather think that you would have no particular objection to a little more."
"No; I should make no objection to such an addition, certainly. But, having as much money as I can spend, my desire for more is not strong enough to induce me to encounter the labor and perplexity of business any longer. I wish to retire and live at my ease."
"I have my doubts," said the friend, "if any man has a right to do that."
"Indeed! This is certainly a new doctrine. I thought every man was free to do as he pleased, just so that he refrained from interfering with the rights of others."
"Can you retire from business and not interfere with the rights of others?"
"I would think so. My business is my own. I have pursued it for my own benefit, and surely, I may give it up if it so pleases me, without laying myself open to the charge of injury to others? As for the well-being of others, I shall not interfere with it. I will take no man's goods; nor stand in the way of any man's interests. I will leave all free to follow their own ends in life, and I will claim a like freedom for myself. I pursued my business, in order to accumulate money and become independent. My end is answered, and I have no longer a motive strong enough to induce me to continue involved in its cares and labors. What you have said about my obligations to society, may all be so; but I can assure you that I do not feel its force. As far as I understand the social law, it is 'every man for himself.'"
The friend, seeing how useless it would be to urge any further considerations of the kind he had advanced, said no more on the subject, and his words soon passed from the ears of the man for whose good they were spoken.
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