I Historical Side Lights on Banks and Bankers II Bankers as Creators of Literature III Some Notable Bankers in Fiction PRE FOREWORD RESIDENT HEPBURN, of the Chase of June, 1909, asks the question "Does the pursuit of wealth cut the American man of business off from the old-fashioned relish of books and society?" His reluctant but none the less positive answer is: "Yes, beyond question." Mr. Hepburn advises a return to the custom of early retirement from active business, and the creation of a leisure class in America. And yet his own reasoning and reflections point to a better way,a happy medium-as illustrated in the career of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, and other multi-millionaires of our time, in which the exhilaration of achievement is happily coupled with "the sweets of leisure" and the joys of cultured home life-a life enriched by the fruits of travel,-to which may well be added the substantial satisfaction of wise buying and generous giving. The self-enforced retirement of a man trained to the strenuosity of modern business life is a change so radical as to be dangerous to health and happiness. The purpose of this book-so far as it has a purpose beyond mere entertainment and the widening of the reader's range of observation— is to suggest to the over-worked and nerve-racked man of affairs a "dual life," which shall not only be free from the appearance and suggestion of evil, but shall give to him, not in the future near or remote, but every day, a healthful change From toil to rest, and joy in every change. |