At a rough estimate, setting the present value of my assets against my liabilities, there should be a credit balance of fifty or sixty thousand dollars. That is lumping the whole thing—mills, timber limits, camp equipments, real estate, and so on. If you sold out everything you should get that much clear cash, perhaps more. But I hope you won’t sell. For one thing the assets will increase in value. The water powers I own will be worth a fortune some day. And then I want you to carry on the business because I think you’ll like it. You’ll make mistakes, of course; but in a few years or less I am certain you will have lifted the incumbrances with which my folly has saddled the concern, and you will begin to lay up a competence against the time when your chief regret at leaving this world will be that you must become only a memory to some one whom you love.

Preaching isn’t my forte, and I am not trying to write a letter which shall be a guide through life under all conceivable conditions. But one or two hints may not be amiss. Such as they are I’ve bought ’em with my own money and paid mighty dear for some of them.

Remember this: Straight business is good business, and crooked business isn’t, no matter how much money you make at it. Apart from ethics there’s a come-back with it, every time. A very fair test of the rectitude or otherwise of any deal is this: How will it look in print beneath a good scare head? If you don’t mind the answer, it’s probably all right. If you do, it’s apt to be mostly wrong, no matter how expensive a lawyer drew the papers.

Be steady. Don’t let any man or thing rattle you into unconsidered action. Take your own time; it’s just as easy to make other people wait for you as to wait for them, but don’t keep them standing. Know as much of other people’s business as is consistent with minding your own. When any man offers you a gilt-edged snap, try to figure out why he doesn’t keep it all for himself; and if the answer is that he likes you, guess again. If you ever feel that you’re beaten and want to quit, make sure that the other fellow isn’t feeling worse; one more punch will help you to make sure. Get your fun as you go along. And now and then, Joe, old boy, when the sun is bright on the river and woods and the fish are leaping and the birds are flying and the tang of the open air makes life taste extra good, take time for a thought of him who was your loving father.

― William Kent.

Young Kent choked suddenly, put down the letter, and stared out of the window at a landscape which had become 

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