AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF
ANDREW CARNEGIE
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
London
CONSTABLE & CO. Limited
1920
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY LOUISE WHITFIELD CARNEGIE
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PREFACE
AFTER retiring from active business my husband yielded to the earnestsolicitations of friends, both here and in Great Britain, and began tojot down from time to time recollections of his early days. He soonfound, however, that instead of the leisure he expected, his life wasmore occupied with affairs than ever before, and the writing of thesememoirs was reserved for his play-time in Scotland. For a few weekseach summer we retired to our little bungalow on the moors atAultnagar to enjoy the simple life, and it was there that Mr. Carnegiedid most of his writing. He delighted in going back to those earlytimes, and as he wrote he lived them all over again. He was thusengaged in July, 1914, when the war clouds began to gather, and whenthe fateful news of the 4th of August reached us, we immediately leftour retreat in the hills and returned to Skibo to be more in touchwith the situation.
These memoirs ended at that time. Henceforth he was never able tointerest himself in private affairs. Many times he made the attempt tocontinue writing, but found it useless. Until then he had lived thelife of a man in middle life—and a young one at that—golfing,fishing, swimming each day, sometimes doing all three in one day.Optimist as he always was and tried to be, even in the face of thefailure of his hopes, the world disaster was too much. His heart wasbroken. A severe attack of influenza followed by two serious attacksof pneumonia precipitated old age upon him.
It was said of a contemporary who passed away a few months before Mr.[Pg vi]Carnegie that "he never could have borne the burden of old age."Perhaps the most inspiring part of Mr. Carnegie's life, to those whowere privileged to know it intimately, was the way he bore his "burdenof old age." Always patient, considerate, cheerful, grateful for anylittle pleasure or service, never thinking of himself, but always ofthe dawning of the better day, his spirit ever shone brighter andbrighter until "he was not, for God took him."
Written with his own hand on the fly-leaf of his manuscript are thesewords: "It is probable that material for a small volume might becollected from these memoirs which the public would care to read, andthat a private and larger volume might please my relatives andfriends. Much I have written from time to time may, I think, wisely beomitted. Whoever arranges these notes should be careful not to burdenthe public with too much. A man with a heart as well as a head shouldbe chosen."
Who, then, could so well fill this description as our friend ProfessorJohn C. Van Dyke? When the manuscript was shown to him, he remarked,without having read Mr. Carnegie's notation, "It would be a labor oflove to prepare this for publication." Here, then, the choice wasmutual, and the manner in which he has performed this "labor" provesthe wisdom of the choice—a choice made and carried out in the name ofa rare and beautiful friendship.
Louise Whitfield Carnegie
New York
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