Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen

Millionaires as a rule are woefully ignorant. Up to a certain sum, they grow with their acquisitions. Then they begin to wither at the heart. The care of a fortune is a penalty. I advise the gentle reader to think twice before accumulating ten millions. -from "John J. Astor" Elbert Hubbard was one of the most respected journalists and most in-demand lecturers of the early 20th century, but he could not find a publisher for the delightful biographical sketches of famous figures he called his "Little Journeys." So, at Roycroft, the East Aurora, New York, artist colony he had founded, he started Roycroft Press, and published them himself. In this volume, Hubbard turns his inimitable voice on the lives of great names in American and Europe finance and entrepreneurship, including Mayer A. Rothschild, John J. Astor, Peter Cooper, Andrew Carnegie, and others. Better examples of Hubbard's wonderfully eccentric outlook and knowing, amusing prose than of business history or biography, these are lovely little journeys through the mind of a true American original. American freethinker ELBERT GREEN HUBBARD (1856-1915) was editor and publisher of the monthly magazines The Philistine (1895-1915) and The Fra (1908-1917). Among his many books are The Man: A Story of Today (1891), Forbes of Harvard (1894), No Enemy (but Himself) (1894), and The Man of Sorrows (1905).