14 November 1956

Billy & his social studies teacher (Barelli) had a disagreement on this subject. Barelli stated animals had not intelligence – they operated purely on instinct. Bill disagreed – claimed animals had intelligence.

Result: Bill looked up my psych books and wrote a paper indicating and presenting evidence that Barelli was wrong. He quoted the basis of the theory of instinct in 3 parts, as presented in my elementary psych book.

The subject caught Kurt’s and my attention. In the discussion this resulted as to learning:

• Conditioned reflexed – response to stimulus.
• Trial and Error Approach – resulting from 1)
• Reasoning

Kurt and I agreed that basically the animal differed from the human animal on the 3) level. Prior to 3), animal learning and intelligence was similar to human learning and intelligence. The development of the power of reasoning in the human left the animal way behind.

Too bad humans don’t pay more attention to the development to reasoning as such, instead of keeping knowledge and learning more on the stimulus-response level of the animal. Also where reasoning is taught, it is only encouraged in certain fields – not to be applied generally to all phases of life: i.e., apply reasoning to business – but do not be foolish and expect to apply reasoning too freely for humanity – too much is at stake!

“In Sutton Varre’s [?] play performed some years ago a sorely troubled soul cries out for advice in making his decision, but he is told the no one can help them, the choice must be his own. After he has chosen, however, all the assistance he has been imploring instantly comes to him. We find life startlingly like that. As long as we grope vaguely about, seeking the opinions and advice of others, we are lost in a maze of indecision. But, once we have decided and taken our stand immediately there comes flooding in upon us a perfect deluge of all that we have been so earnestly desiring.”

15 November 1956

Paul Brunton:

Do your work in the world – perform your duty, but do not make your happiness depend entirely upon personal results or benefits resulting from your actions . . .  The right attitude . . . is the attitude of agency of instrumentality rather than doership, the sense that (creation, and your part and its purpose in your creation) is doing all the work in you, is acting, speaking, and working through you. When you can contact the (creative intelligence) and permit it to operate freely through you, it will guide and guide rightly; it will help wisely; it will pacify, when personal feelings become angered. It may even lead you to desert some relative good for solid good . . . You realize when you are acting, it is simply Nature acting and finding force sending force forces through you. When you come to the realization that it is really Nature expressing itself through you, then you renounce your actions inwardly letting nature take care of the results you then reach the final stage when you can watch yourself playing its part in the work of the world without anticipation and without expectation. No more are you concerned with the future and its burdens. That concern’s Nature. Even when a man must take part in a war, fight, and slay (work in a competitive world) he fights and works impersonally, feeling neither hatred or ill will of any kind against the enemy; understanding that life no less demands good sense then it demands good will, and knowing that he is performing a duty ordained both by his destiny and by the social structure of which he performs his part in, or for his country.

The truth is you understand what really matters is to surrender one’s ego, personal successes, personal failures, with the knowledge that man did not create himself nor the environment in which he finds himself therefore praise or blame or take undue credit or blame for his personal actions. He acts, with full realization, he acts within the limits of his own creation, within the creation of Nature as a whole; within the framework of what has preceded him. I.e., the “self-made man” in business. Just as there is no “self-made man” in business there is no “self-made man in the world” – only a product of creation in Nature – and one does what is given one to do – not with the sense that “This, I alone all by myself, have done”. Because no single bit of creation has, “This or that, good or evil, all by itself has done.”

Instead, you work and do within the Nature which is in you, the course you must follow – and once this is understood completely, one is eased from the deadly burden of belief that man alone is responsible to himself alone – or that he is his own creator, or controller complete of his own destiny. My successes my failures my foolishnesses or wisdoms, as they appeared to the eyes of my fellow man, are not truly mine. They are the flow of life and Nature and creation through me as a vessel, a part of creation itself.

The terrible responsibility of self, when this is understood; the burden of carrying one’s own weight as though one created the world in all its myriad forms and requirements, is taken away. One just does one’s part as one understands it within one’s self without too much concern as to results. The results we have no particular measure for. Only Creation alone knows whether what we do is one thing or another.

Usually we are never conscious of the results of our actions and only occasionally do we get glimpses of the part we play in our walk through life.

Margaret Vincent, measured by Blanche’s precise world, can only have one label – “a misfit” or “a fool”. Yet there is more living in Margaret then Blanche could possibly comprehend.

Note: This entry in the notebook is actually dated 11/14/56 but was probably mid-dated at the time.

17 November 1956

Excerpt from Collier’s article “Listen to . . . Jack Benny” Nov. 1956:

“There are many, many golfers who would rather play golf than practice, but it is only the practice at golf that makes you a great golfer. When I was a kid violinist – up until I was about 15 years old – I loved the violin, but I much preferred paying it to practicing. This alone could have kept me from being a violinist.

To be a success in life, do whatever you are planning to do seriously – even if it comes to being a comedian. Being a comedian is a very serious business.”

19 November 1956

Topics of recent interest:

“Never give a fellow a second chance!” – the perfectionist attitude where ego and pride are involved. When you take the unforgiving attitude – you shut yourself out from any possible association. When you let a flaw become so emphasized it destroys the cloth – you make a mountain out of a mole hill. Now the whole is used due to an imperfection then.

#

Shoemaker talk: about charities. Tax everybody by law for contributions toward charities. Explanation: when you do that you:

• have no more power of choice and establish a form of bureaucracy and dictation.
• The physical setup of help needed drains off too much money into paid help rather than willing nonpaid volunteers.
• You run into the problem of accessing real need – and how much is required.

Also, there is no one-way of looking at a situation. Also, if something is a value it will show draw people to it.

Those who do not contribute for one cause because of no personal interest will contribute to another because it is of more vital concern.

#

The business of human relationships. The idea people want each other because of what they can get from each other.

There is such a change from our agricultural – need each other society to a self-sufficient society in urban centers. Where formerly in small communities people needed each other – in urban centers they need one thing – money – to be self-sufficient – to get nursing help – a doctor or other something – bread or food, or what have you. The personal aspect is not as important in urban centers because you can get all the help you want if you have the money to pay. Therefore, a concentration on making money. The one flaw, however, is social isolation. But even this is compensated for to some extent by institutional gathering places: churches, clubs, organizations, and common interest groups.

20 November 1956

After reading a little of “Creative Writing”, I looked through a few of my old notebooks, and came to this conclusion: most of my writing is a reaction to what I have read. Actually, there is very little original thinking. Of course, that may be all I have to work with – as my social contacts are limited. Maybe the thing to do is limit my reading matter and see people more – pay more attention to the life around me, the people around me. Unfortunately, even as I write this, the prosaicness of everyday existence engulfs me with a reaction of monotony and lackluster. Maybe this feeling is due to a desire for the dramatic – like a person accustomed to heady wines and spicy food. The plain diet seems tasteless. Yet there must be small dramas going on all the time for which my observations have not been trained.

#

Albert Schweitzer: ”To rule with a whip, figuratively or literally, creates more problems than it solves. To assume and he quality which does not exist has no better results.” There was only one basis of real authority, Schweitzer found. The native has no way of judging the white man’s technical achievements as proof of his mental and spiritual superiority. But he seemed to have an unerring intuition for evidence of the possession of moral qualities. When he found kindliness, justice and integrity, he acknowledged a master. When he failed to find them, he was defiant.

To maintain these high qualities, to keep yourself human, and so maintain authority and leadership – that was a perpetual challenge.

The test, Schweitzer found, was the ancient Christian test whether or not you thought of men as masses or as people. . . From ego centered, materially centered to creative – and goodwill centered.

#

Through the ages (Western civilization) so many men have exercised “power over” people instead of giving them “power to” make life more human, that now when the individual man has been fixed governmentally for some kind of exercise of free will, even single humans amidst our modern civilization want the feel of “power over” their neighbors, their friends, in an ego-centered rather than a universally centered human kindliness.

The symbol of this “power over” is the possession of material items, and the demand for more from the self-centered man. Cooperation for the common welfare is most unpopular. Leaders set these patterns – that is exactly what was at stake in the Ruth Guenther mother singer hassle.

That’s the trouble (in spite of our love of institutions) with institutions – too often it is a perpetuation of the institution and its set up, rather than the ideals and principles upon which it had its original sparkling foundation. The blight under it all is when the individual decides self-interest seeking and personal profit is the only way to happiness and achievement versus cooperation for the common welfare – with human dignity and kindliness unmeasured by the latest gadget or the newest style car, or the presidency of a bank or club for prestige purposes, rather than genuine usefulness to the common good – not the bank’s good, or the corporations profit picture alone.

A war on the flight from thinking and organized efforts by social political and even religious bodies to discredit individuals thinking in their effort to persuade men to yield their minds to the authority of groups seeking strength not in ideas but in conformity – a war on those who worked to get man to relinquish his right to think for himself and reap only spiritual bankruptcy. Schweitzer says only in the reverence of life blanketing all human struggle to endure the simple elemental thinking which could help humans endure and somehow master the strain of labor and sorrow, the mystery of life, pain, and death, could bring serenity to mankind – not exploitation for personal gain – but a universal acceptance of responsibility for one’s fellow man in all the corners of the earth. And that not by compulsion but by example and moral love of one’s fellow humans.

Dorothea Brande says in her introduction to “Becoming a Writer” “The importance of words and short stories in our society is great fiction supplies the only philosophy that many readers know; it establishes their ethical social and material standards; he confirms them in their purchases or opens their minds to a wider world. . .  If it is sensational, shoddy or vulgar our lives are the poorer for the cheap ideals which it sets in circulation. . . The movies can extend this process to those too young, too impatient, or too uneducated to read in this respect – writing needs no apology for serious intentions.”

 

21 November 1956

Had lunch with Mary Anderson today and after lunch we talked for a couple of hours. Mary Anderson feels safe to function in her family circle only, or in her professional, but – shuts out experience to the unfamiliar even to the extent of not permitting herself to have lunch at Wolf’s when she has never been there before. Aside from her familiar beat she is no pioneer – in fact off her beaten track she is no pioneer, rather, a timid soul.

A few highlights from our conversation:

Expounded my feelings about Vincent Peale – saying he was a theological fraud dangling material success to those who follow the path of righteousness. Mary took issue with me. Her view was – right as I might be, Peale appealed to a certain element of the population who would never accept any standard unless they were appealed to in that fashion. She said it was like the Horatio Alger books. Certainly, they expounded material success at the end of the trail, but in the meantime inspired a number of boys to learn good habits of workmanship and application they might not otherwise feel were worthwhile, i.e., the moral, the hard-working, the just would triumph.

Well, there is value in everything. To be sure there is more than one way to teach. A t the same time, however, the ideation still rests upon a material prize – the competitive reward goal when questions like – how many can reach the top goals? How do you readjust when circumstances or your own ability or hardship, accidentals, trip you and your pursuit? Do you blame yourself for your lack of success in not having us chair when there is only one chair in the room and 10 people claiming seat?

After listening to Mary Anderson preach the perfection of God – that God is law – that each person is born with all the potential of goodness in him – after excusing no one under any circumstances for not knowing the Truth – since God’s law is perfect and each one has the capacity to choose – and ignorance of the law is no excuse (and she has been preaching this absolutely since I have known her) I asked her, after she recounted her [?] over her sister and herself upon her niece’s elopement – why since she believed all these things why she had no peace of mind when people whom she could not control set her into a tizzy when they were close to her? Where was her sense of balance or philosophy of life that stood her in good stead?

All through the afternoon I interjected hints from time to time to the effect that, yes, potentials to goodness are in everyone, but that environment, proper guidance, etc. Influenced, enlarged or subtracted from regular development on the perfect path she expounded. She accepted nothing of what I said at least in our conversation – always going back to her theory of God’s law – God is perfect – we need no one to tell us – we have all the essentials within ourselves – we were born with the knowledge.

A little later – talking about a Bar Association meeting or whatnot – she said the speaker exploited the theory of the “influence of words”.

I could not help but recognize the lack of harmony in her various statements. The minute you recognize influence of any kind in one sphere of life – you must recognize it in other spheres.

Therefore, when she claims one does not need any special guidance or influence to know what you are born with – i.e. God is harmonious, law, and perfection and shuts out guidance and influence – she is setting her religious views in a vacuum, sterilizing them from reality.

No wonder her philosophy brings her no peace when a trying family situation rears its head. She speaks of cause-and-effect – but recognizes none of them ration is close to her.

We also spoke about people decide other people’s values. One person looks another over and decides: ignorant, uneducated, not worth bothering with, we are on different levels.

I said very little; just listened. While Mary was talking my mind kept meditating on the line in “Prophet in the Wilderness” which I have noted here earlier, where Schweitzer’s test was the ancient Christian test: whether or not you thought of men as “masses” or as people… Whether you looked at people from the ego or material center within yourself, or from a personal center of creativeness and goodwill.

So long as that center is sound, external chaos can exist but there is an avenue of approach to, if nothing else, some understanding of the chaos.

And, oh yes! Before I finish these notes for the day – one more thought – not connected with Mary Anderson – rather with Blanche

A perfectionist never gives a person much of a chance to…

I thought this is going to be so easy to say, but it isn’t. I guess the reason I have stumbled here is because I am using the wrong word: “perfectionist”.

Let me try again:

When you are ego-centered, and someone rubs you the wrong way or tries to tell you something or maybe you do something that goes against your group the reaction (at least on my part) is to slam the door in their face and never give them a second chance.

Now I’m getting down to cases:

This whole alliance deal with Blanche has pointed out the side of my character very sharply to myself. When certain tender toes of mine is stepped on (in this case Blanche’s roughshod disregard of my wanting to stay longer at Alliance and my conversation with Margaret) my antenna signals threat. In the past, such a warning signal immediately close the door to such a person. My vulnerability, my fear of not being able to cope with such a person (past mother dominated pattern), took precedence over any other aspect of such a person’s worth, value, or what have you, and I immediately prune to them out of my life.

No wonder. I have been such a lone wolf. I am only now realizing a little glimpse of the intensity of my fears and how it has carried over to those I have known. My lack of self-confidence, fear of submission to domination, my vulnerability due to the possible influence of others, my lack of quiet belief in my own values have shut me off from contacts entirely whenever the earmarks of threat have appeared because I felt I could not control the influence and demands of others.

This all stems back to my adolescence, when I had my self-confidence practically destroyed because my mother could not grant me the right to be an individual.

She was not creating and building a sound person, she was asking complete submission to the premise “mother knows best.” And – no one knows absolutely and irrevocably in every instance life what is best. Life all too frequently calls upon you to play by ear and with the limits of our tone deafness.

It has been my experience that an author’s first books are best – future books are often improvisations of the simple original thing.

Somehow, I feel, when life gets complex and chaotic a return to basic fundamentals – the raw materials that originated the problem need to be re-examined in order to reconstruct the wrong directions taken which compounded and caused the complexity or chaos. Complexity is all right, but unsnarling chaos is something else again.

Definition of chaos: confusion; a confused mixture; or state of disorder; in wild confusion

The premise upon which our present-day industrial society is founded consists of regarding desires and wants as though they were basic necessities.

Definitions (philosophically or logically):

“premise”: to state in advance, as an explanation or introduction; to make an explanation for hand; a statement accepted as true from which a conclusion is drawn.

a priori: from that which precedes; from cause to effect; opposite to a post he or a (inductive reasoning)

a posteriori: from that which follows; from effect to cause; opposite to a priori (deductive reasoning)

Goethe has said consistently and unforgettably one thing: that the supreme need of man is to be himself and, being himself, to grow in ethical perception and action. Goethe darkly recognized that there will come a time when man’s self-reliance would be menaced by the emergence of mass will. Schweitzer: “Goethe is the first to feel something like dread regarding man. At a time when others were unconcerned, he divined that the great problem with which the man of the future will grapple is how the individual shall survive and come in conflict with the mass.”

. . . a generation of declining standards.

Schweitzer to a crusty Műnstertal peasant: I’m a hardened beggar myself. Let me give you a piece of advice. Never say die. If one door shuts, another opens. Keep hoping.

When anyone builds up his own ego, at the expense of another – that is wrong. The individual needs to develop – but not by oppressing others. When power over others masquerades as individual development (for one or the few) is destructive and built on shaky foundations.

To develop the best in others creative. To crush the best in another in order to enhance one’s own esteem is destructive.

Even when another individual is egotistical and self-centered, crushing them by force is a dangerous process. A better way of implementation should be sought – not immediately resorting to force. If one door shuts in your face, perhaps another door will open.

My problem of coping with my mother is quite a universal problem of mankind’s.

Life must have purpose and meaning, or it is unbearable.

The businessman who made chemicals for fighting flies during the war – reduced to using his plant to make foam for beer.

The ditch diggers who kept digging and filling up holes – they tell the foreman they were going to quit – until the foreman told him they were trying to find a break in a water line. They were ready to dig holes.

Always replace what is empty, ugly, dirty with something full beautiful or clean.

3 December 1956

What do I want from Kurt? What is wrong between us? I think I know my side of it. It all adds up to “respect”.

I get the feeling that Kurt takes for granted I am supposed to behave in a certain manner – Isn’t my wife supposed to behave thus and so? Isn’t society with me, collaborating with my case? – is behind Kurt’s thinking. He just takes it for granted certain aspects of marriage are cut and dried and there is no need to give them any further thought. That is all well and good, but he leaves out one element – the individual. Just because he thinks a certain way – that is all there is to it.

Well it isn’t. And just so long as he expects me to fit into a pattern he has cut – he is going to be frustrated. He just cannot get it right in his head that I am not an extenuation of Kurt Zachmann. I am a separate person with separate feelings and opinions. I do not have to agree with him.

Once he can see me as a separate individual, and treat me as such, much of our troubles will be over. Somehow, he just cannot believe or get it through his head that I have different reactions from his, and that these different reactions must be contended with. I insist upon being treated as a person – not a convenience – a simple way of life.

How long will it take Kurt to understand that I love him very much, but that I am “me”, and he is “he”, and we are two different people. That he cannot treat me as an extenuation of himself and his own wishes and desires.

7 January 1957

It has been a long time since I’ve picked up this notebook – the holidays are over. The family is off to their respective everyday activities: Kurt to work, the children to school.

Me? Well – I have my investments – but not enough money in them to absorb all my time. The Blanche exporting deal seems to be out definitely. I just couldn’t work for her. First of all, she would want me to work for nothing. What’s a dollar an hour minimum for a couple hours a week? She just can’t help herself – but let’s face it – she is a God damn skinflint – incapable of parting with a penny. Not only that but she wants to domineering people on top of it. She wants exclusive affection and admiration from me. She wants to be the center of my attention – my children should be secondary to her. Kurt should also. She should be considered the wisest and most generous of women – yet never do business with her because she delights in a shrewd deal for herself! Friendship has nothing to do with it.

Actually, what she wants is the kind of fawning attitude her mother gave her. But – no one is going to give her what she expects – maybe her mother felt Blanche could never be anything but right and wise and generous. But – to me she looks entirely different. I get no particular pleasure in catering to her – in fact I can’t and will not treat her as anything but a tightfisted old woman, with some business acumen, who is incapable of a truly generous act – in fact incapable of even paying her own way, but instead wants to give you a penny’s worth for every pound – especially if she can give you the pennies worth out of somebody else’s pocket.

From here on in – Blanche can come or go. My only interest in her is what I can learn about investments or opportunities that one of the brokers tell her about.

She just isn’t a Mildred Cooke.

9 January 1957

Casual notes from the Wonderful Way” by Frank A. Clarvoe:

“. . . he either ignored (Hollester Wilferd) or shrugged off the kindly attempts of sever individuals (after tripping over books into a cake) and groups to admit him to the warm company of relaxed imperfection.”

His constant goal was: I’ll show them!

A quote from Chapt. 3:

“Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.” Thomas a Kempis.

“God obligeth no man to more than he hath given him ability to perform.” The Koran.

“. . . in the development of psyche, he had come to regard himself as the center of his personal universe.”

“Many are thus egocentric. While as satellites, the people of the world about him were not obedient to his will, he as independent of theirs . . . He regarded attention as his proper due . . .Of all the human race was it possible he liked only himself?”

“Whenever there is a human being there is a chance for kindness. – Seneca, Thyestes”

The bottom of the well (has run dry). I wonder if I could write a book called “The Well” or “The Bottom of the Well” or some such thing. The idea would be on the spirit of a human being: How kindness, consideration, understanding and thoughtfulness makes the personal spirit brim over – yet, when the opposite coin appears –  cruelty, unkindness, thoughtlessness, meanness, lack of sympathy – the bottom of the well is dry.

Somehow then, weaving the story together show how – with the proper attitude – a deeper understanding – a knowledge which I am only getting an inkling of – one never worries about a dry well – because so long as one lives – a well is never completely dry – something like that. I guess I cannot write such a book yet – but perhaps maybe someday I can when I understand that the depth of the water in a spiritual well is internal and dependent on personal outlook and belief.

11 January 1957

This morning, looking for something to sink my time into, I began reading “Becoming a Writer.” Somehow, I always turned back to its original desire of mine. As my mind absorbed the first chapter all over again, I came to the conclusion [that] my previous excuses to myself for not writing were rationalizations to cover a central personality weakness – I’m afraid to write! I’m afraid to disclose my ideas, thoughts, and opinions for fear of censorship.

How do you like that! “I’m a damn scaredy-cat.” “What will people think of my ideas?” Will they disapprove of me?” I am afraid to release my honest opinions in writing for fear of revealing too much of myself. In fact, I’m so much of an appeaser – as anxious not to antagonize as fearful of my real conceptions – I can’t write a damn thing! I’m afraid to write about religion – fearful of attack in retaliation. I’m afraid to write about life as I see it or know it – someone may wonder how come I am saying these things – fearful of making explanations, fearful of not being acceptable. I feel answerable to a nebulous critic. I’m still afraid of my mother’s disapproval and censorship which is carried over through all my life. That is why I cannot write. She shut me out of her acceptance and life when I was myself – and I have been afraid ever since to be myself again.

When I was in my early teens trying to development personality – to grow up against the opposition of my mother – I earnestly sought for reasons, logic, explanations, examples to attempt to express to my mother my need to expand into an integrated personality. When she refused to listen – misinterpreted my endeavors and pleas to let me separate myself from her, I grew to hate her. Then all my talents were directed toward exposing all her weaknesses, or selfishness. Whenever I found a touch spot in her armor, I exploited it to the fullest. I became as heartless as she. Of course, I couldn’t beat her at her game. She had so much more power and influence over me than I had over her. She defeated me.

It just might be that the later stage of my analytical capacity covered over my original honest desire to attempt to correct what I observed and believed about life. By that I mean the honest desire to analyze and correct the situation, or to see it in its perspective, became covered over until no use is made of the analytical weapon except to ferret out any symptoms of dangerous domination over me and the other people. It became a weapon tear people apart, or to avoid them if they tread upon any sensitive areas of weaknesses and myself.

It became very important, also, to try to conceal my true feelings toward them (as though I could) so they would not guess my real opinion of them. What an ostrich -like pose! As though you can hide from anyone completely your real feelings summation points they may not know exactly what you are thinking, but they will sense something in one’s attitudes.

Since fear and hate, the twin stars of my life, most deeply rooted stars in my most inner personality, I have been afraid to write. Hatred, fear, and criticism of others ruled me – and what else could I write about except exposed literature, instructive literature.

It never occurred to me until this morning that when one writes with kindliness and love, people do not have to look ridiculous. One can write about very simple people. When fear and hate and critical attitudes are the motivating force – one is afraid of writing about Mrs. Mahorcic’s parsley. She might be a very simple illiterate soul. Mrs. Hartig could look like a person that might have to be apologized for being considered a friend. Aunt Roser. Eva. They would hardly measure up to Blanche’s conception of “high tone” folks intellectually. But then, she’s a damn snob – and so am I!

Shades of my mother’s tea china!

From the “Wonderful Way”:

it (the river) had captured Crenshaw’s imagination years ago. Not the imagination of a poet perhaps to be translated into lines inverses and even to unknown words. Crenshaw’s dreams were those of a man who built things; but like most builders, those who him suspected he had in himself many of the virtues of a poet because he brought harmony two things he created. He had seen late in the Leslie left her and the river) both beauty and power and he dreamed of the possibility of combining two.

Economics – the missing link.

“From Expert to Greenhorn.” B.G. was the propelling agent that set me off. Blanche’s introduction to the subject – investing in the future of America. IT&T.

My utter dismay and finally placing an order. My first stock fright. My earnings chart.

Haunting brokerage houses for booklets. And . . . taking a course in investments. So-Ed program – sitting in the investment meetings.

Chartist extraordinary. Misgivings – you deal with dollar lots then, in the street. My assigned investment used up.

Reassurance of my husband. Dependence on his financial report readings. My pressure on the kids – Billy’s stock purchase. Nancy’s resistance. My first stockholders meeting.

My delight over the idea of the luncheon for two shares of stock. I calm my conscience with the thought – well maybe someday I’ll own many shares.

My free literature.

Blanche’s urging to see my brothers. Max Epstein and his charts. Buying and selling. My conservative fear. The line from the book. Should you have to be right 50% of the time to breakeven?

Eating up my profits with buying Baron’s and Wall Street Journal’s.

At first listen to all the radio stats report’s; turned to the stock market page before the first page of the paper. Took to peering at the financial page of the corner drugstore papers. I did not subscribe to them, hoping someone would not chase me.

[There follows here a number of quotations and whatever that do not really seem terribly important to include.]