(See Chapter cc and earlier)
April 25, 1902. I owe more to Henry Rogers than to any other man whom
I have known. He was born in Fairhaven, Connecticut, in 1839, and is
my junior by four years. He was graduated from the high school there
in 1853, when he was fourteen years old, and from that time forward he
earned his own living, beginning at first as the bottom subordinate in
the village store with hard-work privileges and a low salary. When he
was twenty-four he went out to the newly discovered petroleum fields in
Pennsylvania and got work; then returned home, with enough money to
pay passage, married a schoolmate, and took her to the oil regions. He
prospered, and by and by established the Standard Oil Trust with Mr.
Rockefeller and others, and is still one of its managers and directors.
In 1893 we fell together by accident one evening in the Murray Hill
Hotel, and our friendship began on the spot and at once. Ever since then
he has added my business affairs to his own and carried them through,
and I have had no further trouble with them. Obstructions and
perplexities which would have driven me mad were simplicities to his
master mind and furnished him no difficulties. He released me from my
entanglements with Paige and stopped that expensive outgo; when Charles
L. Webster & Company failed he saved my copyrights for Mrs. Clemens when
she would have sacrificed them to the creditors although they were in no
way entitled to them; he offered to lend me money wherewith to save the
life of that worthless firm; when I started lecturing around the world
to make the money to pay off the Webster debts he spent more than a year
trying to reconcile the differences between Harper & Brothers and the
American Publishing Company and patch up a working-contract between them
and succeeded where any other man would have failed; as fast as I earned
money and sent it to him he banked it at interest and held onto it,
refusing to pay any creditor until he could pay all of the 96 alike;
when I had earned enough to pay dollar for dollar he swept off the
indebtedness and sent me the whole batch of complimentary letters which
the creditors wrote in return; when I had earned $28,500 more, $18,500
of which was in his hands, I wrote him from Vienna to put the latter
into Federal Steel and leave it there; he obeyed to the extent of
$17,500, but sold it in two months at $25,000 profit, and said it would
go ten points higher, but that it was his custom to “give the other
man a chance” (and that was a true word--there was never a truer one
spoken). That was at the end of '99 and beginning of 1900; and from that
day to this he has continued to break up my bad schemes and put better
ones in their place, to my great advantage. I do things which ought to
try man's patience, but they never seem to try his; he always finds a
colorable excuse for what I have done. His soul was born superhumanly
sweet, and I do not think anything can sour it. I have not known his
equal among men for lovable qualities. But for his cool head and wise
guidance I should never have come out of the Webster difficulties on
top; it was his good steering that enabled me to work out my salvation
and pay a hundred cents on the dollar--the most valuable service any man
ever did me.
His character is full of fine graces, but the finest is this: that he
can load you down with crushing obligations and then so conduct himself
that you never feel their weight. If he would only require something in
return--but that is not in his nature; it would not occur to him. With
the Harpers and the American Company at war those copyrights were worth
but little; he engineered a peace and made them valuable. He invests
$100,000 for me here, and in a few months returns a profit of $31,000.
I invest (in London and here) $66,000 and must wait considerably for
results (in case there shall be any). I tell him about it and he
finds no fault, utters not a sarcasm. He was born serene, patient,
all-enduring, where a friend is concerned, and nothing can extinguish
that great quality in him. Such a man is entitled to the high gift of
humor: he has it at its very best. He is not only the best friend I have
ever had, but is the best man I have known.