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“What one trait of your character do you look upon as having been the most essential to your successful career?”

“Perseverance,” said Mr. Field; but another at hand insisted upon the addition of “good judgment” to this, which Mr. Field indifferently acknowledged. “If I am compelled to lay claim to these traits,” he went on, “it is simply because I have tried to practice them, and because the trying has availed me much, I suppose. I have always tried to make all my acts and commercial moves the result of definite consideration and sound judgment. There were never any great ventures or risks—nothing exciting whatever. I simply practiced honest, slow-growing business methods, and tried to back them with energy and good system.”

“Have you always been a hard-worker?”

“No,” Mr. Field said, with the shadow of a smile. “I have never believed in overworking, either as applied to myself or others. It is always paid for with a short life, and I do not believe in it.”

“Has there ever been a time in your life when you gave as much as eighteen hours a day to your work?”

“Never. That is, never as a steady practice. During the time of the fire in 1871, there was a short period in which I worked very hard. For several weeks then I worked the greater part of night and day, as almost anyone would have done in my place. My fortune, however, has not been made in that manner, and, as I have said, I believe in reasonable hours for everyone, but close attention during those hours.”

“Do you work as much as you once did?”

“I never worked very many hours a day. Besides, people do not work as many hours a day now as they once did. The day’s labor has shortened in the last twenty years for everyone. Still, granting that, I cannot say that I work as much as I once did, and I frankly admit that I do not feel the need of it.”

“Do you believe,” I went on, “that a man should cease laboring before his period of usefulness is over, so that he may enjoy some of the results of his labor before death, or do you believe in retaining constant interest in affairs while strength lasts?”

“As to that, I hold the French idea, that a man ought to retire when he has gained a competence wherewith to do so. I think that is a very good idea. But I do not believe that when a man retires, or no longer attends to his private business in person every day, he has given up interest in the affairs of the world. He may be, in fact should be, doing wider and greater work when he has abandoned his private business, so far as personal attention is concerned.”