uch on this (and I might say he did not build them alone), but it
seems to be necessary to bring out the most striking thing about Non in
his first stage as a business man, _viz._: He hated his business. He
made up his mind he either would make the business the kind of business
he liked or get out of it. I did not gather from the way he talked about
it that he had any idea of being an uplifter. He merely had, apparently,
an obstinate, doggedly comfortable idea about himself, and about what a
thing would have to be, in this world, if he was connected with it. He
proposed to enjoy his business. He was spending most of his time at it.

Other people have had this same happy thought, but they seem to manage
to keep on being patient. Non could not fall back on being patient, and
it made him think harder.

The first thing he thought of was that doing his business as he thought
he ought to, if he once worked his idea out, and worked it down through
and organized it, might pay. He almost had the belief that people might
pay a man a little extra, perhaps, for enjoying his business. It cannot
be said that he believed this immediately. He merely wanted to, and
worked toward it, and merely contrived new shrewd ways at first of being
able to afford it. Gradually he began to notice that the more he enjoyed
his business, the more he enjoyed it with his whole soul and body,
enjoyed it down to the very toes of his conscience, the more people
there were who stepped into his office and wanted him to enjoy his
business on their houses. It was what they had been looking for for
years--for some builder who was really enjoying his business. And the
more he enjoyed his business in his own particular way--that of building
a house for a man in less time than he said he would, and for less
money, not infrequently sending him a check at the end of it--the more
his business grew.

I do not know that there would be any special harm in speaking of Non's
idea--of just doing as you would be done by--in more moral or religious
language, but it is not necessary. And I find I take an almost religious
joy in looking at the Golden Rule at last as a plain business
proposition. All that happened was that Non was original, saw something
that everybody thought they knew, and acted as if it were so.
Theoretically one would not have said that it would be original to take
an old platitudinous law like the law of supply and demand, and act as
if it were so; but it