instinctively to the making of a home for himself.
After an engagement of four years he had been married, on October 22,
1896, to Mary Louise Curtis, the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Cyrus H. K.
Curtis; two sons had been born to them; he had built and was occupying
a house at Merion, Pennsylvania, a suburb six miles from the
Philadelphia City Hall. When she was in this country his mother lived
with him, and also his brother, and, with a strong belief in life
insurance, he had seen to it that his family was provided for in case
of personal incapacity or of his demise. In other words, he felt that
he had put his own house in order; he had carried out what he felt is
every man's duty: to be, first of all, a careful and adequate provider
for his family. He was now at the point where he could begin to work
for another goal, the goal that he felt so few American men saw: the
point in his life where he could retire from the call of duty and
follow the call of inclination.

At the age of forty he tried to look ahead and plan out his life as far
as he could. Barring unforeseen obstacles, he determined to retire
from active business when he reached his fiftieth year, and give the
remainder of his life over to those interests and influences which he
assumed now as part of his life, and which, at fifty, should seem to
him best worth while. He realized that in order to do this he must do
two things: he must husband his financial resources and he must begin
to accumulate a mental reserve.

The wide public acceptance of the periodical which he edited naturally
brought a share of financial success to him. He had experienced
poverty, and as he subsequently wrote, in an article called "Why I
Believe in Poverty," he was deeply grateful for his experience. He had
known what it was to be poor; he had seen others dear to him suffer for
the bare necessities; there was, in fact, not a single step on that
hard road that he had not travelled. He could, therefore, sympathize
with the fullest understanding with those similarly situated, could
help as one who knew from practice and not from theory. He realized
what a marvellous blessing poverty can be; but as a condition to
experience, to derive from it poignant lessons, and then to get out of;
not as a condition to stay in.

Of course many said to Bok when he wrote the article in which he
expressed these beliefs: "That's all very well; easy enough to say, but
how can you get out of it?"