g my will. You are
perfectly right, of course, and I alone am to blame for the apparently
stupid hesitation I show in following your advice. But, as I have
already told you, I have no one in the world who has the least claim
upon me,--no one to whom I can bequeath, to my own satisfaction, the
wealth I have earned. I married,--as you know,--and my marriage was
unhappy. It ended,--and you are aware of all the facts--in the proved
infidelity of my wife, followed by our separation (effected quietly,
thanks to you, without the vulgar publicity of the divorce court), and
then--in her premature death. Notwithstanding all this, I did my best
for my two sons,--you are a witness to this truth,--and you remember
that during their lifetime I did make my will,--in their favour. They
turned out badly; each one ran his own career of folly, vice, and
riotous dissipation, and both are dead. Thus it happens that here I
am,--alone at the age of seventy, without any soul to care for me, or
any creature to whom I can trust my business, or leave my fortune. It
is not my fault that it is so; it is sheer destiny. How, I ask you, can
I make any 'Last Will and Testament' under such conditions?"

"If you make no will at all, your property goes to the Crown," said
Vesey bluntly.

"Naturally. I know that. But one might have a worse heir than the Crown!
The Crown may be trusted to take proper care of money, and this is more
than can often be said of one's sons and daughters. I tell you it is all
as Solomon said--'vanity and vexation of spirit.' The amassing of great
wealth is not worth the time and trouble involved in the task. One could
do so much better----"

Here he paused.

"How?" asked Vesey, with a half-smile. "What else is there to be done in
this world except to get rich in order to live comfortably?"

"I know people who are not rich at all, and who never will be rich, yet
who live more comfortably than I have ever done," replied
Helmsley--"that is, if to 'live comfortably' implies to live peacefully,
happily, and contentedly, taking each day as it comes with gladness as a
real 'living' time. And by this, I mean 'living,' not with the rush and
scramble, fret and jar inseparable from money-making, but living just
for the joy of life. Especially when it is possible to believe that a
God exists, who designed life, and even death, for the ultimate good of
every creature. This is what I believed--once--'out in ole Virginny, a
long time ago!