Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie | Page 3

true, to whom I can speak with the utmost freedom,
feeling that even trifling incidents may not be wholly destitute of
interest for them.
To begin, then, I was born in Dunfermline, in the attic of the small
one-story house, corner of Moodie Street and Priory Lane, on the 25th
of November, 1835, and, as the saying is, "of poor but honest parents,
of good kith and kin." Dunfermline had long been noted as the center of
the damask trade in Scotland.[1] My father, William Carnegie, was a
damask weaver, the son of Andrew Carnegie after whom I was named.
[Footnote 1: The Eighteenth-Century Carnegies lived at the picturesque
hamlet of Patiemuir, two miles south of Dunfermline. The growing
importance of the linen industry in Dunfermline finally led the
Carnegies to move to that town.]
My Grandfather Carnegie was well known throughout the district for
his wit and humor, his genial nature and irrepressible spirits. He was
head of the lively ones of his day, and known far and near as the chief
of their joyous club--"Patiemuir College." Upon my return to
Dunfermline, after an absence of fourteen years, I remember being
approached by an old man who had been told that I was the grandson of
the "Professor," my grandfather's title among his cronies. He was the
very picture of palsied eld;
"His nose and chin they threatened ither."
As he tottered across the room toward me and laid his trembling hand
upon my head he said: "And ye are the grandson o' Andra Carnegie! Eh,
mon, I ha'e seen the day when your grandfaither and I could ha'e
hallooed ony reasonable man oot o' his jidgment."
[Illustration: ANDREW CARNEGIE'S BIRTHPLACE]

Several other old people of Dunfermline told me stories of my
grandfather. Here is one of them:
One Hogmanay night[2] an old wifey, quite a character in the village,
being surprised by a disguised face suddenly thrust in at the window,
looked up and after a moment's pause exclaimed, "Oh, it's jist that daft
callant Andra Carnegie." She was right; my grandfather at seventy-five
was out frightening his old lady friends, disguised like other frolicking
youngsters.
[Footnote 2: The 31st of December.]
I think my optimistic nature, my ability to shed trouble and to laugh
through life, making "all my ducks swans," as friends say I do, must
have been inherited from this delightful old masquerading grandfather
whose name I am proud to bear.[3] A sunny disposition is worth more
than fortune. Young people should know that it can be cultivated; that
the mind like the body can be moved from the shade into sunshine. Let
us move it then. Laugh trouble away if possible, and one usually can if
he be anything of a philosopher, provided that self-reproach comes not
from his own wrongdoing. That always remains. There is no washing
out of these "damned spots." The judge within sits in the supreme court
and can never be cheated. Hence the grand rule of life which Burns
gives:
"Thine own reproach alone do fear."
[Footnote 3: "There is no sign that Andrew, though he prospered in his
wooing, was specially successful in acquisition of worldly gear.
Otherwise, however, he became an outstanding character not only in
the village, but in the adjoining city and district. A 'brainy' man who
read and thought for himself he became associated with the radical
weavers of Dunfermline, who in Patiemuir formed a meeting-place
which they named a college (Andrew was the 'Professor' of it)."
(_Andrew Carnegie: His Dunfermline Ties and Benefactions_, by J.B.
Mackie, F.J.I.)]
This motto adopted early in life has been more to me than all the

sermons I ever heard, and I have heard not a few, although I may admit
resemblance to my old friend Baillie Walker in my mature years. He
was asked by his doctor about his sleep and replied that it was far from
satisfactory, he was very wakeful, adding with a twinkle in his eye:
"But I get a bit fine doze i' the kirk noo and then."
On my mother's side the grandfather was even more marked, for my
grandfather Thomas Morrison was a friend of William Cobbett, a
contributor to his "Register," and in constant correspondence with him.
Even as I write, in Dunfermline old men who knew Grandfather
Morrison speak of him as one of the finest orators and ablest men they
have known. He was publisher of "The Precursor," a small edition it
might be said of Cobbett's "Register," and thought to have been the first
radical paper in Scotland. I have read some of his writings, and in view
of the importance now given to technical education, I think the most
remarkable of them is a pamphlet which he published seventy-odd
years ago entitled "Head-ication versus Hand-ication." It insists upon