Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie | Page 4

the importance of the latter in a manner that would reflect credit upon
the strongest advocate of technical education to-day. It ends with these
words, "I thank God that in my youth I learned to make and mend
shoes." Cobbett published it in the "Register" in 1833, remarking
editorially, "One of the most valuable communications ever published
in the 'Register' upon the subject, is that of our esteemed friend and
correspondent in Scotland, Thomas Morrison, which appears in this
issue." So it seems I come by my scribbling propensities by
inheritance--from both sides, for the Carnegies were also readers and
thinkers.
My Grandfather Morrison was a born orator, a keen politician, and the
head of the advanced wing of the radical party in the district--a position
which his son, my Uncle Bailie Morrison, occupied as his successor.
More than one well-known Scotsman in America has called upon me,
to shake hands with "the grandson of Thomas Morrison." Mr. Farmer,
president of the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroad Company, once said
to me, "I owe all that I have of learning and culture to the influence of
your grandfather"; and Ebenezer Henderson, author of the remarkable
history of Dunfermline, stated that he largely owed his advancement in

life to the fortunate fact that while a boy he entered my grandfather's
service.
I have not passed so far through life without receiving some
compliments, but I think nothing of a complimentary character has ever
pleased me so much as this from a writer in a Glasgow newspaper, who
had been a listener to a speech on Home Rule in America which I
delivered in Saint Andrew's Hall. The correspondent wrote that much
was then being said in Scotland with regard to myself and family and
especially my grandfather Thomas Morrison, and he went on to say,
"Judge my surprise when I found in the grandson on the platform, in
manner, gesture and appearance, a perfect facsimile of the Thomas
Morrison of old."
My surprising likeness to my grandfather, whom I do not remember to
have ever seen, cannot be doubted, because I remember well upon my
first return to Dunfermline in my twenty-seventh year, while sitting
upon a sofa with my Uncle Bailie Morrison, that his big black eyes
filled with tears. He could not speak and rushed out of the room
overcome. Returning after a time he explained that something in me
now and then flashed before him his father, who would instantly vanish
but come back at intervals. Some gesture it was, but what precisely he
could not make out. My mother continually noticed in me some of my
grandfather's peculiarities. The doctrine of inherited tendencies is
proved every day and hour, but how subtle is the law which transmits
gesture, something as it were beyond the material body. I was deeply
impressed.
My Grandfather Morrison married Miss Hodge, of Edinburgh, a lady in
education, manners, and position, who died while the family was still
young. At this time he was in good circumstances, a leather merchant
conducting the tanning business in Dunfermline; but the peace after the
Battle of Waterloo involved him in ruin, as it did thousands; so that
while my Uncle Bailie, the eldest son, had been brought up in what
might be termed luxury, for he had a pony to ride, the younger
members of the family encountered other and harder days.
The second daughter, Margaret, was my mother, about whom I cannot

trust myself to speak at length. She inherited from her mother the
dignity, refinement, and air of the cultivated lady. Perhaps some day I
may be able to tell the world something of this heroine, but I doubt it. I
feel her to be sacred to myself and not for others to know. None could
ever really know her--I alone did that. After my father's early death she
was all my own. The dedication of my first book[4] tells the story. It
was: "To my favorite Heroine My Mother."
[Footnote 4: An American Four-in-Hand in Great Britain. New York,
1888.]
[Illustration: DUNFERMLINE ABBEY]
Fortunate in my ancestors I was supremely so in my birthplace. Where
one is born is very important, for different surroundings and traditions
appeal to and stimulate different latent tendencies in the child. Ruskin
truly observes that every bright boy in Edinburgh is influenced by the
sight of the Castle. So is the child of Dunfermline, by its noble Abbey,
the Westminster of Scotland, founded early in the eleventh century
(1070) by Malcolm Canmore and his Queen Margaret, Scotland's
patron saint. The ruins of the great monastery and of the Palace where
kings were born still stand, and there, too, is Pittencrieff Glen,
embracing Queen Margaret's shrine and the ruins of King Malcolm's
Tower, with which the old ballad of "Sir Patrick Spens"