The office of the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company, at Bristol, Rhode Island, is in a building that formerly belonged to the Burnside Rifle Company. It is substantial, but unpretentious, and is entered by a short stairway on one side. The furniture throughout is also plain, but has been selected with excellent taste, and is suggestive of the most effective adaptation of means to ends in every detail. On the mantel and on the walls are numerous pictures, most of them of vessels, but very few relating directly to any of the great races for the “America’s” cup. The first picture to arrest one’s attention, indeed, is an excellent portrait of the late General Ambrose E. Burnside, who lived in Bristol, and was an intimate friend of John B. Herreshoff.
Previous inquiry had elicited the information that the members of the firm are very busy with various large orders, in addition to the rush of work on Cup Defenders; so it was a very agreeable surprise when I was invited into the tasteful private office, where the blind president sat, having just concluded a short conversation with an attorney.
“LET THE WORK SHOW”
“Well, sir,” said he, rising and grasping my hand cordially, “what do you wish?”
“I realize how very busy you must be, Mr. Herreshoff,” I replied, “and will try to be as brief as possible; but I venture to ask a few minutes of your time, to obtain suggestions and advice from you to young people.”
“But why select me, in particular, as an adviser?”
This was “a poser,” at first, especially when he added, noting my hesitation:—
“We are frequently requested to give interviews in regard to our manufacturing business; but, since as it is the settled policy of our house to do our work just as well as we possibly can and then leave it to speak for itself, we have felt obliged to decline all these requests. It would be repugnant to our sense of propriety to talk in public about our special industry. ‘Let the work show!’ seems to us a good motto.”
THE VOYAGE OF LIFE
“True,” said I. “But the readers of my books may not care to read of cutters or ‘skimming dishes,’ center-boards or fin keels, or copper coils versus steel tubes for boilers. They leave the choice in such matters to you, realizing that you have always proved equal to the situation. What I want now is advice in regard to the race of life,—the voyage in which each youth must be his own captain, but in which the words of others who have successfully sailed the sea before will help to avoid rocks and shoals, and to profit by favoring currents and trade winds. You have been handicapped in an unusual degree, sailing in total darkness and beset by many other difficulties, but have, nevertheless, made a very prosperous voyage. In overcoming such serious obstacles, you must have learned much of the true philosophy of both success and failure, and I think you will be willing to help the young with suggestions drawn from your experience.”