to say, his medicine is mostly a matter of the mind. Unfortunately for
him, we do not enjoy poor health, so there is very seldom any one sick to
be cured. Fresh air is free, and outdoor exercise is not discouraged.

* * * * *

The Roycroft Shop and belongings represent an investment
of about three hundred thousand dollars. We have no liabilities, making
it a strict business policy to sign no notes or other instruments of debt
that may in the future prove inopportune and tend to disturb digestion.
Fortune has favored us.

First, the country has grown tired of soft platitude, silly truism and
undisputed things said in such a solemn way. So when "The Philistine"
stepped into the ring and voiced in no uncertain tones what its editor
thought, thinking men and women stopped and listened. Editors of
magazines refused my manuscript because they said it was too plain, too
blunt, sometimes indelicate--it would give offense, subscribers would
cancel, et cetera. To get my thoughts published I had to publish them
myself; and people bought for the very reason for which the editors said
they would cancel. The readers wanted brevity and plain statement--the
editors said they didn't.

The editors were wrong. They failed to properly diagnose a demand. I saw
the demand and supplied it--for a consideration.

Next I believed the American public. A portion of it, at least, wanted a
few good and beautiful books instead of a great many cheap books. The
truth came to me in the early Nineties, when John B. Alden and half a
dozen other publishers of cheap books went to the wall. I read the R.G.