320 HOW TO GET A FAKM, 



the equal distribution of property among children, 

 the prejudice in many quarters against making a 

 will, the rise and fall of fortunes, and the constant 

 changes in the value of real estate. But one cause 

 is probably more potential than all. Almost every 

 man who buys real estate, buys, builds, or improves, 

 not so much with a simple view to his own comfort, 

 as with an eye to what it will sell for when he has 

 done making his improvements. Many men build 

 very extensively, calculating upon this and this 

 alone. They are not architects, not builders, not 

 even capitalists ; but they build largely on credit, 

 simply to wait as tenants for a rise in price, and 

 then sell. Of course, the larger and more expensive 

 the house, the larger the hope and expectation of 

 gain. 



&quot;All such,&quot; he adds, &quot; are mere speculators. Their 

 plans succeed often enough to encourage others who 

 fancy they have skill and taste to imitate. Many 

 of these aspirants for fortune lose thousands, but 

 their disasters are soon forgotten. Such men, says 

 some one, build houses far in advance of their real 

 means and situation in life, and cities improve and 

 towns spring up, beautiful to look upon, but too 

 often they are not the abode of content and hap 

 piness. They might be, if each man built an 

 humble home, just such as he could afford to hold 

 through all the vicissitudes of business such a home 



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as his widow could afford to own, free from debt, 

 and live in, without pecuniary care, after he was 

 gone such a home as any one of his children might 

 reasonably hope to be able to keep up, without in- 



