A PERSONAL LETTER — TO YOU 
Dear Floral Friends, 
Before getting down to the business of selecting our Bulbs, African Violets, Orchids 
or other plants, let us (as usual) philosophize a little, together. I believe that it does 
most of us good to search into the reason and nature of things and to come to 
conclusions about what is favorable and what is unfavorable in relation to our own 
personal happiness. 
George Horace Latimer, late Editor of the Saturday Evening Post, once said: “It is 
good to have money and the things money can buy. It is good also to check up and 
make sure you have not lost the things money cannot buy. Among these more valuable 
things that money cannot buy are health, good conscience, friendships, good reputation, 
the knowledge of service to others. All these add up to a greater contentment than 
the bank account can give.” 
I will commend these words to all good people. Sometimes the best of us forget 
our ideals. But there are greater values than money that cannot be expressed by any 
numerals preceded by a dollar sign. 
There is wisdom in these words for salesmen, many of whom are more concerned 
about the volume of their sales than they are about the ultimate satisfaction of their 
customers. They need to remember the Golden Rule and to realize that when one 
sells an item that gives satisfaction to his customer, he has made a friend and acquired 
a customer who will come again. There are prospective customers too who need to 
apply the same rule, but on that point I should not expatiate because I do not mean 
you or any one who would read this far in this letter. 
One good quotation deserves another. Since I’ve made such a start I may as well 
continue. Have you ever read William Henry Channing’s “My Symphony’? If not, you 
should, and here it is: 
“To live content with small means; 
To seek elegance rather than luxury and refinement rather than fashion; 
To be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; 
To listen to stars and birds, babes and sages with open heart; 
To study hard; 
To think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; 
In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up thru the 
common. 
This is My Symphony.” 
Our President, a few months ago, quoted the fourth paragraph of the following. 
The entire article is worth cogitation by all of us and especially by those beyond 
middle life. 
It is true that life brings many disappointments and many sorrows along with 
the many blessings. Let the old be reassured that,— 
Youth is not a time of life; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and athletic 
bodies; it is a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions. 
It is a freshness of the deep inner springs of life. 
Nobody ever grows old by merely living a number of years; people grow old by 
deserting their ideals. Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the 
soul. 
Whether seventeen or seventy, there should be in every being’s heart the love of 
wonder, the sweet amazement of the stars, the undaunted challenge of events, the 
childlike appetite for what comes next, and the joy in the game of life. 
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