HE SOLD LIGHTHOUSES

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 20, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 16.

HE SOLD LIGHTHOUSES.

[From Success.]

Four traveling men were seated in the smoking compartment of a Pullman, being whirled through a western state. The condition of trade formed the subject of conversation, and three of them confessed, dubiously shaking their heads, that they had not sold a bill of goods for a week. "Well, I haven't made a sale for two months," said the fourth man, with a smile. "And your people keep you on?" asked one of his companions. The fourth man nodded. "What are you selling?" broke in another. "Lighthouses!" said the fourth man.

The speaker was F. Hopkinson Smith, best known to the public as an artist, author, and playwright. Painting and authorship, however, are diversions with Mr. Smith,—the planning and building of lighthouses being his serious task. No business man in America works harder than he over dry details and calculations, and in the summing up of what he has accomplished in his life work he says the most satisfactory achievement to him has been the construction of Race Rock Lighthouse, in New London Harbor. Its construction involved a six years' battle with the elements, a continuous fight between sea and man, and no one can wonder that Mr. Smith takes pardonable pride in its successful issue. "The mastery of Race Rock," he says, "helped and strengthened me, and showed me the wisdom of depending upon myself."