February 4

February 4 – AM          Page 61, How It Works, Chapter 5

What usually happens?  The show doesn’t come off very well.  He begins to think life doesn’t treat him right.  He decides to exert himself more.  He becomes, on the next occasion, still more demanding or gracious, as the case may be.  Still the play does not suit him.  Admitting he may be somewhat at fault, he is sure that other people are more to blame.  He becomes angry, indignant, self-pitying.  What is his basic trouble?  Is he not really a self-seeker even when trying to be kind?  Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he only manages well?  Is it not evident to all the rest of the players that these are the things he wants?  And do not his actions make each of them wish to retaliate, snatching all they can get out of the show?  Is he not, even in his best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony?

February 4 – PM          Page 4, Bill’s Story, Chapter 1

Abruptly in October 1929 hell broke loose on the New York stock exchange.  After one of those days of inferno, I wobbled from a hotel bar to a brokerage office.  It was eight o’clock—five hours after the market closed.  The ticker still clattered.  I was staring at an inch of the tape which bore the inscription XYZ-32.  It had been 52 that morning.  I was finished and so were many friends.  The papers reported men jumping to death from the towers of High Finance.  That disgusted me.  I would not jump.  I went back to the bar.  My friends had dropped several million since ten o’clock—so what?  Tomorrow was another day.  As I drank, the old fierce determination to win came back.
Next morning I telephoned a friend in Montreal.  He had plenty of money left and thought I had better go to Canada.  By the following spring we were living in our accustomed style.  I felt like Napoleon returning from Elba.  No St. Helena for me!  But drinking caught up with me again and my generous friend had to let me go.  This time we stayed broke.