Much of your success will depend upon those with whom you surround yourself. Be ultra conservative in your selection. It may not have occurred to you, but in choosing you for the big job those who had your selection in their power observed pretty carefully whether or not you had character. Character is the solid foundation of all success; without it no great heights can be reached and kept.
Boy, I could go on indefinitely, but I must close. Even now, as the realization of your present age and particularly your position strikes me anew, I feel a sense of awe. I will not write you this way any more--I'm done. Henceforth, my letters will be postscripts on the bottom of Mother's and will only tell of my adventures chasing a little white ball around a cow pasture. The mantle has fallen on your broad and worthy shoulders--instead of my telling you what to do, I'm resigned to have you give me the post-graduate course, for as Kipling says:
“Tho I've belted you and flayed you, By the livin' Gawd that made you You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.”
A number of typographical errors have been corrected silently.
Irregularities in the salutations and signature blocks of the letters have been normalized to a single form.
Words and phrases with different spacing or hyphenation have been normalized into a single form.
Variability in case of "boy" when used as a proper noun have been standardized to upper.
Mismatched ending quotes for nested quotes have not been changed.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS FROM AN OLD TIME SALESMAN TO HIS SON
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