My late father, a man who was only helped by experience and natural, clear-cut judgment, once told me that he had wanted to set up towns in a certain designated place, to which those who needed something could go and register their business with an officer established for this purpose, such as: I am looking to sell pearls, I am looking for pearls to sell. This person wants company to go to Paris; this person is looking for a servant of such and such a quality; this person is looking for a master; this person is looking for a worker; this person, this person, each according to their needs.
And it seems that this means of warning each other would bring no small convenience to public commerce: for there are always conditions that clash, and, by not understanding each other, leave men in extreme need. I hear, to our century’s great shame, that before our very eyes two most excellent men of learning have died without enough to eat: Lilius Gregorius Giraldus in Italy, and Sebastianus Castalio in Germany; and believe that there are a thousand men who would have called on them with very advantageous conditions, or helped them where they were, if they had known. The world is not so generally corrupt that I know of any man who, with great affection, would wish that the means his family has placed in his hands could be used, as long as fortune allows, to protect rare and remarkable people of some value, whom misfortune sometimes fights to the bitter end, and which would at least put them in such a state that it would only take good words to keep them happy.
In economic policy my father had this order, which I know how to praise, but in no way follow. This is because, in addition to the household business register where the small accounts, payments and contracts that do not require the hand of a notary are kept, which register a receiver is in charge of, he ordered the one of his people who served him to write a newspaper article to insert all the occurrences of any remark, and day by day the memoirs of the history of his house, very pleasant to see when time begins to erase the memory of it, and very appropriate to often save us from trouble: when was such and such an affair begun? when finished? which trains passed through? how many arrested? our trips, our absences, marriages, deaths, the reception of happy or unfortunate news; change of principal servants; such matters. An old custom, which I think it’s good to refresh, each in his own way.
And I think I’m a fool for having failed to do so.