Acres of Diamonds Story

The Acres of Diamonds story is a timeless tale that deserves to be read by anyone who desires to succeed in life.

Each of us must work to earn our keep during the limited time we have on Earth and eventually we must ask, "What will I do for a living?" and "How can I become financially independent?" and "Will I have enough money to live on when I retire?"

Russell H. Conwell answered these questions best: "You can get rich right where you are. At home. Not somewhere else. Not a man has secured great wealth by going away who might have secured as much by some other means if he had stayed at home."

You Can Find Your Field of Diamonds
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Yes, it is possible for you to find the answer to your life's work and happiness not far from where you are presently sitting. Conwell freely shared the astounding SECRET he uncovered on how to find hidden riches, and NOW that secret is YOURS.

The Acres of Diamonds Story

Excerpt from Acres of Diamonds (1915)

By Russell H. Conwell | Estimated read time: 8 minutes

A Party of Desert Travellers
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When going down the Tigris and Euphrates rivers many years ago with a party of English travellers I found myself under the direction of an old Arab guide whom we hired up at Badgered, and I have often thought how that guide resembled our barbers in certain mental characteristics.

He thought that it was not only his duty to guide us down those rivers, and do what he was paid for doing, but also to entertain us with stories curious and weird, ancient and modern, strange and familiar. Many of them I have forgotten, and I am glad I have, but there is one I shall never forget.

The old guide was leading my camel by its halter along the banks of those ancient rivers, and he told me story after story until I grew weary of his story telling and ceased to listen.

I have never been irritated with that guide when he lost his temper as I ceased listening. But I remember that he took off his Turkish cap and swung it in a circle to get my attention. I could see it through the corner of my eye, but I determined not to look straight at him for fear he would tell another story. But, I did finally look, and as soon as I did he went right into another story.

Said he, "I will tell you a story now which I reserve for my particular friends." When he emphasized the words "particular friends," I listened, and I have ever been glad I did.

The old guide told me that there once lived not far from the River Indus an ancient Persian by the name of Ali Hafed. He said that Ali Hafed owned a very large farm, that he had orchards, grain fields, and gardens; that he had money at interest, and was a wealthy and contented man. He was contented because he was wealthy, and wealthy because he was contented.

One day there visited that old Persian farmer one of these ancient Buddhist priests, one of the wise men of the East. He sat down by the fire and told the old farmer how this world of ours was made.

He said that this world was once a mere bank of fog, and that the Almighty thrust His finger into this bank of fog, and began slowly to move His finger around, increasing the speed until at last He whirled this bank of fog into a solid ball of fire.

Then it went rolling through the universe, burning its way through other banks of fog, and condensed the moisture without, until it fell in floods of rain upon its hot surface, and cooled the outward crust.

Then the internal fires bursting outward through the crust threw up the mountains and hills, the valleys, the plains and prairies of this wonderful world of ours. If this internal molten mass came bursting out and cooled very quickly it became granite; less quickly copper, less quickly silver, less quickly gold, and, after gold, diamonds were made.

Said the old priest, "A diamond is a congealed drop of sunlight." Now that is literally scientifically true that a diamond is an actual deposit of carbon from the sun.

The old priest told Ali Hafed that if he had one diamond the size of his thumb, he could purchase the county, and if he had a mine of diamonds, he could place his children upon thrones through the influence of their great wealth.

Ali Hafed heard all about diamonds, how much they were worth, and went to his bed that night a poor man. He had not lost anything, but he was poor because he was discontented, and discontented because he feared he was poor.

He said, "I want a mine of diamonds," and he lay awake all night.

Early in the morning, he sought out the priest. I know by experience that a priest is very cross when awakened early in the morning, and when he shook that old priest out of his dreams, Ali Hafed said to him:

"Will you tell me where I can find diamonds?"

"Diamonds! What do you want with diamonds?"

"Why, I wish to be immensely rich."

"Well, then, go along and find them. That is all you have to do; go and find them, and then you have them."

"But I don't know where to go."

"Well, if you will find a river that runs through white sands, between high mountains, in those white sands you will always find diamonds."

"I don't believe there is any such river."

"Oh yes, there are plenty of them. All you have to do is to go and find them, and then you have them."

Said Ali Hafed, "I will go."

So he sold his farm, collected his money, left his family in charge of a neighbor, and away he went in search of diamonds.

He began his search, very properly to my mind, at the Mountains of the Moon. Afterward he came around into Palestine, then wandered on into Europe, and at last when his money was all spent and he was in rags, wretchedness, and poverty, he stood on the shore of that bay at Barcelona, in Spain, when a great tidal wave came rolling in between the pillars of Hercules, and the poor, afflicted, suffering, dying man could not resist the awful temptation to cast himself into that incoming tide, and he sank beneath its foaming crest, never to rise in this life again.

When that old guide had told me that awfully sad story he stopped the camel I was riding on and went back to fix the baggage that was coming off another camel, and I had an opportunity to muse over his story while he was gone.

I remember saying to myself, "Why did he reserve that story for his 'particular friends'?" There seemed to be no beginning, no middle, no end, nothing to it.

That was the first story I had ever heard told in my life, and would be the first one I ever read, in which the hero was killed in the first chapter. I had but one chapter of that story, and the hero was dead.

When the guide came back and took up the halter of my camel, he went right ahead with the story, into the second chapter, just as though there had been no break.

Find Your Opportunity
(PD Source: Acres of Diamonds, 1915)

The man who purchased Ali Hafed's farm one day led his camel into the garden to drink, and as that camel put its nose into the shallow water of that garden brook, Ali Hafed's successor noticed a curious flash of light from the white sands of the stream.

He pulled out a black stone having an eye of light reflecting all the hues of the rainbow. He took the pebble into the house and put it on the mantel which covers the central fires, and forgot all about it.

A few days later this same old priest came in to visit Ali Hafed's successor, and the moment he opened that drawing room door he saw that flash of light on the mantel, and he rushed up to it, and shouted: "Here is a diamond! Has Ali Hafed returned?"

"Oh no, Ali Hafed has not returned, and that is not a diamond. That is nothing but a stone we found right out here in our own garden."

"But," said the priest, "I tell you I know a diamond when I see it. I know positively that is a diamond."

Then together they rushed out into that old garden and stirred up the white sands with their fingers, and lo! there came up other more beautiful and valuable gems than the first.

"Thus," said the guide to me, and, friends, it is historically true, "was discovered the diamond mine of Golconda, the most magnificent diamond mine in all the history of mankind, excelling the Kimberly itself. The Kohinoor, and the Orloff of the crown jewels of England and Russia, the largest on earth, came from that mine."

When that old Arab guide told me the second chapter of his story, he then took off his Turkish cap and swung it around in the air again to get my attention to the moral. Those Arab guides have morals to their stories, although they are not always moral.

As he swung his hat, he said to me, "Had Ali Hafed remained at home and dug in his own cellar, or underneath his own wheat fields, or in his own garden, instead of wretchedness, starvation, and death by suicide in a strange land, he would have had 'acres of diamonds.' For every acre of that old farm, yes, every shovelful, afterward revealed gems which since have decorated the crowns of monarchs."

When he had added the moral to his story, I saw why he reserved it for "his particular friends." But I did not tell him I could see it. It was that mean old Arab's way of going around a thing like a lawyer, to say indirectly what he did not dare say directly that "in his private opinion there was a certain young man then travelling down the Tigris River that might better be at home in America." I did not tell him I could see that, but I told him his story reminded me of one, and I told it to him quick, and I think I will tell it to you.

I told him of a man out in California in 1847, who owned a ranch. He heard they had discovered gold in southern California, and so with a passion for gold he sold his ranch to Colonel Sutter, and away he went, never to come back.

Colonel Sutter put a mill upon a stream that ran through that ranch, and one day his little girl brought some wet sand from the raceway into their home and sifted it through her fingers before the fire, and in that falling sand a visitor saw the first shining scales of real gold that were ever discovered in California.

The man who had owned that ranch wanted gold, and he could have secured it for the mere taking. Indeed, thirty-eight millions of dollars has been taken out of a very few acres since then.

I say to you that you have "acres of diamonds" right where you now live.

Russell H. Conwell 1843-1925
(PD Source: Acres of Diamonds, 1915)

Source

Russell H. Conwell. "Acres of Diamonds." Volume 2. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1915.

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Finding Your Acres of Diamonds

Discover Your Own Field of Diamonds
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I started my current online business based on the secret that Conwell revealed in his Acres of Diamonds story.

I looked to see what I had at hand and discovered three things:

1. I had a computer with an Internet connection.

2. I had a collection of handmade recipe scrapbooks and out-of-print cookbooks now in the public domain that I had inherited from my mother.

3. I learned that people love to read old fashioned dessert recipes.

So, I used my computer to compile the old fashioned recipes onto a website powered by Solo Build It (SBI), and here you are reading this page. Solo Build It works!

Yes, some basic knowledge of website building and promotion is needed, but don't let that frighten you. You learn as you go. The Solo Build It Action Guide and helpful videos will explain everything that you need to know.

Remember that most business owners are people just like you and me — ordinary people.

You have just read the Acres of Diamonds story revealing the astounding secret Conwell obtained from an old Arab guide while journeying in Western Asia.

But, please...

Do not read Conwell's story and do nothing. Your time is precious!

Begin now by listing the information or skills you have at hand that others might want. Then, put into practice the secret revealed in Conwell's tale and mine your own Field of Diamonds.

You Can Begin Your Own Website Today
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You can start your own Solo Build It website and today. Who knows? You might be in a position to fire your boss and escape the 9-to-5 routine someday, or maybe even choose to live an early retirement, as I've done.

Read my Solo Build It Review for more information.