it was during his time in greensburg that stokes read an article written by a young telegraph operator by the name of andrew carnegie on the subject of people's attitudes toward stokes' client, the pennsylvania railroad company. stokes invited carnegie to visit and spend the night at his mansion. in his autobiography, carnegie writes of stokes:i had never spent a night in a strange house in my life until mr. stokes of greensburg, chief counsel of the pennsylvania railroad, invited me to his beautiful home in the country to pass a sunday. it was an odd thing for mr. stokes to do, for i could little interest a brilliant and educated man like him. the reason for my receiving such an honor was a communication i had written for the "pittsburgh journal." it was the "grandeur" of stokes' private library, the first private library andrew carnegie had ever seen, that partially inspired the public libraries carnegie established in later years. carnegie writes: the grandeur of mr. stokes's home impressed me, but the one feature of it that eclipsed all else was a marble mantel in his library. in the center of the arch, carved in the marble, was an open book with this inscription: