Miriam Margolyes reads Ayn Rand's very stern letter to her niece

May 22nd, 1949. Dear Connie, you are very young, so I don't know whether you realize the seriousness of your action in writing to me for money. Since I don't know you at all, I'm going to put you to a test. If you really want to borrow $25 for me, I will take a chance on finding out what kind of person you are. You want to borrow the money until your graduation. I will do better than that. I will make it easier for you to repay the debt, but on condition that you understand and accept it as a strict and serious business deal. Before you borrow it, I want you to think it over very carefully. Here are my conditions. If I send you the $25, I will give you a year to repay it. I will give you six months after your graduation to get settled in a job. Then you will start repaying the money and installments. You will send me $5 on January 15, 1950 and $4 on the 15th of every month after that. The last installment will be on June 15, 1950 and that will repay the total. Are you willing to do it? I want you to understand right now that I will not accept any excuse except a serious illness. If you become ill, then I will give you an extension of time, but for no other reason. If when the debt becomes due, you tell me that you can't pay me because you needed a new pair of shoes or a new coat or you gave the money to somebody in the family who needed it more than I do, then I will consider you an embezzler. No, I won't send a policeman after you, but I will write you off as a rotten person and I will never speak or write to you again. You want $25 for the purpose of buying a dress? You tell me that you will get a job and be able to repay me. That's fine and I am willing to help you if that is exactly what you mean. But if what you mean is give me the money now and I will repay it if I don't change my mind about it, then the deal is off. If I keep my part of the deal, you must keep yours just exactly as agreed no matter what happens. I will tell you the reasons for the conditions I make. I think that the person who asks and expects other people to give him money instead of earning it is the most rotten person on earth. I would like to teach you, if I can, very early in life, the idea of a self-respecting, self-supporting, responsible, capitalistic person. If you borrow money and repay it, it is the best training in responsibility that you can ever have. Now think this over and let me know whether you want to borrow the money on my conditions and whether you give me your word of honor to observe the conditions. If you do, I will send you the money. If you don't understand me, if you think that I am a hard, cruel, rich old woman and you don't approve of my ideas, well, you don't have to approve. But then you must not ask me for help. I will wait to hear from you. And if I find out that you are my kind of person, then I hope that this will be the beginning of a real friendship between us, which would please me very much, your aunt.