IX. LETTERS OF ADVICE

LORD CHESTERFIELD TO HIS SON

Dear Boy:

LONDON, July the 26th, 1748.

There are two sorts of understandings; one of which hinders a man from ever being considerable, and the other commonly makes him ridiculous; I mean the lazy mind, and the trifling, frivolous mind. Yours, I hope, is neither. The lazy mind will not take the trouble of going to the bottom of anything, but, discouraged by the first difficulties (and everything worth knowing or having is attended with some), stops short, contents itself with easy, and consequently, superficial, knowledge, and prefers a great degree of ignorance to a small degree of trouble. These people either think or represent most things. as impossible, whereas few things are so to industry and activity. But difficulties seem to them impossibilities, or at least they pretend to think them so, by way of excuse for their laziness. An hour's attention to the same object is too laborious for them; they take everything in the light in which it first presents itself, never consider it in all its different views, and, in short, never think it thorough. The consequence of this is, that when they come to speak upon these subjects before people who have considered them with attention, they only discover their own ignorance and laziness, and lay themselves open to answers

that put them in confusion. Do not, then, be discouraged by the first difficulties but resolve to go to the bottom of all those things which every gentleman ought to know well. Such are languages, history, and geography, ancient and modern; philosophy, rational logic, rhetoric; and, for you particularly, the constitution, and the civil and military state of every country in Europe. This, I confess, is a pretty large circle of knowledge, attended with some difficulties, and requiring some trouble; which, however, an active and industrious mind will overcome, and be amply repaid by. Read only useful books, and never quit a subject till you are thoroughly master of it, but read and inquire on till then. When you are in company, bring the conversation to some useful subject. Never be ashamed nor afraid of asking questions; for if they lead to information, and if you accompany them with some excuse, you will never be reckoned an impertinent or rude questioner. Adieu.

FROM JOHN BURROUGHS

WEST PARK, N. Y., April 3d, '93. Dear Boys and Girls:

I write you this line on my birthday, my fiftysixth. And the best thing I can say about myself is that I am at heart a boy still. One may lose wealth and regain it, one may lose health and regain it, one may lose friends and find others, but youth once

gone is gone for ever. The best receipt I know of to keep the heart young is love of nature. Love, anyway, is the great preserver, while hate, envy, jealousy, are the real destroyers. To keep your hearts young keep them full of love.

Always your friend,

JOHN BURROUGHS.

EDWARD ROWLAND SILL TO A PUPIL

Your question of 26th May was too good a one to leave so long unanswered. It was not left as being too hard to answer, but I have been very busy, and really could not find time to settle myself to say anything on so important a question till to-night, and now it must be a brief note.

The real value of "being well read" seems to me to be in the wider and truer life it gives us. By "wider" I mean that our thoughts and feelings and purposes are more complex and more consonant with the complexity and manifoldness of the universe we live in the microcosm gets a little-even if a very little nearer in quantity and quality to the macrocosm. The crystal leads such a narrow life-just along one little line-a single law of facet and angle; the plant a little wider; the fish a little wider; and the different sorts of people widening and widening out in their inner activities-and much according to their reading (since living human contact is not possible, except with a few relatives and neighbors).

And by truer life, I mean truer to nature; more as we were meant to be; the inner relations between ideas corresponding closer to the outer relations, or "real" relations, between things. These real-thingrelations are in fact very complex and vastly inclusive; so must the thoughts and feelings be, if "true," or truly correspondent or mirror-like to them.

I don't see that culture (unless you spell it wrong [cult your]) needs, or tends at all, to cut one off from human warmth. Are not some of the "bestread" people you know or hear of some of the broadest-hearted also? The very essence of culture is shaking off the nightmare of self-consciousness and self-absorption and attaining a sort of Christian Nirvana-lost in the great whole of humanity, thinking of others, caring for others, admiring and loving others.

I should like to have you write me more fully about it some time.

Taken from A Memorial of Edward Rowland Sill, printed for private circulation and containing, together with a few of his letters, the papers read at the memorial meeting held by the Berkeley Club at Oakland, California, 14th April, 1887.

FROM CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER

UNIVERSITY CLUB, MADISON SQUARE,

NEW YORK, March 11, 1893.

Dear Indianapolis Children:

It is your privilege to be young. It is a great opportunity. The world is also before you, and you can make it for yourselves, substantially, what you will.

For, remember, this world you are to live in and see the work of is yourselves. I pity a boy and still more a girl who is not good company for himself or herself. And the person who is not good company for himself will not be good company for anybody else.

Most of you will live in the twentieth century. It is going to be a great century. I hope you are getting ready for it, and will help to make it a good deal better than the nineteenth.

With cordial greetings, yours sincerely,

CHAS. DUDLEY WARNER.

V

FROM EDWARD EGGLESTON

Dear Boys and Girls:

My advice to you is to try to have a good time in the world. Get your pleasure always at your own and not at other people's expense; let it always be good, honest, clean happiness, with nothing wrong about it. But don't, on any account, fail to have a good time. If life should go hard with you, so that you can't have a very good time, why, then have just as good a time as you can at all hazards.

New York, March, 1893.

EDW. EGGLESTON.