In Choosing a Vocation.
Stop, first, and reflect what you are fit for. To rush recklessly into an occupation of which you are as ignorant as a horse is of music, is not to be thought of.
Stop, next, and consider if what you have in view is respectable. Or, if too much of an ass to distinguish between banking and bunco, for instance, read up carefully on horse-sense.
Stop, again, and be sure that your choice is in keeping with your capacity. To essay one of the learned professions if wholly uneducated, speculative pursuits if a natural born fool, or hod-carrying if lily-handed, spindle-propped and wasp-waisted, is hardly a proof of intellectuality.
Stop, your career being chosen, to master its rudiments before essaying its higher walks. Rome was not built in a day, nor is any vocation a spring-board to waft you into the empyrean at the primary bounce.
Stop long enough to master the rule of “addition, division and silence,” if seeking political preferrment, or employment as a confidential clerk.
Stop long enough in one vocation to give it a fair trial. Jacks-of-all-trades—men who are studying law in the morning, counter-hopping after dinner, peddling soap to-day, starting a bank to-morrow—are seldom successful.
Stop, and ponder deeply, before becoming that pitiable object, a professional office-seeker. Rather sink your independence of thought and action at once by marrying for money, or toadying upon a rich relative.
Stop, if a lawyer’s office-boy, before intruding your legal views upon your employer’s graver consultations. Think! Should you excite his professional envy at the outset?
Stop, if beginning as a dry-goods clerk, before imagining yourself a silent partner in the concern, with your four dollars a week as its chief investment. Self-respect is one thing, unmitigated, idiotic asininity another.
Stop, if at the tape-and-shoestrings counter, before aspiring to the glittering generalities of the ribbons and laces, or the grave responsibilities of the white-goods department. The cares of these high functions may surpass your conception, and we must creep before we climb.
Stop before entering the ministry, if without religious convictions, a sacrilegious scoffer, and morally depraved.
Stop on the ragged edge of the fallacy that your place, or any man’s cannot be filled by another. When men die, as they all must, are their places not always filled?
Stop on the brink of blatant, unaccredited, irresponsible quackery in anything, but especially if desirous of becoming a disciple of Hippocrates.
Stop, if contemplating a banking career, and inquire if you have a mathematical mind and attainments. A vague acquaintance with the rule of three, together with a mouth-watering desire for colossal wealth, cannot alone enable you to rival the wizards of finance.
Stop before setting up on your own account, unless thoroughly in earnest. Even a peanut-stand may be dignified by business energy and perseverance.
Stop short, bring up with a round turn, at any inducement, however dazzling, that is not strictly honest. You can better afford to be mediocre than obnoxious.
Stop, and consider well, before taking up a patent lightning-rod. Agents are already numerous, and farmers’ dogs on the alert.
Stop, before joining the army of commercial drummers, and be sure that you possess three qualifications in a superlative degree, i.e.: cheek, pertinacity and the gift of gab.
Stop, should you become a drummer, at the nineteenth lie in support of one line of goods. Mendacity hath its limits, and even the credulity of a yokel may be gorged.
Stop on the giddy verge of over-estimate in any business. “Hope,” says Lacon, “is a prodigal young heir, and experience is his banker; but his drafts are seldom honored, because he draws largely on a small capital, is not yet in possession, and if he were, would die.”
Stop, indignantly repel, all inducements on the part of advertising sharks. Their name is legion, and they seek but to devour.
Stop, howsoever tempted, at the allurements of roguery, embezzlement, rascality, and satanic suggestions of every description. If you must be a cutpurse let it be on the broad highway, pistol in hand, dime-novel at heart, and the gallows in sight.
Stop, if contemplating a political career, and distinctly settle this question in your mind: Am I to boss the party, or is the party to boss me? There is nothing like avoiding a confusion of ideas.
Stop, next, and be certain that your ambition is not o’erleaping its aim. Pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon, if possible, but to make a dead set for the Presidency and bring up as a police-court janitor, or coroner’s assistant, is apt to prove discouraging.
Stop, even if rich, before entering upon pleasure as a business. Few constitutions can long stand the racket, ennui is the result, and premature death its bourne.
Stop before entering the literary profession, if devoid of imagination, a proverbial fool, and with but a lazy comprehension of orthography, grammar and syntax.
Stop, next, and ask yourself, what great author, dead or living, shall I emulate? Then, be your model Shakespeare or Bartley Campbell, Thackeray or Tupper, Byron or the Burlington Hawkeye, stick to your ideal, revel in ink and starve for glory.
Stop, if of a dramatic turn, before absolutely forcing a manager to produce your play. There are, unfortunately, legal safeguards for even this species of credulous, unsophisticated, professionals.
Stop, and reflect profoundly, before adopting pugilism as a vocation, if constitutionally weak in the back, color-blind, short-winded, and timid to pusillanimity.
Stop before deciding upon a histrionic career, until satisfied that you are not better fitted for an auction-room or a junk-shop.
Stop, in any calling, long enough to become familiar with the foot of the ladder before clawing ineffectually at the top-round. Beginning at the top, to come down with a rush, is reserved for millionaires’ sons, holders of winning lottery-tickets and cat’s-paws of nominating conventions.
