When a carpenter starts to build a house, he knows just what tools and what materials to work with are his. If there is a broken implement, he replaces it with another, and if he is short of material he supplies it. But young men set forth to make futures and fortunes, with no knowledge of their own equipment.
They do not know their own strongest or weakest traits, and are unprepared for the temptations and obstacles that await them.
I would advise you to call in the aid of all the occult sciences, to help you in forming an estimate of your own higher and lower tendencies, and in deciding for what line of occupation you were best fitted. Then, after you have compared the statistics so gathered with your own idea of yourself, you should proceed to make your character what you wish it to be.
This work will be ten thousand times more profitable to you than a mere routine of college studies, gained by running in debt.
To know yourself is far better knowledge than to know Virgil. And to make yourself is a million times better than to have any one else make you.
To Miss Elsie Dean
Regarding the Habit of Exaggeration
During your visit here with my niece, I became much interested in you.