Lead them to talk of their ambitions and desires, and, as consistently as you can, gratify them.
Let your daughter come to me for a season. I will help to reshape and modify her ideals of enjoyment to some degree.
I am sure if she sees a few of our best spectacular plays, and hears good music, and enjoys beautiful rhythmic dancing, she will not be so carried away with the travelling show.
I will acquaint her with some of the commonplace facts concerning the lives of theatrical people, and show her the frayed tinsel and worn faces by daylight. This will do more for her than all your sermons on the dangers of a theatrical career.
The young heart is fascinated with the thought of danger and temptation.
It is repelled by the commonplace and the ugly.
When you talk to a young mind in a whisper and behind locked doors about a temptation to be avoided, you but give edge to appetite and curiosity.
When you bring the temptation out into the glare of sunlight, and speak of it in presence of the whole world, you dispel the illusion.
I will gather together some data concerning the sporting men of America, and send your son. I will also mail him the sporting papers regularly. Let him talk and read openly about the subject, and it will lose half its weird charm.
He, too, should learn to dance, swim, fence, and ride. His bounding vitality needs directing in wholesome channels. I have never understood the prejudice against dancing.