As the night wore away, and long after tea, the old general, who had been for some time in a ruminating mood—indeed, we had sunk into that thoughtful state which usually precedes the separation of friends—lit his taper, and rising, though with considerable effort, from his easy chair, beckoned me to follow him.
We entered his dressing room; he desired me to shut the door, and, sitting down, bade me be seated likewise.
“My young friend,” said the old man, taking my hand with more feeling than I had ever yet seen him display, “I wished to say a few words to you in private before we part, most probably for ever. I loved your brave uncle, as I have already told you, and I think I should not be showing a proper respect to his memory, or doing my duty towards his nephew, did I not offer ye a few words of counsel, the result of long experience.
“I’m not the hypocrite to preach to you that I have always acted as I would have you to act; no, ’tis not so; I’d be glad, by G——, if it had been otherwise; but my exparience, like that of most men, has been dearly bought. You are young, all the world before ye, and about, probably, to enter on a long and varied career. Life is a game, and a few false moves at the outset, it may never be in your power fully to retrave; it therefore behoves you to be cautious, and to weigh well every step before you take it.
“When you join your regiment, beware of your associates, for on the character of these your future prospects will mainly depend. Be slow in forming intimacies, but at the same time courteous and kind to all. Observe, but do not appear to do so, for people do not love to have spies over them. Take your cheerful glass with your friends, but shun intemperance, the root of gaming and all evil.
“Strive to live within your manes, and let no man laugh you out of your resolution to be ‘just before you are generous;’ for the time will come, take my word for it, when you will rape the reward of your self-denial. Make yourself master of your profession, and acquire a taste for rading and study; if over wild, ’twill beget a new mind in ye, and is the best manes ye can adopt to save ye from frivolity and dissipation, of which ye’ll find plenty here, by G——.
“Indulge moderately in faild sports, for no man in India ever took his full swing of them that, sooner or later, had not to lament a broken constitution; the strength of Hercules will not enable Europeans to brave exposure to an Aistern sun with impunity.
“Lay down fixed principles for yourself, and let nothing induce ye to swerve from them; they are, if I may so say, the helm of our moral nature; and though the gusts of passion and caprice, or the shoals of unavoidable difficulties, may sometimes drive us out of our course, if we have but these we shall regain it; but without them, we become the sport of every impulse, we drift away to destruction. God knows I’ve rason to say all this. Acquire courage to say ‘no’ when ye feel ye ought, and thereby shun that rock of over-aisiness on which so many a youth has made shipwreck of his fortunes.
“As for religion, I lave ye to judge for yourself; make no joke of any man’s; whatever has God’s glory and man’s good as its professed object, however mistaken, desarves a sort of respect even from an opponent. There’s good enough in most of them, if we would but stick to the practical part; perhaps, as my old moonshee, Golaum Hyder, used to say, it may be God’s pleasure to be approached in more ways than one, so that we do it with honesty of purpose and in singleness of heart.
“Strive to make friends, but of this rest assured, that no friendship can be lasting that is not based on respect for some one sterling quality, at laist, to redaim the many waiknesses which we all, more or less, inherit; when all looks smiling you may think otherwise, and overlook this essential, but you will find eventually that in resting on such summer friends, you lean on a broken reed.