And so I believe it would be in every instance where a young man openly avows his determination not to drink, smoke, or chew, waste his time, or trifle with duty. After his resolves have once been tested, he will only be thought more of by the wildest associate he has, and his influence from that moment will be wider and more powerful.
In college, as elsewhere, it is easy to select our associates. If we wish, we can have the most studious and high-minded; or the pleasure-seeker, who came to college because it was fashionable to do so, and will get a diploma, if he gets one at all, because the wealth of his father purchases it for him, the same as any other article of luxury.
Still, try as I would, I could not make friends with Wright. At first he had looked down upon me: more recently he seemed to regard me only as a rival; and to say the truth, we were quite even, our regular marks in recitation seldom varying. The time now came when the subject for a prize essay was given out, and knowing my chief competitor would be Wright, I determined to surpass him.
Not having a strong constitution, study wore upon him sadly.
“Do not work so hard, I entreat you,” said our President one day as he saw how wan and pale Wright was growing. “There is no use in this,” taking the feverish hand in his. “Indeed I have been blind not to see it before; you must rest, at all hazards.”
“Not now,” said Wright. “I came here to take the first honor in my class, and I will do it.”
“You will not live to reach it, at this rate; and then what profit can come from all your ambitious labors?”
A week or two afterwards Wright was prostrate.
“They say that you will win the prize,” said Stevens, coming into my room on his way from the sick-bed. “If poor Wright had not been sick, you might not have been so certain, however.”
“Wright probably wrote his essay before he was sick,” I answered.