But if the old Spanish proverb, "Show me your friends and I will tell you what you are," is applicable to the selection of ordinary associates, of how much more significance is it in relation to confidants! To require such a friend, pre-supposes the need of advice, and only superiority in age and knowledge of the world and of the human heart, can qualify any one for the responsibility thus assumed. Nothing is more frequently volunteered by the inexperienced than advice, while they who properly appreciate its importance are the least likely to give it unasked.
In connection with the subject of confidences and confidants, ponder well the concentrated wisdom contained in this brief sentence: "Be careful of whom you speak, to whom you speak, and how, and when, and where."
If from self-consciousness we draw conclusive proofs of the elevated powers of our nature, we also learn, with equal certainty, the need that all have of forbearance, lenity, and forgiveness. They who look for perfection in human companions, will entail upon themselves a life-long solitude of spirit. Some one has prettily said that the fault of a friend is like a flaw in a beautiful china vase; the defect is remediless; let us overlook it, and dwell only upon what will give us pleasure.
It is almost useless to attempt to give you any advice with respect to the choice of an occupation in life. I trust, however, that you need no argument to convince you that respectability and happiness unitedly require, let your pecuniary circumstances be what they may, that you should have such an incentive to the due exercise of your powers of body and mind.
No consideration is, perhaps, more important than that of following the natural inclination in making this decision, provided outward circumstances render it possible to do so; and in this country a man may almost always overcome obstacles of this kind, by patient perseverance.
The impression, formerly so prevalent, that none but the three learned professions, as they are called, require a thorough education, as a prelude, is, I must believe, much less generally entertained, than when I was a young man. And this is as it should
be. There can be no human employment that is not facilitated by the aid of a cultivated, disciplined intellect, and our young countrymen, who so frequently make some temporary and lucrative occupation the stepping-stone to advancement, should always bear this in mind. One day, America, like Venice of old, will be a land of merchant princes—but none will take rank among these self-elevated patricians but they who add the polish, the refinement and the wealth of intellect, to the power derived from external circumstances.
The Physical Sciences and the Inventive and Practical Arts are claiming the attention of our times to a degree never before known; and these afford new and sufficient avenues for the exercise of talents tending rather to mechanical than to metaphysical exertion.
Remember, always, that a man may give dignity to any honest employment to which he shall devote his energies—and better so, than to possess no claims to respect except those bestowed by position. As the pursuit of wealth as an end, rather than a means, is not the noblest of human purposes, so mere occupation and external belongings do not determine the real worth of mind or character.
"I am brother to the Worker,
And I love his manly look,
As I love a thought of beauty,
Living, star-like, in a book.
I am brother to the humblest,
In the world's red-handed strife,—
Those who wield the sword of labor,
In the battle ranks of life!
* * * * *
* * * * *
Never let the worker falter,
Nor his cause—for hope is strong;
He shall live a monarch glorious
In the people's coming throng.
There's a sound comes from the future,
Like the sound of many lays;
Freedom strikes her harp for toilers,
Loud as when the thunder plays!"