[CHAPTER IX]
THE WORTH OF ADVICE
Courage is a virtue that the young cannot spare; to lose it is to grow old before the time; it is better to make a thousand mistakes and suffer a thousand reverses than to run away from the battle.—Henry Van Dyke.
Of what value is this book to you?
Perhaps there is more involved in the answer to this question than a careless consideration of it might lead one to think. Shakespeare says: “A jest’s prosperity lies in the ear of him that hears it, never in the tongue of him that makes it.”
So it is that the value of advice depends not so much upon the giver as it does upon the one who receives it.
He needs no other rosary whose thread of life is strung with beads of love and thought.—Persian.
Emerson has observed that he who makes a tour of Europe brings home from that country only as much as he takes there with him. This same truth holds good in the reading of books and in listening to sermons and lectures. He that has not eyes with which to see, will see nothing. He that has not ears with which to hear, can hear nothing.
A sign-post indicating which road to take to reach a certain destination surely ought to be of great value to a traveler in a strange land. If the traveler, having failed to cultivate the habit of observing his surroundings, passes by the sign-post without seeing it, or if he reads its directions and says to himself: “I think I know better; I shall reach my destination by whatever road I choose to travel,” then the sign-post is of no true use to him. Not that it is not a good sign-post. No, the sign-post is all right; it is the traveler who is wrong. He must go his own way and, perhaps, journey far, and fare sadly before he arrives at the place he seeks—the destination he might have reached pleasantly and in good season. Franklin tells us that experience is a dear teacher but fools will learn from no other.
Truth is a cork; it is bound to come to the top.—Willis George Emerson.