I.—To a Youth
You are arrived, let us suppose, at the age of from fourteen to nearly twenty, and I here offer you my advice towards making you a happy man, useful to all about you, and an honour to those from whom you sprang. Start, I beseech you, with a conviction firmly fixed in your mind that you have no right to live in this world without doing work of some sort or other. To wish to live on the labour of others is to contemplate a fraud.
Happiness ought to be your great object, and it is to be found only in independence. Turn your back on what is called interest. Write it on your heart that you will depend solely on your own merit and your own exertions, for that which a man owes to favour or to partiality, that same favour or partiality is constantly liable to take from him.
The great source of independence the French express in three words, "Vivre de peu." "To live upon little" is the great security against slavery; and this precept extends to dress and other things besides food and drink. Extravagance in dress arises from the notion that all the people in the street will be looking at you as you walk out; but all the sensible people that happen to see you will think nothing at all about you. Natural beauty of person always will and must have some weight, even with men, and great weight with women; but this does not want to be set off by expensive clothes.
A love of what is called "good eating and drinking," if very unamiable in a grown-up person, is perfectly hateful in a youth. I have never known such a man worthy of respect.
Next, as to amusements. Dancing is at once rational and healthful; it is the natural amusement of young people, and none but the most grovelling and hateful tyranny, or the most stupid and despicable fanaticism, ever raised its voice against it. As to gaming, it is always criminal, either in itself or in its tendency. The basis of it is covetousness; a desire to take from others something for which you have given, and intend to give, no equivalent.
Be careful in choosing your companions; and lay down as a rule never to be departed from that no youth or man ought to be called your friend who is addicted to indecent talk.
In your manners be neither boorish nor blunt, but even these are preferable to simpering and crawling. Be obedient where obedience is due; for it is no act of meanness to yield implicit and ready obedience to those who have a right to demand it at your hands. None are so saucy and disobedient as slaves; and, when you come to read history, you will find that in proportion as nations have been free has been their reverence for the laws.
Let me now turn to the things which you ought to do. And, first of all, the husbanding of your time. Young people require more sleep than those that are grown up, and the number of hours cannot well be, on an average, less than eight. An hour in bed is better than an hours spent over the fire in an idle gossip.
Money is said to be power; but superior sobriety, industry, and activity are still a more certain source of power. Booklearning is not only proper, but highly commendable; and portions of it are absolutely necessary in every case of trade or profession. One of these portions is distinct reading, plain and neat writing, and arithmetic. The next thing is the grammar of your own language, for grammar is the foundation of all literature. Excellence in your own calling is the first thing to be aimed at. After this may come general knowledge. Geography naturally follows grammar; and you should begin with that of this kingdom. When you come to history, begin also with that of your own country; and here it is my bounded duty to put you well on your guard. The works of our historians are, as far as they relate to former times, masses of lies unmatched by any others that the world has ever seen.