,how ,to ,do ,it4 ,by ,edward ,everett ,hale4 ,contents4 ,chapter ,i4 ,introductory4--,how ,we ,met ,chapter ,,ii4 ,how ,to ,talk ,chapter ,,iii4 ,talk ,chapter ,,iv4 ,how ,to ,write ,chapter ,v4 ,how ,to ,read4 ,i4 ,chapter ,,vi4 ,how ,to ,read4 ,,ii4 ,chapter ,,vii4 ,how ,to ,go ,into ,society ,chapter ,,viii4 ,how ,to ,travel ,chapter ,,ix4 ,life ,at ,school ,chapter ,x4 ,life ,in ,vacation ,chapter ,,xi4 ,life ,alone ,chapter ,,xii4 ,habits ,in ,church ,chapter ,,xiii4 ,life ,with ,children ,chapter ,,xiv4 ,life ,with ,your ,elders ,chapter ,,xv4 ,habits ,of ,reading ,chapter ,,xvi4 ,getting ,ready ,how ,to ,do ,it4 ,chapter ,i4 ,introductory4--,how ,we ,met4 ,the papers which are here collected enter in some detail into the success and failure of a large number of young people of my acquaintance1 who are here named as ,alice ,faulconbridge1 ,bob ,edmeston1 ,clara1 ,clem ,waters1 ,edward ,holiday1 ,ellen ,liston1 ,emma ,fortinbras1 ,enoch ,putnam1 brother of ,horace1 ,esther1 ,fanchon1 ,fanny1 cousin to ,hatty ,fielding ,florence1 ,frank1 ,george ,ferguson 7,asaph ,ferguson's brother71 ,hatty ,fielding1 ,herbert1 ,horace ,putnam1 ,horace ,felltham 7a very different person71 ,jane ,smith1 ,jo ,gresham1 ,laura ,walter1 ,maud ,ingletree1 ,oliver ,ferguson1 brother to ,asaph and ,george1 ,pauline1 ,rachel1 ,robert1 ,sarah ,clavers1 ,stephen1 ,sybil1 ,theodora1 ,tom ,rising1 ,walter1 ,william ,hackmatack1 ,william ,withers4 ,it may be observed that there are thirty-four of them4 ,they make up a very nice set1 or would do so if they belonged together4 ,but1 in truth1 they live in many regions1 not to say countries4 ,none of them are too bright or too stupid1 only one of them is really selfish1 all but one or two are thoroughly sorry for their faults when they commit them1 and all of them who are good for anything think of themselves very little4 ,there are a few who are approved members of the ,harry ,wadsworth ,club4 ,that means that they look up and not down1 they look forward and not back1 they look out and not in1 and they lend a hand4 ,these papers were first published1 much as they are now collected1 in the magazine ,our ,young ,folks1 and in that admirable weekly paper ,the ,youth's ,companion1 which is held in grateful remembrance by a generation now tottering off the stage1 and welcomed1 as ,i see1 with equal interest by the grandchildren as they totter on4 ,from time to time1 therefore1 as the different series have gone on1 ,i have received pleasant notes from other young people1 whose acquaintance ,i have thus made with real pleasure1 who have asked more explanation as to the points involved4 ,i have thus been told that my friend1 ,mr4 ,henry ,ward ,beecher1 is not governed by all my rules for young people's composition1 and that ,miss ,throckmorton1 the governess1 does not believe ,archbishop ,whately is infallible4 ,i have once and again been asked how ,i made the acquaintance of such a nice set of children4 ,and ,i can well believe that many of my young correspondents would in that matter be glad to be as fortunate as ,i4 ,perhaps1 then1 ,i shall do something to make the little book more intelligible1 and to connect its parts1 if in this introduction ,i tell of the one occasion when the dramatis personae met each other2 and in order to that1 if ,i tell how they all met me4 ,first of all1 then1 my dear young friends1 ,i began active life1 as soon as ,i had left college1 as ,i can well wish all of you might do4 ,i began in keeping school4 ,not that ,i want to have any of you do this long1 unless an evident fitness or manifest destiny appear so to order4 ,but you may be sure that1 for a year or two of the start of life1 there is nothing that will teach you your own ignorance so well as having to teach children the few things you know1 and to answer1 as best you can1 their questions on all grounds4 ,there was poor ,jane1 on the first day of that charming visit at the ,penroses1 who was betrayed by the simplicity and cordiality of the dinner-table--where she was the youngest of ten or twelve strangers--into taking a protective lead of all the conversation1 till at the very last ,i heard her explaining to dear ,mr4 ,tom ,coram himself1--a gentleman who had lived in ,java ten years1--that coffee-berries were red when they were ripe4 ,i was sadly mortified for my poor ,jane as ,tom's eyes twinkled4 ,she would never have got into that rattletrap way of talking if she had kept school for two years4 ,here1 again1 is a capital letter from ,oliver ,ferguson1 ,asaph's younger brother1 describing his life on the ,island at ,paris all through the siege4 ,i should have sent it yesterday to ,mr4 ,osgood1 who would be delighted to print it in the ,atlantic ,monthly1 but that the spelling is disgraceful4 ,mr4 ,osgood and ,mr4 ,howells would think ,oliver a fool before they had read down the first page4 ,l-i-n1 lin1 n-e-n1 nen1 linen4 ,think of that6 ,oliver would never have spelled linen like that if he had been two years a teacher4 ,you can go through four years at ,harvard ,college spelling so1 but you cannot go through two years as a schoolmaster4 ,well1 ,i say ,i was fortunate enough to spend two years as an assistant schoolmaster at the old ,boston ,latin ,school1--the oldest institution of learning1 as we are fond of saying1 in the ,united ,states4 ,and there first ,i made my manhood's acquaintance with boys4 ,do you think1 said dear ,dr4 ,malone to me one day1 that my son ,robert will be too young to enter college next ,august8 ,how old will he be8 said ,i1 and ,i was told4 ,then as ,robert was at that moment just six months younger than ,i1 who had already graduated1 ,i said wisely1 that ,i thought he would do1 and ,dr4 ,malone chuckled1 ,i doubt not1 as ,i did certainly1 at the gravity of my answer4 ,a nice set of boys ,i had4 ,i had above me two of the most loyal and honorable of gentlemen1 who screened me from all reproof for my blunders4 ,my discipline was not of the best1 but my purposes were2 and ,i and the boys got along admirably4 ,it was the old schoolhouse4 ,i believe ,i shall explain in another place1 in this volume1 that it stood where ,parker's ,hotel stands1 and my room occupied the spot in space where you1 ,florence1 and you1 ,theodora1 dined with your aunt ,dorcas last ,wednesday before you took the cars for ,andover1--the ladies' dining-room looking on what was then ,cook's ,court1 and is now ,chapman ,place4 ,who ,cook was ,i know not4 ,the ,province ,street of to-day was then much more fitly called ,governor's ,alley4 ,for boys do not know that that minstrel-saloon so long known as ,ordway's1 just now changed into ,sargent's ,hotel1 was for a century1 more or less1 the official residence of the ,governor of ,massachusetts4 ,it was the ,province ,house4 ,on the top of it1 for a weathercock1 was the large mechanical brazen ,indian1 who1 whenever he heard the ,old ,south clock strike twelve1 shot off his brazen arrow4 ,the little boys used to hope to see this4 ,but just as twelve came was the bustle of dismissal1 and ,i have never seen one who did see him1 though for myself ,i know he did as was said1 and have never questioned it4 ,that opportunity1 however1 was up stairs1 in ,mr4 ,dixwell's room4 ,in my room1 in the basement1 we had no such opportunity4 ,the glory of our room was that it was supposed1 rightly or not1 that a part of it was included in the old schoolhouse which was there before the ,revolution4 ,there were old men still living who remembered the troublous times1 the times that stirred boys' souls1 as the struggle for independence began4 ,i have myself talked with ,jonathan ,darby ,robbins1 who was himself one of the committee who waited on the ,british general to demand that their coasting should not be obstructed4 ,there is a reading piece about it in one of the school-books4 ,this general was not ,gage1 as he is said to be in the histories1 but ,general ,haldimand2 and his quarters were at the house which stood nearly where ,franklin's statue stands now1 just below ,king's ,chapel4 ,his servant had put ashes on the coast which the boys had made1 on the sidewalk which passes the ,chapel as you go down ,school ,street4 ,when the boys remonstrated1 the servant ridiculed them1--he was not going to mind a gang of rebel boys4 ,so the boys1 who were much of their fathers' minds1 appointed a committee1 of whom my friend was one1 to wait on ,general ,haldimand himself4 ,they called on him1 and they told him that coasting was one of their inalienable rights and that he must not take it away4 ,the ,general knew too well that the people of the town must not be irritated to take up his servant's quarrel1 and he told the boys that their coast should not be interfered with4 ,so they carried their point4 ,the story-book says that he clasped his hands and said1 ,heavens6 ,liberty is in the very air6 ,even these boys speak of their rights as do their patriot sires6 ,but of this ,mr4 ,robbins told me nothing1 and as ,haldimand was a ,hessian1 of no great enthusiasm for liberty1 ,i do not1 for my part1 believe it4 ,the morning of ,april #ai1 #agge1 ,harrison ,gray ,otis1 then a little boy of eight years old1 came down ,beacon ,street to school1 and found a brigade of red-coats in line along ,common ,street1--as ,tremont ,street was then called1--so that he could not cross into ,school ,street4 ,they were ,earl ,percy's brigade4 ,class in history1 where did ,percy's brigade go that day1 and what became of them before night8 ,a red-coat corporal told the ,otis boy to walk along ,common ,street1 and not try to cross the line4 ,so he did4 ,he went as far as ,scollay's ,building before he could turn their flank1 then he went down to what you call ,washington ,street1 and came up to school1--late4 ,whether his excuse would have been sufficient ,i do not know4 ,he was never asked for it4 ,he came into school just in time to hear old ,lovel1 the ,tory schoolmaster1 say1 ,war's begun and school's done4 ,dimittite libros--which means1 ,put away your books4 ,they put them away1 and had a vacation of a year and nine months thereafter1 before the school was open again4 ,well1 in this old school ,i had spent four years of my boyhood1 and here1 as ,i say1 my manhood's acquaintance with boys began4 ,i taught them ,latin1 and sometimes mathematics4 ,some of them will remember a famous ,latin poem we wrote about ,pocahontas and ,john ,smith4 ,all of them will remember how they capped ,latin verses against the master1 twenty against one1 and put him down4 ,these boys used to cluster round my table at recess and talk4 ,danforth ,newcomb1 a lovely1 gentle1 accurate boy1 almost always at the head of his class1--he died young4 ,shang-hae1 ,san ,francisco1 ,berlin1 ,paris1 ,australia1--,i don't know what cities1 towns1 and countries have the rest of them4 ,and when they carry home this book for their own boys to read1 they will find some of their boy-stories here4 ,then there was ,mrs4 ,merriam's boarding-school4 ,if you will read the chapter on travelling you will find about one of the vacations of her girls4 ,mrs4 ,merriam was one of ,mr4 ,ingham's old friends1--and he is a man with whom ,i have had a great deal to do4 ,mrs4 ,merriam opened a school for twelve girls4 ,i knew her very well1 and so it came that ,i knew her ways with them4 ,though it was a boarding-school1 still the girls had just as good a time as they had at home1 and when ,i found that some of them asked leave to spend vacation with her ,i knew they had better times4 ,i remember perfectly the day when ,mrs4 ,phillips asked them down to the old mansion-house1 which seems so like home to me1 to eat peaches4 ,and it was determined that the girls should not think they were under any company restraint1 so no person but themselves was present when the peaches were served1 and every girl ate as many as for herself she determined best4 ,when they all rode horseback1 ,mrs4 ,merriam and ,i used to ride together with these young folks behind or before1 as it listed them4 ,so1 not unnaturally1 being a friend of the family1 ,i came to know a good many of them very well4 ,for another set of them--you may choose the names to please yourselves--the history of my relationship goes back to the ,sunday school of the ,church of the ,unity in ,worcester4 ,the first time ,i ever preached in that church1 namely1 ,may #c1 #ahdf1 there was but one person in it who had gray hair4 ,all of us of that day have enough now4 ,but we were a set of young people1 starting on a new church1 which had1 ,i assure you1 no dust in the pulpit-cushions4 ,and almost all the children were young1 as you may suppose4 ,the first meeting of the ,sunday school showed1 ,i think1 thirty-six children1 and more of them were under nine than over4 ,they are all twenty-five years older now than they were then4 ,well1 we started without a library for the ,sunday school4 ,but in a corner of my study ,jo ,matthews and ,i put up some three-cornered shelves1 on which ,i kept about a hundred books such as children like1 and young people who are no longer children2 and then1 as ,i sat reading1 writing1 or stood fussing over my fuchsias or labelling the mineralogical specimens1 there would come in one or another nice girl or boy1 to borrow a ,rollo or a ,franconia1 or to see if ,ellen ,liston had returned ,amy ,herbert4 ,and so we got very good chances to find each other out4 ,it is not a bad plan for a young minister1 if he really want to know what the young folk of his parish are4 ,i know it was then and there that ,i conceived the plan of writing ,margaret ,percival in ,america as a sequel to ,miss ,sewell's ,margaret ,percival1 and that ,i wrote my half of that history4 ,the ,worcester ,sunday school grew beyond thirty-six scholars2 and ,i have since had to do with two other ,sunday schools1 where1 though the children did not know it1 ,i felt as young as the youngest of them all4 ,and in that sort of life you get chances to come at nice boys and nice girls which most people in the world do not have4 ,and the last of all the congresses of young people which ,i will name1 where ,i have found my favorites1 shall be the vacation congresses1--when people from all the corners of the world meet at some country hotel1 and wonder who the others are the first night1 and1 after a month1 wonder again how they ever lived without knowing each other as brothers and sisters4 ,i never had a nicer time than that day when we celebrated ,arthur's birthday by going up to ,greely's ,pond4 ,could ,amelia walk so far8 ,she only eight years old1 and it was the whole of five miles by a wood-road1 and five miles to come back again4 ,yes1 ,amelia was certain she could4 ,then1 whether ,arthur could walk so far1 he being nine4 ,why1 of course he could if ,amelia could4 ,so eight-year-old1 nine-year-old1 ten-year-old1 eleven-year-old1 and all the rest of the ages1--we tramped off together1 and we stumbled over the stumps1 and waded through the mud1 and tripped lightly1 like ,somnambula in the opera1 over the log bridges1 which were single logs and nothing more1 and came successfully to ,greely's ,pond1--beautiful lake of ,egeria that it is1 hidden from envious and lazy men by forest and rock and mountain4 ,and the children of fifty years old and less pulled off shoes and stockings to wade in it2 and we caught in tin mugs little seedling trouts not so long as that word seedling is on the page1 and saw them swim in the mugs and set them free again2 and we ate the lunches with appetites as of ,arcadia2 and we stumped happily home again1 and found1 as we went home1 all the sketch-books and bait-boxes and neckties which we had lost as we went up4 ,on a day like that you get intimate1 if you were not intimate before4 ,o dear6 don't you wish you were at ,waterville now8 ,now1 if you please1 my dear ,fanchon1 we will not go any further into the places where ,i got acquainted with the heroes and heroines of this book4 ,allow1 of those mentioned here1 four to the ,latin school1 five to the ,unity ,sunday school1 six to the ,south ,congregational1 seven to vacation acquaintance1 credit me with nine children of my own and ten brothers and sisters1 and you will find no difficulty in selecting who of these are which of those1 if you have ever studied the science of ,indeterminate ,analysis in ,professor ,smythe's ,algebra4 ,dear ,mr4 ,hale1 you are making fun of us4 ,we never know when you are in earnest4 ,do not be in the least afraid1 dear ,florence4 ,remember that a central rule for comfort in life is this1 ,nobody was ever written down an ass1 except by himself4 ,now ,i will tell you how and when the particular thirty-four names above happened to come together4 ,we were1 a few of us1 staying at the ,white ,mountains4 ,i think no ,new ,england summer is quite perfect unless you stay at least a day in the ,white ,mountains4 ,staying in the ,white ,mountains does not mean climbing on top of a stage-coach at ,centre ,harbor1 and riding by day and by night for forty-eight hours till you fling yourself into a railroad-car at ,littleton1 and cry out that you have done them4 ,no4 ,it means just living with a prospect before your eye of a hundred miles' radius1 as you may have at ,bethlehem or the ,flume2 or1 perhaps1 a valley and a set of hills1 which never by accident look twice the same1 as you may have at the ,glen ,house or ,dolly ,cop's or at ,waterville2 or with a gorge behind the house1 which you may thread and thread and thread day in and out1 and still not come out upon the cleft rock from which flows the first drop of the lovely stream1 as you may do at ,jackson4 ,it means living front to front1 lip to lip1 with ,nature at her loveliest1 ,echo at her most mysterious1 with ,heaven at its brightest and ,earth at its greenest1 and1 all this time1 breathing1 with every breath1 an atmosphere which is the elixir of life1 so pure and sweet and strong4 ,at ,greely's you are1 ,i believe1 on the highest land inhabited in ,america4 ,that land has a pure air upon it4 ,well1 as ,i say1 we were staying in the ,white ,mountains4 ,of course the young folks wanted to go up ,mount ,washington4 ,we had all been up ,osceola and ,black ,mountain1 and some of us had gone up on ,mount ,carter1 and one or two had been on ,mount ,lafayette4 ,but this was as nothing till we had stood on ,mount ,washington himself4 ,so ,i told ,hatty ,fielding and ,laura to go on to the railroad-station and join a party we knew that were going up from there1 while ,jo ,gresham and ,stephen and the two ,fergusons and ,i would go up on foot by a route ,i knew from ,randolph over the real ,mount ,adams4 ,nobody had been up that particular branch of ,israel's run since ,channing and ,i did in #ahda4 ,will ,hackmatack1 who was with us1 had a blister on his foot1 so he went with the riding party4 ,he said that was the reason1 perhaps he thought so4 ,the truth was he wanted to go with ,laura1 and nobody need be ashamed of that any day4 ,i spare you the account of ,israel's river1 and of the lovely little cascade at its very source1 where it leaps out between two rocks4 ,i spare you the hour when we lay under the spruces while it rained1 and the little birds1 ignorant of men and boys1 hopped tamely round us4 ,i spare you even the rainbow1 more than a semicircle1 which we saw from ,mount ,adams4 ,safely1 wetly1 and hungry1 we five arrived at the ,tiptop ,house about six1 amid the congratulations of those who had ridden4 ,the two girls and ,will had come safely up by the cars1--and who do you think had got in at the last moment when the train started but ,pauline and her father1 who had made a party up from ,portland and had with them ,ellen ,liston and ,sarah ,clavers4 ,and who do you think had appeared in the ,glen ,house party1 when they came1 but ,esther and her mother and ,edward ,holiday and his father4 ,up to this moment of their lives some of these young people had never seen other some4 ,but some had1 and we had not long been standing on the rocks making out ,sebago and the water beyond ,portland before they were all very well acquainted4 ,all fourteen of us went in to supper1 and were just beginning on the goat's milk1 when a cry was heard that a party of young men in uniform were approaching from the head of ,tuckerman's ,ravine4 ,jo and ,oliver ran out1 and in a moment returned to wrench us all from our corn-cakes that we might welcome the ,new ,limerick boat-club1 who were on a pedestrian trip and had come up the ,parkman ,notch that day4 ,nice1 brave fellows they were1--a little foot-sore4 ,who should be among them but ,tom himself and ,bob ,edmeston4 ,they all went and washed1 and then with some difficulty we all got through tea1 when the night party from the ,notch ,house was announced on horseback1 and we sallied forth to welcome them4 ,nineteen in all1 from all nations4 ,two ,japanese princes1 and the ,secretary of the ,dutch legation1 and so on1 as usual2 but what was not as usual1 jolly ,mr4 ,waters and his jollier wife were there1--she astride on her saddle1 as is the sensible fashion of the ,notch ,house1--and1 in the long stretching line1 we made out ,clara ,waters and ,clem1 not together1 but ,clara with a girl whom she did not know1 but who rode better than she1 and had whipped both horses with a rattan she had4 ,and who should this girl be but ,sybil ,dyer6 ,as the party filed up1 and we lifted tired girls and laughing mothers off the patient horses1 ,i found that a lucky chance had thrown ,maud and her brother ,stephen into the same caravan4 ,there was great kissing when my girls recognized ,maud1 and when it became generally known that ,i was competent to introduce to others such pretty and bright people as she and ,laura and ,sarah ,clavers were1 ,i found myself very popular1 of a sudden1 and in quite general demand4 ,and ,i bore my honors meekly1 ,i assure you4 ,i took nice old ,mrs4 ,van ,astrachan out to a favorite rock of mine to see the sunset1 and1 what was more marvellous1 the heavy thunder-cloud1 which was beating up against the wind2 and ,i left the young folks to themselves1 only aspiring to be a ,youth's ,companion4 ,i got ,will to bring me ,mrs4 ,van ,astrachan's black furs1 as it grew cold1 but at last the air was so sharp and the storm clearly so near1 that we were all driven in to that nice1 cosey parlor at the ,tiptop ,house1 and sat round the hot stove1 not sorry to be sheltered1 indeed1 when we heard the heavy rain on the windows4 ,we fell to telling stories1 and ,i was telling of the last time ,i was there1 when1 by great good luck1 ,starr ,king turned up1 having come over ,madison afoot1 when ,i noticed that ,hall1 one of those patient giants who kept the house1 was called out1 and1 in a moment more1 that he returned and whispered his partner out4 ,in a minute more they returned for their rubber capes1 and then we learned that a man had staggered into the stable half frozen and terribly frightened1 announcing that he had left some people lost just by the ,lake of the ,clouds4 ,of course1 we were all immensely excited for half an hour or less1 when ,hall appeared with a very wet woman1 all but senseless1 on his shoulder1 with her hair hanging down to the ground4 ,the ladies took her into an inner room1 stripped off her wet clothes1 and rubbed her dry and warm1 gave her a little brandy1 and dressed her in the dry linens ,mrs4 ,hall kept ready4 ,who should she prove to be1 of all the world1 but ,emma ,fortinbras6 ,the men of the party were her father and her brothers ,frank and ,robert4 ,no6 that is not all4 ,after the excitement was over they joined us in our circle round the stove1--and we should all have been in bed1 but that ,mr4 ,hall told such wonderful bear-stories1 and it was after ten o'clock that we were still sitting there4 ,the shower had quite blown over1 when a cheery ,french horn was heard1 and the cheery ,hall1 who was never surprised1 ,i believe1 rushed out again1 and ,i need not say ,oliver rushed out with him and ,jo ,gresham1 and before long we all rushed out to welcome the last party of the day4 ,these were horseback people1 who had come by perhaps the most charming route of all1--which is also the oldest of all1--from what was ,ethan ,crawford's4 ,they did not start till noon4 ,they had taken the storm1 wisely1 in a charcoal camp1--and there are worse places1--and then they had spurred up1 and here they were4 ,who were they8 ,why1 there was an army officer and his wife1 who proved to be ,alice ,faulconbridge1 and with her was ,hatty ,fielding's ,cousin ,fanny1 and besides them were ,will ,withers and his sister ,florence1 who had made a charming quartette party with ,walter and his sister ,theodora1 and on this ride had made acquaintance for the first time with ,colonel ,mansfield and ,alice4 ,all this was wonderful enough to me1 as ,theodora explained it to me when ,i lifted her off her horse1 but when ,i found that ,horace ,putnam and his brother ,enoch were in the same train1 ,i said ,i did believe in astrology4 ,for though ,i have not named ,jane ,smith nor ,fanchon1 that was because you did not recognize them among the married people in the ,crawford ,house party1--and ,i suppose you did not recognize ,herbert either4 ,how should you8 ,but1 in truth1 here we all were up above the clouds on the night of the #beth of ,august4 ,did not those ,ethan ,crawford people eat as if they had never seen biscuits8 ,and when at last they were done1 ,stephen1 who had been out in the stables1 came in with a black boy he found there1 who had his fiddle2 and as the ,colonel ,mansfield party came in from the dining-room1 ,steve screamed out1 ,take your partners for a ,virginia ,reel4 ,no6 ,i do not know whose partner was who2 only this1 that there were seventeen boys and men and seventeen girls or women1 besides me and ,mrs4 ,van ,astrachan and ,colonel ,mansfield and ,pauline's mother4 ,and we danced till for one ,i was almost dead1 and then we went to bed1 to wake up at five in the morning to see the sunrise4 ,as we sat on the rocks1 on the eastern side1 ,i introduced ,stephen to ,sybil ,dyer1--the last two who had not known each other4 ,and ,i got talking with a circle of young folks about what the communion of saints is1--meaning1 of course1 just such unselfish society as we had there4 ,and so dear ,laura said1 ,why will you not write us down something of what you are saying1 ,mr4 ,hale8 ,and ,jo ,gresham said1 ,pray do1--pray do2 if it were only to tell us ,,how ,,to ,,do ,,it4 ,chapter ,,ii4 ,i wish the young people who propose to read any of these papers to understand to whom they are addressed4 ,my friend1 ,frederic ,ingham1 has a nephew1 who went to ,new ,york on a visit1 and while there occupied himself in buying travel-presents for his brothers and sisters at home4 ,his funds ran low2 and at last he found that he had still three presents to buy and only thirty-four cents with which to buy them4 ,he made the requisite calculation as to how much he should have for each1--looked in at ,ball and ,black's1 and at ,tiffany's1 priced an amethyst necklace1 which he thought ,clara would like1 and a set of cameos for ,fanfan1 and found them beyond his reach4 ,he then tried at a nice little toy-shop there is a little below the ,fifth ,avenue ,house1 on the west1 where a clever woman and a good-natured girl keep the shop1 and1 having there made one or two vain endeavors to suit himself1 asked the good-natured girl if she had not got anything a fellow could buy for about eleven cents4 ,she found him first one article1 then another1 and then another4 ,wat bought them all1 and had one cent in his pocket when he came home4 ,in much the same way these several articles of mine have been waiting in the bottom of my inkstand and the front of my head for seven or nine years1 without finding precisely the right audience or circle of readers4 ,i explained to ,mr4 ,fields--the amiable ,sheik of the amiable tribe who prepare the ,young ,folks for the young folks--that ,i had six articles all ready to write1 but that they were meant for girls say from thirteen to seventeen1 and boys say from fourteen to nineteen4 ,i explained that girls and boys of this age never read the ,atlantic1 ,o no1 not by any means6 ,and ,i supposed that they never read the ,young ,folks1 ,o no1 not by any means6 ,i explained that ,i could not preach them as sermons1 because many of the children at church were too young1 and a few of the grown people were too old4 ,that ,i was1 therefore1 detailing them in conversation to such of my young friends as chose to hear4 ,on which the ,sheik was so good as to propose to provide for me1 as it were1 a special opportunity1 which ,i now use4 ,we jointly explain to the older boys and girls1 who rate between the ages of thirteen and nineteen1 that these essays are exclusively for them4 ,i had once the honor--on the day after ,lee's surrender--to address the girls of the #abth ,street ,school in ,new ,york4 ,shall ,i call you 'girls' or 'young ladies'8 said ,i4 ,call us girls1 call us girls1 was the unanimous answer4 ,i heard it with great pleasure2 for ,i took it as a nearly certain sign that these three hundred young people were growing up to be true women1--which is to say1 ladies of the very highest tone4 ,why did ,i think so8 ,because at the age of fifteen1 sixteen1 and seventeen they took pleasure in calling things by their right names4 ,so far1 then1 ,i trust we understand each other1 before any one begins to read these little hints of mine1 drawn from forty-five years of very quiet listening to good talkers2 which are1 however1 nothing more than hints4 ,how ,to ,talk4 ,here is a letter from my nephew ,tom1 a spirited1 modest boy of seventeen1 who is a student of the ,scientific ,school at ,new ,limerick4 ,he is at home with his mother for an eight weeks' vacation2 and the very first evening of his return he went round with her to the ,vandermeyers'1 where was a little gathering of some thirty or forty people1--most of them1 as he confesses1 his old schoolmates1 a few of them older than himself4 ,but poor ,tom was mortified1 and thinks he was disgraced1 because he did not have anything to say1 could not say it if he had1 and1 in short1 because he does not talk well4 ,he hates talking parties1 he says1 and never means to go to one again4 ,here is also a letter from ,esther ,w41 who may speak for herself1 and the two may well enough be put upon the same file1 and be answered together3-- ,please listen patiently to a confession4 ,i have what seems to me very natural1--a strong desire to be liked by those whom ,i meet around me in society of my own age2 but1 unfortunately1 when with them my manners have often been unnatural and constrained1 and ,i have found myself thinking of myself1 and what others were thinking of me1 instead of entering into the enjoyment of the moment as others did4 ,i seem to have naturally very little independence1 and to be very much afraid of other people1 and of their opinion4 ,and when1 as you might naturally infer from the above1 ,i often have not been successful in gaining the favor of those around me1 then ,i have spent a great deal of time in the selfish indulgence of 'the blues1' and in philosophizing on the why and the wherefore of some persons' agreeableness and popularity and others' unpopularity4 ,there1 is not that a good letter from a nice girl8 ,will you please to see1 dear ,tom1 and you also1 dear ,esther1 that both of you1 after the fashion of your age1 are confounding the method with the thing4 ,you see how charmingly ,mrs4 ,pallas sits back and goes on with her crochet while ,dr4 ,volta talks to her2 and then1 at the right moment1 she says just the right thing1 and makes him laugh1 or makes him cry1 or makes him defend himself1 or makes him explain himself2 and you think that there is a particular knack or rule for doing this so glibly1 or that she has a particular genius for it which you are not born to1 and therefore you both propose hermitages for yourselves because you cannot do as she does4 ,dear children1 it would be a very stupid world if anybody in it did just as anybody else does4 ,there is no particular method about talking or talking well4 ,it is one of the things in life which does itself4 ,and the only reason why you do not talk as easily and quite as pleasantly as ,mrs4 ,pallas is1 that you are thinking of the method1 and coming to me to inquire how to do that which ought to do itself perfectly1 simply1 and without any rules at all4 ,it is just as foolish girls at school think that there is some particular method of drawing with which they shall succeed1 while with all other methods they have failed4 ,no1 ,i can't draw in india-ink pronounced in-jink1 'n' ,i can't do anything with crayons1--,i hate crayons1--'n' ,i can't draw pencil-drawings1 'n' ,i won't try any more2 but if this tiresome old ,mr4 ,apelles was not so obstinate1 'n' would only let me try the 'monochromatic drawing1' ,i know ,i could do that4 ',t so easy4 ,julia ,ann1 she drew a beautiful piece in only six lessons4 ,my poor ,pauline1 if you cannot see right when you have a crayon in your hand1 and will not draw what you see then1 no monochromatic system is going to help you4 ,but if you will put down on the paper what you see1 as you see it1 whether you do it with a cat's tail1 as ,benjamin ,west did it1 or with a glove turned inside out1 as ,mr4 ,hunt bids you do it1 you will draw well4 ,the method is of no use1 unless the thing is there2 and when you have the thing1 the method will follow4 ,so there is no particular method for talking which will not also apply to swimming or skating1 or reading or dancing1 or in general to living4 ,and if you fail in talking1 it is because you have not yet applied in talking the simple master-rules of life4 ,for instance1 the first of these rules is1 ,tell the ,truth4 ,only last night ,i saw poor ,bob ,edmeston1 who has got to pull through a deal of drift-wood before he gets into clear water1 break down completely in the very beginning of his acquaintance with one of the nicest girls ,i know1 because he would not tell the truth1 or did not4 ,i was standing right behind them1 listening to ,dr4 ,ollapod1 who was explaining to me the history of the second land-grant made to ,gorges1 and between the sentences ,i had a chance to hear every word poor ,bob said to ,laura4 ,mark now1 ,laura is a nice clever girl1 who has come to make the ,watsons a visit through her whole vacation at ,poughkeepsie2 and all the young people are delighted with her pleasant ways1 and all of them would be glad to know more of her than they do4 ,bob really wants to know her1 and he was really glad to be introduced to her4 ,mrs4 ,pollexfen presented him to her1 and he asked her to dance1 and they stood on the side of the cotillon behind me and in front of ,dr4 ,ollapod4 ,after they had taken their places1 ,bob said3 ,jew go to the opera last week1 ,miss ,walter8 ,he meant1 ,did you go to the opera last week8 ,no1 said ,laura1 ,i did not4 ,o1 't was charming6 said ,bob4 ,and there this effort at talk stopped1 as it should have done1 being founded on nothing but a lie2 which is to say1 not founded at all4 ,for1 in fact1 ,bob did not care two straws about the opera4 ,he had never been to it but once1 and then he was tired before it was over4 ,but he pretended he cared for it4 ,he thought that at an evening party he must talk about the opera1 and the lecture season1 and the assemblies1 and a lot of other trash1 about which in fact he cared nothing1 and so knew nothing4 ,not caring and not knowing1 he could not carry on his conversation a step4 ,the mere fact that ,miss ,walter had shown that she was in real sympathy with him in an indifference to the opera threw him off the track which he never should have been on1 and brought his untimely conversation to an end4 ,now1 as it happened1 ,laura's next partner brought her to the very same place1 or rather she never left it1 but ,will ,hackmatack came and claimed her dance as soon as ,bob's was done4 ,dr4 ,ollapod had only got down to the appeal made to the lords sitting in equity1 when ,i noticed ,will's beginning4 ,he spoke right out of the thing he was thinking of4 ,i saw you riding this afternoon1 he said4 ,yes1 said ,laura1 we went out by the red mills1 and drove up the hill by ,mr4 ,pond's4 ,did you8 said ,will1 eagerly4 ,did you see the beehives8 ,beehives8 no2--are there beehives8 ,why1 yes1 did not you know that ,mr4 ,pond knows more about bees than all the world beside8 ,at least1 ,i believe so4 ,he has a gold medal from ,paris for his honey or for something4 ,and his arrangements there are very curious4 ,i wish ,i had known it1 said ,laura4 ,i kept bees last summer1 and they always puzzled me4 ,i tried to get books2 but the books are all written for ,switzerland1 or ,england1 or anywhere but ,orange ,county4 ,well1 said the eager ,will1 ,i do not think ,mr4 ,pond has written any book1 but ,i really guess he knows a great deal about it4 ,why1 he told me-- c41 c41 c4 ,it was hard for ,will to keep the run of the dance2 and before it was over he had promised to ask ,mr4 ,pond when a party of them might come up to the hill and see the establishment2 and he felt as well acquainted with ,laura as if he had known her a month4 ,all this ease came from ,will's not pretending an interest where he did not feel any1 but opening simply where he was sure of his ground1 and was really interested4 ,more simply1 ,will did not tell a lie1 as poor ,bob had done in that remark about the opera1 but told the truth4 ,if ,i were permitted to write more than thirty-five pages of this note-paper 7of which this is the nineteenth71 ,i would tell you twenty stories to the same point4 ,and please observe that the distinction between the two systems of talk is the eternal distinction between the people whom ,thackeray calls snobs and the people who are gentlemen and ladies4 ,gentlemen and ladies are sure of their ground4 ,they pretend to nothing that they are not4 ,they have no occasion to act one or another part4 ,it is not possible for them1 even in the choice of subjects1 to tell lies4 ,the principle of selecting a subject which thoroughly interests you requires only one qualification4 ,you may be very intensely interested in some affairs of your own2 but in general society you have no right to talk of them1 simply because they are not of equal interest to other people4 ,of course you may come to me for advice1 or go to your master1 or to your father or mother1 or to any friend1 and in form lay open your own troubles or your own life1 and make these the subject of your talk4 ,but in general society you have no right to do this4 ,for the rule of life is1 that men and women must not think of themselves1 but of others3 they must live for others1 and then they will live rightly for themselves4 ,so the second rule for talk would express itself thus3-- ,do ,not ,talk ,about ,your ,own ,affairs4 ,i remember how ,i was mortified last summer1 up at the ,tiptop ,house1 though ,i was not in the least to blame1 by a display ,emma ,fortinbras made of herself4 ,there had gathered round the fire in the sitting-room quite a group of the different parties who had come up from the different houses1 and we all felt warm and comfortable and social2 and1 to my real delight1 ,emma and her father and her cousin came in1--they had been belated somewhere4 ,she is a sweet pretty little thing1 really the belle of the village1 if we had such things1 and we are all quite proud of her in one way2 but ,i am sorry to say that she is a little goose1 and sometimes she manages to show this just when you don't want her to4 ,of course she shows this1 as all other geese show themselves1 by cackling about things that interest no one but herself4 ,when she came into the room1 ,alice ran to her and kissed her1 and took her to the warmest seat1 and took her little cold hands to rub them1 and began to ask her how it had all happened1 and where they had been1 and all the other questions4 ,now1 you see1 this was a very dangerous position4 ,poor ,emma was not equal to it4 ,the subject was given her1 and so far she was not to blame4 ,but when1 from the misfortunes of the party1 she rushed immediately to detail individual misfortunes of her own1 resting principally on the history of a pair of boots which she had thought would be strong enough to last all through the expedition1 and which she had meant to send to ,sparhawk's before she left home to have their heels cut down1 only she had forgotten1 and now these boots were thus and thus1 and so and so1 and she had no others with her1 and she was sure that she did not know what she should do when she got up in the morning1--,i say1 when she got as far as this1 in all this thrusting upon people who wanted to sympathize a set of matters which had no connection with what interested them1 excepting so far as their personal interest in her gave it1 she violated the central rule of life2 for she showed she was thinking of herself with more interest than she thought of others with4 ,now to do this is bad living1 and it is bad living which will show itself in bad talking4 ,but ,i hope you see the distinction4 ,if ,mr4 ,agassiz comes to you on the ,field day of the ,essex ,society1 and says3 ,miss ,fanchon1 ,i understand that you fell over from the steamer as you came from ,portland1 and had to swim half an hour before the boats reached you4 ,will you be kind enough to tell me how you were taught to swim1 and how the chill of the water affected you1 and1 in short1 all about your experience8 he then makes choice of the subject4 ,he asks for all the detail4 ,it is to gratify him that you go into the detail1 and you may therefore go into it just as far as you choose4 ,only take care not to lug in one little detail merely because it interests you1 when there is no possibility that1 in itself1 it can have an interest for him4 ,have you never noticed how the really provoking silence of these brave men who come back from the war gives a new and particular zest to what they tell us of their adventures8 ,we have to worm it out of them1 we drag it from them by pincers1 and1 when we have it1 the flavor is all pure4 ,it is exactly what we want1--life highly condensed2 and they could have given us indeed nothing more precious1 as certainly nothing more charming4 ,but when some ,bobadil braggart volunteers to tell how he did this and that1 how he silenced this battery1 and how he rode over that field of carnage1 in the first place we do not believe a tenth part of his story1 and in the second place we wish he would not tell the fraction which we suppose is possibly true4 ,life is given to us that we may learn how to live4 ,that is what it is for4 ,we are here in a great boarding-school1 where we are being trained in the use of our bodies and our minds1 so that in another world we may know how to use other bodies and minds with other faculties4 ,or1 if you please1 life is a gymnasium4 ,take which figure you choose4 ,because of this1 good talk1 following the principle of life1 is always directed with a general desire for learning rather than teaching4 ,no good talker is obtrusive1 thrusting forward his observation on men and things4 ,he is rather receptive1 trying to get at other people's observations2 and what he says himself falls from him1 as it were1 by accident1 he unconscious that he is saying anything that is worth while4 ,as the late ,professor ,harris said1 one of the last times ,i saw him1 ,there are unsounded depths in a man's nature of which he himself knows nothing till they are revealed to him by the plash and ripple of his own conversation with other men4 ,this great principle of life1 when applied in conversation1 may be stated simply then in two words1-- ,confess ,ignorance4 ,you are both so young that you cannot yet conceive of the amount of treasure that will yet be poured in upon you1 by all sorts of people1 if you do not go about professing that you have all you want already4 ,you know the story of the two school-girls on the ,central ,railroad4 ,they were dead faint with hunger1 having ridden all day without food1 but1 on consulting together1 agreed that they did not dare to get out at any station to buy4 ,a modest old doctor of divinity1 who was coming home from a meeting of the ,american ,board1 overheard their talk1 got some sponge-cake1 and pleasantly and civilly offered it to them as he might have done to his grandchildren4 ,but poor ,sybil1 who was nervous and anxious1 said1 ,no1 thank you1 and so ,sarah thought she must say1 ,no1 thank you1 too2 and so they were nearly dead when they reached the ,delavan ,house4 ,now just that same thing happens whenever you pretend1 either from pride or from shyness1 that you know the thing you do not know4 ,if you go on in that way you will be starved before long1 and the coroner's jury will bring in a verdict1 ,served you right4 ,i could have brayed a girl1 whom ,i will call ,jane ,smith1 last night at ,mrs4 ,pollexfen's party1 only ,i remembered1 ,though thou bray a fool in a mortar1 his foolishness will not depart from him1 and that much the same may be said of fools of the other sex4 ,i could have brayed her1 ,i say1 when ,i saw how she was constantly defrauding herself by cutting off that fine ,major ,andrew1 who was talking to her1 or trying to4 ,really1 no instances give you any idea of it4 ,from a silly boarding-school habit1 ,i think1 she kept saying ,yes1 as if she would be disgraced by acknowledging ignorance4 ,you know1 said he1 what ,general ,taylor said to ,santa ,anna1 when they brought him in8 ,yes1 simpered poor ,jane1 though in fact she did not know1 and ,i do not suppose five people in the world do4 ,but poor ,andrew1 simple as a soldier1 believed her and did not tell the story1 but went on alluding to it1 and they got at once into helpless confusion4 ,still1 he did not know what the matter was1 and before long1 when they were speaking of one of the ,muhlbach novels1 he said1 ,did you think of the resemblance between the winding up and ,redgauntlet8 ,o yes1 simpered poor ,jane again1 though1 as it proved1 and as she had to explain in two or three minutes1 she had never read a word of ,redgauntlet4 ,she had merely said ,yes1 and ,yes1 and ,yes not with a distinct notion of fraud1 but from an impression that it helps conversation on if you forever assent to what is said4 ,this is an utter mistake2 for1 as ,i hope you see by this time1 conversation really depends on the acknowledgment of ignorance1--being1 indeed1 the providential appointment of ,god for the easy removal of such ignorance4 ,and here ,i must stop1 lest you both be tired4 ,in my next paper ,i shall begin again1 and teach you1 #d4 ,to talk to the person you are talking with1 and not simper to her or him1 while really you are looking all round the room1 and thinking of ten other persons2 #e4 ,never in any other way to underrate the person you talk with1 but to talk your best1 whatever that may be2 and1 #f4 ,to be brief1--a point which ,i shall have to illustrate at great length4 ,if you like1 you may confide to the ,letter-,box your experiences on these points1 as well as on the three on which we have already been engaged4 ,but1 whether you do or do not1 ,i shall give to you the result1 not only of my experiences1 but of at least #e1hgb years of talk--,lyell says many more--since ,adam gave names to chattering monkeys4 ,chapter ,,iii4 ,talk4 ,may ,i presume that all my young friends between this and ,seattle have read paper ,number ,two8 ,first class in geography1 where is ,seattle8 ,eight4 ,go up4 ,have you all read1 and inwardly considered1 the three rules1 ,tell the truth2 ,talk not of yourself2 and ,confess ignorance8 ,have you all practised them1 in moonlight sleigh-ride by the ,red ,river of the ,north1--in moonlight stroll on the beach by ,st4 ,augustine1--in evening party at ,pottsville1--and at the parish sociable in ,northfield8 ,then you are sure of the benefits which will crown your lives if you obey these three precepts2 and you will1 with unfaltering step1 move quickly over the kettle-de-benders of this broken essay1 and from the thistle1 danger1 will pluck the three more flowers which ,i have promised4 ,i am to teach you1 fourth1-- ,to ,talk ,to ,the ,person ,who ,is ,talking ,to ,you4 ,this rule is constantly violated by fools and snobs4 ,now you might as well turn your head away when you shoot at a bird1 or look over your shoulder when you have opened a new book1--instead of looking at the bird1 or looking at the book1--as lapse into any of the habits of a man who pretends to talk to one person while he is listening to another1 or watching another1 or wondering about another4 ,if you really want to hear what ,jo ,gresham is saying to ,alice ,faulconbridge1 when they are standing next you in the dance1 say so to ,will ,withers1 who is trying to talk with you4 ,you can say pleasantly1 ,mr4 ,withers1 ,i want very much to overhear what ,mr4 ,gresham is saying1 and if you will keep still a minute1 ,i think ,i can4 ,then ,will ,withers will know what to do4 ,you will not be preoccupied1 and perhaps you may be able to hear something you were not meant to know4 ,at this you are disgusted4 ,you throw down the book at once1 and say you will not read any more4 ,you cannot think why this hateful man supposes that you would do anything so mean4 ,then why do you let ,will ,withers suppose so8 ,all he can tell is what you show him4 ,if you will listen while he speaks1 so as to answer intelligently1 and will then speak to him as if there were no other persons in the room1 he will know fast enough that you are talking to him4 ,but if you just say yes1 and no1 and indeed1 and certainly1 in that flabby1 languid way in which some boys and girls ,i know pretend to talk sometimes1 he will think that you are engaged in thinking of somebody else1 or something else1--unless1 indeed1 he supposes that you are not thinking of anything1 and that you hardly know what thinking is4 ,it is just as bad1 when you are talking to another girl1 or another girl's mother1 if you take to watching her hair1 or the way she trimmed her frock1 or anything else about her1 instead of watching what she is saying as if that were really what you and she are talking for4 ,i could name to you young women who seem to go into society for the purpose of studying the milliner's business4 ,it is a very good business1 and a very proper business to study in the right place4 ,i know some very good girls who would be much improved1 and whose husbands would be a great deal happier1 if they would study it to more purpose than they do4 ,but do not study it while you are talking4 ,no1--not if the ,empress ,eugnie herself should be talking to you4 ,footnote3 ,this was written in #ahfi1 and ,i leave it in memoriam4 ,indeed1 in this ,may of #ahga1 ,eugnie's chances of receiving ,clare at ,court again are as good as anybody's1 and better than some4 ,suppose1 when ,general ,dix has presented you and mamma1 the ,empress should see you in the crowd afterwards1 and should send that stiff-looking old gentleman in a court dress across the room1 to ask you to come and talk to her1 and should say to you1 ,mademoiselle1 est-ce que l'on permet aux jeunes filles ,amricaines se promener cheval sans cavalier8 ,do you look her frankly in the face while she speaks1 and when she stops1 do you answer her as you would answer ,leslie ,goldthwaite if you were coming home from berrying4 ,don't you count those pearls that the ,empress has tied round her head1 nor think how you can make a necktie like hers out of that old bit of ribbon that you bought in ,syracuse4 ,tell her1 in as good ,french or as good ,english as you can muster1 what she asks2 and if1 after you have answered her lead1 she plays again1 do you play again2 and if she plays again1 do you play again1--till one or other of you takes the trick4 ,but do you think of nothing else1 while the talk goes on1 but the subject she has started1 and of her2 do not think of yourself1 but address yourself to the single business of meeting her inquiry as well as you can4 ,then1 if it becomes proper for you to ask her a question1 you may4 ,but remember that conversation is what you are there for1--not the study of millinery1 or fashion1 or jewelry1 or politics4 ,why1 ,i have known men who1 while they were smirking1 and smiling1 and telling other lies to their partners1 were keeping the calendar of the whole room1--knew who was dancing with whom1 and who was looking at pictures1 and that ,brown had sent up to the lady of the house to tell her that supper was served1 and that she was just looking for her husband that he might offer ,mrs4 ,grant his arm and take her down stairs4 ,but do you think their partners liked to be treated so8 ,do you think their partners were worms1 who liked to be trampled upon8 ,do you think they were pachydermatous coleoptera of the dor tribe1 who had just fallen from red-oak trees1 and did not know that they were trampled upon8 ,you are wholly mistaken4 ,those partners were of flesh and blood1 like you1--of the same blood with you1 cousins-german of yours on the ,anglo-,saxon side1--and they felt just as badly as you would feel if anybody talked to you while he was thinking of the other side of the room4 ,and ,i know a man who is1 it is true1 one of the most noble and unselfish of men1 but who had made troops of friends long before people had found that out4 ,long before he had made his present fame1 he had found these troops of friends4 ,when he was a green1 uncouth1 unlicked cub of a boy1 like you1 ,stephen1 he had made them4 ,and do you ask how8 ,he had made them by listening with all his might4 ,whoever sailed down on him at an evening party and engaged him--though it were the most weary of odd old ladies--was sure1 while they were together1 of her victim4 ,he would look her right in the eye1 would take in her every shrug and half-whisper1 would enter into all her joys and terrors and hopes1 would help her by his sympathy to find out what the trouble was1 and1 when it was his turn to answer1 he would answer like her own son4 ,do you wonder that all the old ladies loved him8 ,and it was no special court to old ladies4 ,he talked so to school-boys1 and to shy people who had just poked their heads out of their shells1 and to all the awkward people1 and to all the gay and easy people4 ,and so he compelled them1 by his magnetism1 to talk so to him4 ,that was the way he made his first friends1--and that was the way1 ,i think1 that he deserved them4 ,did you notice how badly ,i violated this rule when ,dr4 ,ollapod talked to me of the ,gorges land-grants1 at ,mrs4 ,pollexfen's8 ,i got very badly punished1 and ,i deserved what ,i got1 for ,i had behaved very ill4 ,i ought not to have known what ,edmeston said1 or what ,will ,hackmatack said4 ,i ought to have been listening1 and learning about the ,lords sitting in ,equity4 ,only the next day ,dr4 ,ollapod left town without calling on me1 he was so much displeased4 ,and when1 the next week1 ,i was lecturing in ,naguadavick1 and the mayor of the town asked me a very simple question about the titles in the third range1 ,i knew nothing about it and was disgraced4 ,so much for being rude1 and not attending to the man who was talking to me4 ,now do not tell me that you cannot attend to stupid people1 or long-winded people1 or vulgar people4 ,you can attend to anybody1 if you will remember who he is4 ,how do you suppose that ,horace ,felltham attends to these old ladies1 and these shy boys8 ,why1 he remembers that they are all of the blood-royal4 ,to speak very seriously1 he remembers whose children they are1--who is their ,father4 ,and that is worth remembering4 ,it is not of much consequence1 when you think of that1 who made their clothes1 or what sort of grammar they speak in4 ,this rule of talk1 indeed1 leads to our next rule1 which1 as ,i said of the others1 is as essential in conversation as it is in war1 in business1 in criticism1 or in any other affairs of men4 ,it is based on the principle of rightly honoring all men4 ,for talk1 it may be stated thus3-- ,never ,underrate ,your ,interlocutor4 ,in the conceit of early life1 talking to a man of thrice my age1 and of immense experience1 ,i said1 a little too flippantly1 ,was it not the ,king of ,wurtemberg whose people declined a constitution when he had offered it to them8 ,yes1 said my friend1 the ,king told me the story himself4 ,observe what a rebuke this would have been to me1 had ,i presumed to tell him the fact which he knew ten times as accurately as ,i4 ,i was just saved from sinking into the earth by having couched my statement in the form of a question4 ,the truth is1 that we are all dealing with angels unawares1 and we had best make up our minds to that1 early in our interviews4 ,one of the first of preachers once laid down the law of preaching thus3 ,preach as if you were preaching to archangels4 ,this means1 ,say the very best thing you know1 and never condescend to your audience4 ,and ,i once heard ,mr4 ,william ,hunt1 who is one of the first artists1 say to a class of teachers1 ,i shall not try to adapt myself to your various lines of teaching4 ,i will tell you the best things ,i know1 and you may make the adaptations4 ,if you will boldly try the experiment of entering1 with anybody you have to talk with1 on the thing which at the moment interests you most1 you will find out that other people's hearts are much like your heart1 other people's experiences much like yours1 and even1 my dear ,justin1 that some other people know as much as you know4 ,in short1 never talk down to people2 but talk to them from your best thought and your best feeling1 without trying for it on the one hand1 but without rejecting it on the other4 ,you will be amazed1 every time you try this experiment1 to find how often the man or the woman whom you first happen to speak to is the very person who can tell you just what you want to know4 ,my friend ,ingham1 who is a working minister in a large town1 says that when he comes from a house where everything is in a tangle1 and all wrong1 he knows no way of righting things but by telling the whole story1 without the names1 in the next house he happens to call at in his afternoon walk4 ,he says that if the ,windermeres are all in tears because little ,polly lost their grandmother's miniature when she was out picking blueberries1 and if he tells of their loss at the ,ashteroths' where he calls next1 it will be sure that the daughter of the gardener of the ,ashteroths will have found the picture of the ,windermeres4 ,remember what ,i have taught you1--that conversation is the providential arrangement for the relief of ignorance4 ,only1 as in all medicine1 the patient must admit that he is ill1 or he can never be cured4 ,it is only in ,patronage1--which ,i am so sorry you boys and girls will not read1--and in other poorer novels1 that the leech cures1 at a distance1 patients who say they need no physician4 ,find out your ignorance1 first2 admit it frankly1 second2 be ready to recognize with true honor the next man you meet1 third2 and then1 presto6--although it were needed that the floor of the parlor should open1 and a little black-bearded ,merlin be shot up like ,jack in a box1 as you saw in ,humpty-,dumpty1--the right person1 who knows the right thing1 will appear1 and your ignorance will be solved4 ,what happened to me last week when ,i was trying to find the ,history of ,yankee ,doodle8 ,did it come to me without my asking8 ,not a bit of it4 ,nothing that was true came without my asking4 ,without my asking1 there came that stuff you saw in the newspapers1 which said ,yankee ,doodle was a ,spanish air4 ,that was not true4 ,this was the way ,i found out what was true4 ,i confessed my ignorance2 and1 as ,lewis at ,bellombre said of that ill-mannered ,power1 ,i had a great deal to confess4 ,what ,i knew was1 that in ,american ,anecdotes an anonymous writer said a friend of his had seen the air among some ,roundhead songs in the collection of a friend of his at ,cheltenham1 and that this air was the basis of ,yankee ,doodle4 ,what was more1 there was the old air printed4 ,but then that story was good for nothing till you could prove it4 ,a ,methodist minister came to ,jeremiah ,mason1 and said1 ,i have seen an angel from heaven who told me that your client was innocent4 ,yes1 said ,mr4 ,mason1 and did he tell you how to prove it8 ,unfortunately1 in the dear old ,american ,anecdotes1 there was not the name of any person1 from one cover to the other1 who would be responsible for one syllable of its charming stories4 ,so there ,i was6 ,and ,i went through library after library looking for that ,roundhead song1 and ,i could not find it4 ,but when the time came that it was necessary ,i should know1 ,i confessed ignorance4 ,well1 after that1 the first man ,i spoke to said1 ,no1 ,i don't know anything about it4 ,it is not in my line4 ,but our old friend ,watson knew something about it1 or said he did4 ,who is ,watson8 said ,i4 ,o1 he's dead ten years ago4 ,but there's a letter by him in the ,historical ,proceedings1 which tells what he knew4 ,so1 indeed1 there was a letter by ,watson4 ,oddly enough it left out all that was of direct importance2 but it left in this statement1 that he1 an authentic person1 wrote the dear old ,american ,anecdote story4 ,that was something4 ,so then ,i gratefully confessed ignorance again1 and again1 and again4 ,and ,i have many friends1 so that there were many brave men1 and many fair women1 who were extending the various tentacula of their feeling processes into the different realms of the known and the unknown1 to find that lost scrap of a ,roundhead song for me4 ,and so1 at last1 it was a girl--as old1 say1 as the youngest who will struggle as far as this page in the ,cleveland ,high ,school--who said1 ,why1 there is something about it in that funny ,english book1 ',gleanings for the ,curious1' ,i found in the ,boston ,library4 ,and sure enough1 in an article perfectly worthless in itself1 there were the two words which named the printed collection of music which the other people had forgotten to name4 ,these three books were each useless alone2 but1 when brought together1 they established a fact4 ,it took three people in talk to bring the three books together4 ,and if ,i had been such a fool that ,i could not confess ignorance1 or such another fool as to have distrusted the people ,i met with1 ,i should never have had the pleasure of my discovery4 ,now ,i must not go into any more such stories as this1 because you will say ,i am violating the sixth great rule of talk1 which is ,be ,short4 ,and1 besides1 you must know that they say 7whoever they may be7 that young folks like you skip such explanations1 and hurry on to the stories4 ,i do not believe a word of that1 but ,i obey4 ,i know one ,saint4 ,we will call her ,agatha4 ,i used to think she could be painted for ,mary ,mother1 her face is so passionless and pure and good4 ,i used to want to make her wrap a blue cloth round her head1 as if she were in a picture ,i have a print of1 and then1 if we could only find the painter who was as pure and good as she1 she should be painted as ,mary ,mother4 ,well1 this sweet ,saint has done lovely things in life1 and will do more1 till she dies4 ,and the people she deals with do many more than she4 ,for her truth and gentleness and loveliness pass into them1 and inspire them1 and then1 with the light and life they gain from her1 they can do what1 with her light and life1 she cannot do4 ,for she herself1 like all of us1 has her limitations4 ,and ,i suppose the one reason why1 with such serenity and energy and long-suffering and unselfishness as hers1 she does not succeed better in her own person is that she does not know how to be short4 ,we cannot all be or do all things4 ,first boy in ,latin1 you may translate that sentence back into ,latin1 and see how much better it sounds there than in ,english4 ,then send your version to the ,letter-,box4 ,for instance1 it may be ,agatha's duty to come and tell me that--what shall we have it8--say that dinner is ready4 ,now really the best way but one to say that is1 ,dinner is ready1 sir4 ,the best way is1 ,dinner1 sir2 for this age1 observe1 loves to omit the verb4 ,let it4 ,but really if ,st4 ,agatha1 of whom ,i speak1--the second of that name1 and of the ,protestant1 not the ,roman ,canon1--had this to say1 she would say3 ,i am so glad to see you6 ,i do not want to take your time1 ,i am sure1 you have so many things to do1 and you are so good to everybody1 but ,i knew you would let me tell you this4 ,i was coming up stairs1 and ,i saw your cook1 ,florence1 you know4 ,i always knew her2 she used to live at ,mrs4 ,cradock's before she started on her journey2 and her sister lived with that friend of mine that ,i visited the summer ,willie was so sick with the mumps1 and she was so kind to him4 ,she was a beautiful woman2 her husband would be away all the day1 and1 when he came home1 she would have a piece of mince-pie for him1 and his slippers warmed and in front of the fire for him2 and1 when he was in ,cayenne1 he died1 and they brought his body home in a ship ,frederic ,marsters was the captain of4 ,it was there that ,i met ,florence's sister1--not so pretty as ,florence1 but ,i think a nice girl4 ,she is married now and lives at ,ashland1 and has two nice children1 a boy and a girl4 ,they are all coming to see us at ,thanksgiving4 ,i was so glad to see that ,florence was with you1 and ,i did not know it when ,i came in1 and when ,i met her in the entry ,i was very much surprised1 and she saw ,i was coming in here1 and she said1 ',please1 will you tell him that dinner is ready8' ,now it is not simply1 you see1 that1 while an announcement of that nature goes on1 the mutton grows cold1 your wife grows tired1 the children grow cross1 and that the subjugation of the world in general is set back1 so far as you are all concerned1 a perceptible space of time on ,the ,great ,dial4 ,but the tale itself has a wearing and wearying perplexity about it4 ,at the end you doubt if it is your dinner that is ready1 or ,fred ,marsters's1 or ,florence's1 or nobody's4 ,whether there is any real dinner1 you doubt4 ,for want of a vigorous nominative case1 firmly governing the verb1 whether that verb is seen or not1 or because this firm nominative is masked and disguised behind clouds of drapery and other rubbish1 the best of stories1 thus told1 loses all life1 interest1 and power4 ,leave out then1 resolutely4 ,first omit ,speaking of hides1 or ,that reminds me of1 or ,what you say suggests1 or ,you make me think of1 or any such introductions4 ,of course you remember what you are saying4 ,you could not say it if you did not remember it4 ,it is to be hoped1 too1 that you are thinking of what you are saying4 ,if you are not1 you will not help the matter by saying you are1 no matter if the conversation do have firm and sharp edges4 ,conversation is not an essay4 ,it has a right to many large letters1 and many new paragraphs4 ,that is what makes it so much more interesting than long1 close paragraphs like this1 which the printers hate as much as ,i do1 and which they call solid matter as if to indicate that1 in proportion1 such paragraphs are apt to lack the light1 ethereal spirit of all life4 ,second1 in conversation1 you need not give authorities1 if it be only clear that you are not pretending originality4 ,do not say1 as dear ,pemberton used to1 ,i have a book at home1 which ,i bought at the sale of ,byles's books1 in which there is an account of ,parry's first voyage1 and an explanation of the red snow1 which shows that the red snow is1 c41 c41 c4 ,instead of this say1 ,red snow is1 c41 c41 c4 ,nobody will think you are producing this as a discovery of your own4 ,when the authority is asked for1 there will be a fit time for you to tell4 ,third1 never explain1 unless for extreme necessity1 who people are4 ,let them come in as they do at the play1 when you have no play-bill4 ,if what you say is otherwise intelligible1 the hearers will find out1 if it is necessary1 as perhaps it may not be4 ,go back1 if you please1 to my account of ,agatha1 and see how much sooner we should all have come to dinner if she had not tried to explain about all these people4 ,the truth is1 you cannot explain about them4 ,you are led in farther and farther4 ,frank wants to say1 ,george went to the ,stereopticon yesterday4 ,instead of that he says1 ,a fellow at our school named ,george1 a brother of ,tom ,tileston who goes to the ,dwight1 and is in ,miss ,somerby's room1--not the ,miss ,somerby that has the class in the ,sunday school1--she's at the ,brimmer ,school1--but her sister1--and already poor ,frank is far from ,george1 and far from the ,stereopticon1 and1 as ,i observe1 is wandering farther and farther4 ,he began with ,george1 but1 ,george having suggested ,tom and ,miss ,somerby1 by the same law of thought each of them would have suggested two others4 ,poor ,frank1 who was quite master of his one theme1 ,george1 finds unawares that he is dealing with two1 gets flurried1 but plunges on1 only to find1 in his remembering1 that these two have doubled into four1 and then1 conscious that in an instant they will be eight1 and1 which is worse1 eight themes or subjects on which he is not prepared to speak at all1 probably wishes he had never begun4 ,it is certain that every one else wishes it1 whether he does or not4 ,you need not explain4 ,people of sense understand something4 ,do you remember the illustration of repartee in ,miss ,edgeworth8 ,it is this3-- ,mr4 ,pope1 who was crooked and cross1 was talking with a young officer4 ,the officer said he thought that in a certain sentence an interrogation-mark was needed4 ,do you know what an interrogation-mark is8 snarled out the crooked1 cross little man4 ,it is a crooked little thing that asks questions1 said the young man4 ,and he shut up ,mr4 ,pope for that day4 ,but you can see that he would not have shut up ,mr4 ,pope at all if he had had to introduce his answer and explain it from point to point4 ,if he had said1 ,do you really suppose ,i do not know8 ,why1 really1 as long ago as when ,i was at the ,charter ,house ,school1 old ,william ,watrous1 who was master there then1--he had been at the school himself1 when he and ,ezekiel ,cheever were boys1--told me that a point of interrogation was a little crooked thing that asks questions4 ,the repartee would have lost a good deal of its force1 if this unknown young officer had not learned1 #a1 not to introduce his remarks2 #b1 not to give authorities2 and #c1 not to explain who people are4 ,these are1 perhaps1 enough instances in detail1 though they do not in the least describe all the dangers that surround you4 ,speaking more generally1 avoid parentheses as you would poison2 and more generally yet1 as ,i said at first1 ,,be ,,short4 ,these six rules must suffice for the present4 ,observe1 ,i am only speaking of methods4 ,i take it for granted that you are not spiteful1 hateful1 or wicked otherwise4 ,i do not tell you1 therefore1 never to talk scandal1 because ,i hope you do not need to learn that4 ,i do not tell you never to be sly1 or mean1 in talk4 ,if you need to be told that1 you are beyond such training as we can give here4 ,study well1 and practise daily these six rules1 and then you will be prepared for our next instructions1--which require attention to these rules1 as all ,life does1--when we shall consider ,,how ,,to ,,write4 ,chapter ,,iv4 ,how ,to ,write4 ,it is supposed that you have learned your letters1 and how to make them4 ,it is supposed that you have written the school copies1 from ,apes and ,amazons aim at ,art down to ,zanies and ,zodiacs are the zest of ,zoroaster ,it is supposed that you can mind your p's and q's1 and1 as ,harriet ,byron said of ,charles ,grandison1 in the romance which your great-grandmother knew by heart1 that you can spell well4 ,observe the advance of the times1 dear ,stephen4 ,that a gentleman should spell well was the only literary requisition which the accomplished lady of his love made upon him a hundred years ago4 ,and you1 if you go to ,mrs4 ,vandermeyer's party to-night1 will be asked by the fair ,marcia1 what is your opinion as to the origin of the ,myth of ,ceres6 ,these things are supposed4 ,it is also supposed that you have1 at heart and in practice1 the essential rules which have been unfolded in ,chapters ,,ii4 and ,,iii4 ,as has been already said1 these are as necessary in one duty of life as in another1--in writing a ,president's message as in finding your way by a spotted trail1 from ,albany to ,tamworth4 ,these things being supposed1 we will now consider the special needs for writing1 as a gentleman writes1 or a lady1 in the ,english language1 which is1 fortunately for us1 the best language of them all4 ,i will tell you1 first1 the first lesson ,i learned about it2 for it was the best1 and was central4 ,my first undertaking of importance in this line was made when ,i was seven years old4 ,there was a new theatre1 and a prize of a hundred dollars was offered for an ode to be recited at the opening1--or perhaps it was only at the opening of the season4 ,our school was hard by the theatre1 and as we boys were generally short of spending-money1 we conceived the idea of competing for this prize4 ,you can see that a hundred dollars would have gone a good way in barley-candy and blood-alleys1--which last are things unknown1 perhaps1 to ,young ,america to-day4 ,so we resolutely addressed ourselves to writing for the ode4 ,i was soon snagged1 and found the difficulties greater than ,i had thought4 ,i consulted one who has through life been ,nestor and ,mentor to me1--7,second class in ,greek1--,wilkins1 who was ,nestor8--,right2 go up4 ,third class in ,french1--,miss ,clara1 who was ,mentor8--,right2 sit down71--and he replied by this remark1 which ,i beg you to ponder inwardly1 and always act upon3-- ,edward1 said he1 whenever ,i am going to write anything1 ,i find it best to think first what ,i am going to say4 ,in the instruction thus conveyed is a lesson which nine writers out of ten have never learned4 ,even the people who write leading articles for the newspapers do not1 half the time1 know what they are going to say when they begin4 ,and ,i have heard many a sermon which was evidently written by a man who1 when he began1 only knew what his first head was to be4 ,the sermon was a sort of riddle to himself1 when he started1 and he was curious as to how it would come out4 ,i remember a very worthy gentleman who sometimes spoke to the ,sunday school when ,i was a boy4 ,he would begin without the slightest idea of what he was going to say1 but he was sure that the end of the first sentence would help him to the second4 ,this is an example4 ,my dear young friends1 ,i do not know that ,i have anything to say to you1 but ,i am very much obliged to your teachers for asking me to address you this beautiful morning4--,the morning is so beautiful after the refreshment of the night1 that as ,i walked to church1 and looked around and breathed the fresh air1 ,i felt more than ever what a privilege it is to live in so wonderful a world4--,for the world1 dear children1 has been all contrived and set in order for us by a ,power so much higher than our own1 that we might enjoy our own lives1 and live for the happiness and good of our brothers and our sisters4--,our brothers and our sisters they are indeed1 though some of them are in distant lands1 and beneath other skies1 and parted from us by the broad oceans4--,these oceans1 indeed1 do not so much divide the world as they unite it4 ,they make it one4 ,the winds which blow over them1 and the currents which move their waters1--all are ruled by a higher law1 that they may contribute to commerce and to the good of man4--,and man1 my dear children1 c41 c41 c4 ,you see there is no end to it4 ,it is a sort of capping verses with yourself1 where you take up the last word1 or the last idea of one sentence1 and begin the next with it1 quite indifferent where you come out1 if you only occupy the time that is appointed4 ,it is very easy for you1 but1 my dear friends1 it is very hard for those who read and who listen6 ,the vice goes so far1 indeed1 that you may divide literature into two great classes of books4 ,the smaller class of the two consists of the books written by people who had something to say4 ,they had in life learned something1 or seen something1 or done something1 which they really wanted and needed to tell to other people4 ,they told it4 ,and their writings make1 perhaps1 a twentieth part of the printed literature of the world4 ,it is the part which contains all that is worth reading4 ,the other nineteen-twentieths make up the other class4 ,the people have written just as you wrote at school when ,miss ,winstanley told you to bring in your compositions on ,duty ,performed4 ,you had very little to say about ,duty ,performed4 ,but ,miss ,winstanley expected three pages4 ,and she got them1--such as they were4 ,our first rule is1 then1 ,know ,what ,you ,want ,to ,say4 ,the second rule is1 ,say ,it4 ,that is1 do not begin by saying something else1 which you think will lead up to what you want to say4 ,i remember1 when they tried to teach me to sing1 they told me to think of eight and sing seven4 ,that may be a very good rule for singing1 but it is not a good rule for talking1 or writing1 or any of the other things that ,i have to do4 ,i advise you to say the thing you want to say4 ,when ,i began to preach1 another of my ,nestors said to me1 ,edward1 ,i give you one piece of advice4 ,when you have written your sermon1 leave off the introduction and leave off the conclusion4 ,the introduction seems to me always written to show that the minister can preach two sermons on one text4 ,leave that off1 then1 and it will do for another ,sunday4 ,the conclusion is written to apply to the congregation the doctrine of the sermon4 ,but1 if your hearers are such fools that they cannot apply the doctrine to themselves1 nothing you can say will help them4 ,in this advice was much wisdom4 ,it consists1 you see1 in advising to begin1 at the beginning1 and to stop when you have done4 ,thirdly1 and always1 ,use ,your ,own ,language4 ,i mean the language you are accustomed to use in daily life4 ,david did much better with his sling than he would have done with ,saul's sword and spear4 ,and ,hatty ,fielding told me1 only last week1 that she was very sorry she wore her cousin's pretty brooch to an evening dance1 though ,fanny had really forced it on her4 ,hatty said1 like a sensible girl as she is1 that it made her nervous all the time4 ,she felt as if she were sailing under false colors4 ,if your every-day language is not fit for a letter or for print1 it is not fit for talk4 ,and if1 by any series of joking or fun1 at school or at home1 you have got into the habit of using slang in talk1 which is not fit for print1 why1 the sooner you get out of it the better4 ,remember that the very highest compliment paid to anything printed is paid when a person1 hearing it read aloud1 thinks it is the remark of the reader made in conversation4 ,both writer and reader then receive the highest possible praise4 ,it is sad enough to see how often this rule is violated4 ,there are fashions of writing4 ,mr4 ,dickens1 in his wonderful use of exaggerated language1 introduced one4 ,and now you can hardly read the court report in a village paper but you find that the ill-bred boy who makes up what he calls its locals thinks it is funny to write in such a style as this3-- ,an unfortunate individual who answered to the somewhat well-worn sobriquet of ,jones1 and appeared to have been trying some experiments as to the comparative density of his own skull and the materials of the sidewalk1 made an involuntary appearance before ,mr4 ,justice ,smith4 ,now the little fool who writes this does not think of imitating ,dickens4 ,he is only imitating another fool1 who was imitating another1 who was imitating another1--who1 through a score of such imitations1 got the idea of this burlesque exaggeration from some of ,mr4 ,dickens's earlier writings of thirty years ago4 ,it was very funny when ,mr4 ,dickens originated it4 ,and almost always1 when he used it1 it was very funny4 ,but it is not in the least funny when these other people use it1 to whom it is not natural1 and to whom it does not come easily4 ,just as this boy says sobriquet1 without knowing at all what the word means1 merely because he has read it in another newspaper1 everybody1 in this vein1 gets entrapped into using words with the wrong senses1 in the wrong places1 and making himself ridiculous4 ,now it happens1 by good luck1 that ,i have1 on the table here1 a pretty file of eleven compositions1 which ,miss ,winstanley has sent me1 which the girls in her first class wrote1 on the subject ,i have already named4 ,the whole subject1 as she gave it out1 was1 ,duty performed is a ,rainbow in the ,soul4 ,i think1 myself1 that the subject was a hard one1 and that ,miss ,winstanley would have done better had she given them a choice from two familiar subjects1 of which they had lately seen something or read something4 ,when young people have to do a thing1 it always helps them to give them a choice between two ways of doing it4 ,however1 ,miss ,winstanley gave them this subject4 ,it made a good deal of growling in the school1 but1 when the time came1 of course the girls buckled down to the work1 and1 as ,i said before1 the three pages wrote themselves1 or were written somehow or other4 ,now ,i am not going to inflict on you all these eleven compositions4 ,but there are three of them which1 as it happens1 illustrate quite distinctly the three errors against which ,i have been warning you4 ,i will copy a little scrap from each of them4 ,first1 here is ,pauline's4 ,she wrote without any idea1 when she began1 of what she was going to say4 ,duty performed is a ,rainbow in the ,soul4 ,a great many people ask the question1 ',what is duty8' and there has been a great deal written upon the subject1 and many opinions have been expressed in a variety of ways4 ,people have different ideas upon it1 and some of them think one thing and some another4 ,and some have very strong views1 and very decided about it4 ,but these are not always to be the most admired1 for often those who are so loud about a thing are not the ones who know the most upon a subject4 ,yet it is all very important1 and many things should be done2 and1 when they are done1 we are all embowered in ecstasy4 ,that is enough of poor ,pauline's4 ,and1 to tell the truth1 she was as much ashamed when she had come out to this ecstasy1 in first writing what she called the plaguy thing1 as she is now she reads it from the print4 ,but she began that sentence1 just as she began the whole1 with no idea how it was to end4 ,then she got aground4 ,she had said1 it is all very important2 and she did not know that it was better to stop there1 if she had nothing else to say1 so1 after waiting a good while1 knowing that they must all go to bed at nine1 she added1 and many things should be done4 ,even then1 she did not see that the best thing she could do was to put a full stop to the sentence4 ,she watched the other girls1 who were going well down their second pages1 while she had not turned the leaf1 and so1 in real agony1 she added this absurd when they are done1 we are all embowered in ecstasy4 ,the next morning they had to copy the compositions4 ,she knew what stuff this was1 just as well as you and ,i do1 but it took up twenty good lines1 and she could not afford1 she thought1 to leave it out4 ,indeed1 ,i am sorry to say1 none of her composition was any better4 ,she did not know what she wanted to say1 when she had done1 any better than when she began4 ,pauline is the same ,pauline who wanted to draw in monochromatic drawing4 ,here is the beginning of ,sybil's4 ,she is the girl who refused the sponge-cake when ,dr4 ,throop offered it to her4 ,she had an idea that an introduction helped along1--and this is her introduction4 ,duty performed is a ,rainbow in the ,soul4 ,i went out at sunset to consider this subject1 and beheld how the departing orb was scattering his beams over the mountains4 ,every blade of grass was gathering in some rays of beauty1 every tree was glittering in the majesty of parting day4 ,i said1 ',what is life8--,what is duty8' ,i saw the world folding itself up to rest4 ,the little flowers1 the tired sheep1 were turning to their fold4 ,so the sun went down4 ,he had done his duty1 along with the rest4 ,and so we got round to ,duty performed1 and1 the introduction well over1 like the tuning of an orchestra1 the business of the piece began4 ,that little slip about the flowers going into their folds was one which ,sybil afterwards defended4 ,she said it meant that they folded themselves up4 ,but it was an oversight when she wrote it2 she forgot the flowers1 and was thinking of the sheep4 ,now ,i think you will all agree with me that the whole composition would have been better without this introduction4 ,sarah ,clavers had a genuine idea1 which she had explained to the other girls much in this way4 ,i know what ,miss ,winstanley means4 ,she means this4 ,when you have had a real hard time to do what you know you ought to do1 when you have made a good deal of fuss about it1--as we all did the day we had to go over to ,mr4 ,ingham's and beg pardon for disturbing the ,sunday school1--you are so glad it is done1 that everything seems nice and quiet and peaceful1 just as when a thunder-storm is really over1 only just a few drops falling1 there comes a nice still minute or two with a rainbow across the sky4 ,that's what ,miss ,winstanley means1 and that's what ,i am going to say4 ,now really1 if ,sarah had said that1 without making the sentence breathlessly long1 it would have been a very decent composition for such a subject4 ,but when poor ,sarah got her paper before her1 she made two mistakes4 ,first1 she thought her school-girl talk was not good enough to be written down4 ,and1 second1 she knew that long words took up more room than short2 so1 to fill up her three pages1 she translated her little words into the largest she could think of4 ,it was just as ,dr4 ,schweigenthal1 when he wanted to say ,jesus was going to ,jerusalem1 said1 ,the ,founder of our religion was proceeding to the metropolis of his country4 ,that took three times as much room and time1 you see4 ,so ,sarah translated her ,english into the language of the ,talkee-talkees2 thus3-- ,duty performed is a ,rainbow in the ,soul4 ,it is frequently observed1 that the complete discharge of the obligations pressing upon us as moral agents is attended with conflict and difficulty4 ,frequently1 therefore1 we address ourselves to the discharge of these obligations with some measure of resistance1 perhaps with obstinacy1 and ,i may add1 indeed1 with unwillingness4 ,i wish ,i could persuade myself that our teacher had forgotten 7,sarah looked on this as a masterpiece1--a good line of print1 which says1 as you see1 really nothing7 the afternoon which was so mortifying to all who were concerned1 when her appeal to our better selves1 and to our educated consciousness of what was due to a clergyman1 and to the institutions of religion1 made it necessary for several of the young ladies to cross to the village1 7,sarah wished she could have said metropolis17 and obtain an interview with the ,rev4 ,mr4 ,ingham4 ,and so the composition goes on4 ,four full pages there are2 but you see how they were gained1--by a vicious style1 wholly false to a frank-spoken girl like ,sarah4 ,she expanded into what fills sixteen lines on this page what1 as she expressed it in conversation1 fills only five4 ,i hope you all see how one of these faults brings on another4 ,such is the way with all faults2 they hunt in couples1 or often1 indeed1 in larger company4 ,the moment you leave the simple wish to say upon paper the thing you have thought1 you are given over to all these temptations1 to write things which1 if any one else wrote them1 you would say were absurd1 as you say these school-girls' compositions are4 ,here is a good rule of the real ,nestor of our time4 ,he is a great preacher2 and one day he was speaking of the advantage of sometimes preaching an old sermon a second time4 ,you can change the arrangement1 he said4 ,you can fill in any point in the argument1 where you see it is not as strong as you proposed4 ,you can add an illustration1 if your statement is difficult to understand4 ,above all1 you can ,leave ,out ,all ,the ,fine ,passages4 ,i put that in small capitals1 for one of our rules4 ,for1 in nineteen cases out of twenty1 the ,fine ,passage that you are so pleased with1 when you first write it1 is better out of sight than in4 ,remember ,whately's great maxim1 ,nobody knows what good things you leave out4 ,indeed1 to the older of the young friends who favor me by reading these pages ,i can give no better advice1 by the way1 than that they read ,whately's ,rhetoric4 ,read ten pages a day1 then turn back1 and read them carefully again1 before you put the book by4 ,you will find it a very pleasant book1 and it will give you a great many hints for clear and simple expression1 which you are not so likely to find in any other way ,i know4 ,most of you know the difference between ,saxon words and ,latin words in the ,english language4 ,you know there were once two languages in ,england1--the ,norman ,french1 which ,william the ,conqueror and his men brought in1 and the ,saxon of the people who were conquered at that time4 ,the ,norman ,french was largely composed of words of ,latin origin4 ,the ,english language has been made up of the slow mixture of these two2 but the real stock1 out of which this delicious soup is made1 is the ,saxon1--the ,norman ,french should only add the flavor4 ,in some writing1 it is often necessary to use the words of ,latin origin4 ,thus1 in most scientific writing1 the ,latin words more nicely express the details of the meaning needed4 ,but1 to use the ,latin word where you have a good ,saxon one is still what it was in the times of ,wamba and of ,cedric1--it is to pretend you are one of the conquering nobility1 when1 in fact1 you are one of the free people1 who speak1 and should be proud to speak1 not the ,french1 but the ,english tongue4 ,to those of you who have even a slight knowledge of ,french or ,latin it will be very good fun1 and a very good exercise1 to translate1 in some thoroughly bad author1 his ,latin words into ,english4 ,to younger writers1 or to those who know only ,english1 this may seem too hard a task4 ,it will be doing much the same thing1 if they will try translating from long words into short ones4 ,here is a piece of weak ,english4 ,it is not bad in other regards1 but simply weak4 ,entertaining unlimited confidence in your intelligent and patriotic devotion to the public interest1 and being conscious of no motives on my part which are not inseparable from the honor and advancement of my country1 ,i hope it may be my privilege to deserve and secure1 not only your cordial co-operation in great public measures1 but also those relations of mutual confidence and regard which it is always so desirable to cultivate between members of co-ordinate branches of the government4 ,footnote3 ,from ,mr4 ,franklin ,pierce's first message to ,congress as ,president of the ,united ,states4 ,take that for an exercise in translating into shorter words4 ,strike out the unnecessary words1 and see if it does not come out stronger4 ,the same passage will serve also as an exercise as to the use of ,latin and ,saxon words4 ,dr4 ,johnson is generally quoted as the ,english author who uses most ,latin words4 ,he uses1 ,i think1 ten in a hundred4 ,but our ,congressmen far exceed him4 ,this sentence uses ,latin words at the rate of thirty-five in a hundred4 ,try a good many experiments in translating from long to short1 and you will be sure that1 when you have a fair choice between two words1 ,a ,short ,word ,is ,better ,than ,a ,long ,one4 ,for instance1 ,i think this sentence would have been better if it had been couched in thirty-six words instead of eighty-one4 ,i think we should have lost nothing of the author's meaning if he had said1 ,i have full trust in you4 ,i am sure that ,i seek only the honor and advance of the country4 ,i hope1 therefore1 that ,i may earn your respect and regard1 while we heartily work together4 ,i am fond of telling the story of the words which a distinguished friend of mine used in accepting a hard post of duty4 ,he said3--,i do not think ,i am fit for this place4 ,but my friends say ,i am1 and ,i trust them4 ,i shall take the place1 and1 when ,i am in it1 ,i shall do as well as ,i can4 ,it is a very grand sentence4 ,observe that it has not one word which is more than one syllable4 ,as it happens1 also1 every word is ,saxon1--there is not one spurt of ,latin4 ,yet this was a learned man1 who1 if he chose1 could have said the whole in ,latin4 ,but he was one ,american gentleman talking to another ,american gentleman1 and therefore he chose to use the tongue to which they both were born4 ,we have not space to go into the theory of these rules1 as far as ,i should like to4 ,but you see the force which a short word has1 if you can use it1 instead of a long one4 ,if you want to say hush1 hush is a much better word than the ,french taisez-vous ,if you want to say halt1 halt is much better than the ,french arretez-vous ,the ,french have1 in fact1 borrowed halte from us or from the ,german1 for their tactics4 ,for the same reason1 you want to prune out the unnecessary words from your sentences1 and even the classes of words which seem put in to fill up4 ,if1 for instance1 you can express your idea without an adjective1 your sentence is stronger and more manly4 ,it is better to say a saint than a saintly man4 ,it is better to say ,this is the truth than ,this is the truthful result4 ,of course an adjective may be absolutely necessary4 ,but you may often detect extempore speakers in piling in adjectives1 because they have not yet hit on the right noun4 ,in writing1 this is not to be excused4 ,you have all the time there is1 when you write1 and you do better to sink a minute in thinking for one right word1 than to put in two in its place1--because you can do so without loss of time4 ,i hope every school-girl knows1 what ,i am sure every school-boy knows1 ,sheridan's saying1 that ,easy writing1 is hard reading4 ,in general1 as ,i said before1 other things being equal1 ,the ,fewer ,words1 ,the ,better1 as it seems to me4 ,as it seems to me is the quiet way in which ,nestor states things4 ,would we were all as careful6 ,there is one adverb or adjective which it is almost always safe to leave out in ,america4 ,it is the word very4 ,i learned that from one of the masters of ,english style4 ,strike out your 'verys1' said he to me1 when ,i was young4 ,i wish ,i had done so oftener than ,i have4 ,for myself1 ,i like short sentences4 ,this is1 perhaps1 because ,i have read a good deal of modern ,french1 and ,i think the ,french gain in clearness by the shortness of their sentences4 ,but there are great masters of style1--great enough to handle long sentences well1--and these men would not agree with me4 ,but ,i will tell you this1 that if you have a sentence which you do not like1 the best experiment to try on it is the experiment ,medea tried on the old goat1 when she wanted to make him over3-- ,cut ,it ,to ,pieces4 ,what shall ,i take for illustration8 ,you will be more interested in one of these school-girls' themes than in an old ,congress speech ,i have here marked for copying4 ,here is the first draft of ,laura ,walter's composition1 which happens to be tied up in the same red ribbon with the finished exercises4 ,i will copy a piece of that1 and then you shall see1 from the corrected composition1 what came of it1 when she cut it to pieces1 and applied the other rules which we have been studying4 ,laura's ,first ,draft4 ,duty performed is a ,rainbow in the ,soul4 ,i cannot conceive1 and therefore ,i cannot attempt adequately to consider1 the full probable meaning of the metaphorical expression with which the present 'subject' concludes1--nor do ,i suppose it is absolutely necessary that ,i should do so1 for expressing the various impressions which ,i have formed on the subject taken as a whole1 which have occurred to me in such careful meditation as ,i have been able to give to it1--in natural connection with an affecting little incident1 which ,i will now1 so far as my limited space will permit1 proceed1 however inadequately1 to describe4 ,my dear little brother ,frankie--as sweet a little fellow as ever plagued his sister's life out1 or troubled the kindest of mothers in her daily duties--was one day returning from school1 when he met my father hurrying from his office1 and was directed by him to proceed as quickly as was possible to the post-office1 and make inquiry there for a letter of a good deal of importance which he had reason to expect1 or at the least to hope for1 by the ,new ,york mail4 ,laura had come as far as this early in the week1 when bedtime came4 ,the next day she read it all1 and saw it was sad stuff1 and she frankly asked herself why4 ,the answer was1 that she had really been trying to spin out three pages4 ,now1 said ,laura to herself1 that is not fair4 ,and she finished the piece in a very different way1 as you shall see4 ,then she went back over this introduction1 and struck out the fine passages4 ,then she struck out the long words1 and put in short ones4 ,then she saw she could do better yet1--and she cut that long introductory sentence to pieces4 ,then she saw that none of it was strictly necessary1 if she only explained why she gave up the rainbow part4 ,and1 after all these reductions1 the first part of the essay which ,i have copied was cut down and changed so that it read thus3-- ,duty performed is a ,rainbow in the ,soul4 ,i do not know what is meant by a ,rainbow in the ,soul4 ,then ,laura went on thus3-- ,i will try to tell a story of duty performed4 ,my brother ,frank was sent to the post-office for a letter4 ,when he came there1 the poor child found a big dog at the door of the office1 and was afraid to go in4 ,it was just the dead part of the day in a country village1 when even the shops are locked up for an hour1 and ,frank1 who is very shy1 saw no one whom he could call upon4 ,he tried to make ,miss ,evarts1 the post-office clerk1 hear2 but she was in the back of the office4 ,frank was frightened1 but he meant to do his duty4 ,so he crossed the bridge1 walked up to the butcher's shop in the other village1--which he knew was open1--spent two pennies for a bit of meat1 and carried it back to tempt his enemy4 ,he waved it in the air1 called the dog1 and threw it into the street4 ,the dog was much more willing to eat the meat than to eat ,frankie4 ,he left his post4 ,frank went in and tapped on the glass1 and ,miss ,evarts came and gave him the letter4 ,frank came home in triumph1 and papa said it was a finer piece of duty performed than the celebrated sacrifice of ,casabianca's would have been1 had it happened that ,casabianca ever made it4 ,that is the shortest of these compositions4 ,it is much the best4 ,miss ,winstanley took the occasion to tell the girls1 that1 other things being equal1 a short composition is better than a long one4 ,a short composition which shows thought and care1 is much better than a long one which writes itself4 ,i dislike the word composition1 but ,i use it1 because it is familiar4 ,i think essay or piece or even theme a better word4 ,will you go over ,laura's story and see where it could be shortened1 and what ,latin words could be changed for better ,saxon ones8 ,will you take care1 in writing yourself1 never to say commence or presume8 ,in the next chapter we will ask each other ,,how ,,to ,,read4 ,chapter ,v4 ,how ,to ,read4 ,i4--,the ,choice of ,books4 ,you are not to expect any stories this time4 ,there will be very few words about ,stephen1 or ,sybil1 or ,sarah4 ,my business now is rather to answer1 as well as ,i can1 such questions as young people ask who are beginning to have their time at their own command1 and can make their own selection of the books they are to read4 ,i have before me1 as ,i write1 a handful of letters which have been written to the office of ,the ,young ,folks1 asking such questions4 ,and all my intelligent young friends are asking each other such questions1 and so ask them of me every day4 ,i shall answer these questions by laying down some general rules1 just as ,i have done before but ,i shall try to put you into the way of choosing your own books1 rather than choosing for you a long1 defined list of them4 ,i believe very thoroughly in courses of reading1 because ,i believe in having one book lead to another4 ,but1 after the beginning1 these courses for different persons will vary very much from each other4 ,you all go out to a great picnic1 and meet together in some pleasant place in the woods1 and you put down the baskets there1 and leave the pail with the ice in the shadiest place you can find1 and cover it up with the blanket4 ,then you all set out in this great forest1 which we call ,literature4 ,but it is only a few of the party1 who choose to start hand in hand along a gravel-path there is1 which leads straight to the ,burgesses' well1 and probably those few enjoy less and gain less from the day's excursion than any of the rest4 ,the rest break up into different knots1 and go some here and some there1 as their occasion and their genius call them4 ,some go after flowers1 some after berries1 some after butterflies2 some knock the rocks to pieces1 some get up where there is a fine view1 some sit down and copy the stumps1 some go into water1 some make a fire1 some find a camp of ,indians and learn how to make baskets4 ,then they all come back to the picnic in good spirits and with good appetites1 each eager to tell the others what he has seen and heard1 each having satisfied his own taste and genius1 and each and all having made vastly more out of the day than if they had all held to the gravel-path and walked in column to the ,burgesses' well and back again4 ,this1 you see1 is a long parable for the purpose of making you remember that there are but few books which it is necessary for every intelligent boy and girl1 man and woman1 to have read4 ,of those few1 ,i had as lief give the list here4 ,first is the ,bible1 of which not only is an intelligent knowledge necessary for your healthy growth in religious life1 but--which is of less consequence1 indeed--it is as necessary for your tolerable understanding of the literature1 or even science1 of a world which for eighteen centuries has been under the steady influence of the ,bible4 ,around the ,english version of it1 as ,mr4 ,marsh shows so well1 the ,english language of the last three centuries has revolved1 as the earth revolves around the sun4 ,he means1 that although the language of one time differs from that of another1 it is always at about the same distance from the language of ,king ,james's ,bible4 ,footnote3 ,marsh's ,lectures on the ,english ,language3 very entertaining books4 ,second1 every one ought to be quite well informed as to the history of the country in which he lives4 ,all of you should know the general history of the ,united ,states well4 ,you should know the history of your own ,state in more detail1 and of your own town in the most detail of all4 ,third1 an ,american needs to have a clear knowledge of the general features of the history of ,england4 ,now it does not make so much difference how you compass this general historical knowledge1 if1 in its main features1 you do compass it4 ,when ,mr4 ,lincoln went down to ,norfolk to see the rebel commissioners1 ,mr4 ,hunter1 on their side1 cited1 as a precedent for the action which he wanted the ,president to pursue1 the negotiations between ,charles the ,first and his ,parliament4 ,mr4 ,lincoln's eyes twinkled1 and he said1 ,upon questions of history ,i must refer you to ,mr4 ,seward1 for he is posted upon such things1 and ,i do not profess to be4 ,my only distinct recollection of the matter is1 that ,charles lost his head4 ,now you see it is of no sort of consequence how ,mr4 ,lincoln got his thoroughly sound knowledge of the history of ,england1--in which1 by the way1 he was entirely at home1--and he had a perfect right to pay the compliment he did to ,mr4 ,seward2 but it was of great importance to him that he should not be haunted with the fear that the other man did know1 really1 of some important piece of negotiation of which he was ignorant4 ,it was important to him to know that1 so that he might be sure that his joke was--as it was--exactly the fitting answer4 ,fourth1 it is necessary that every intelligent ,american or ,englishman should have read carefully most of ,shakespeare's plays4 ,most people would have named them before the history1 but ,i do not4 ,i do not care1 however1 how early you read them in life1 and1 as we shall see1 they will be among your best guides for the history of ,england4 ,lastly1 it is a disgrace to read even the newspaper1 without knowing where the places are which are spoken of4 ,you need1 therefore1 the very best atlas you can provide yourself with4 ,the atlas you had when you studied geography at school is better than none4 ,but if you can compass any more precise and full1 so much the better4 ,colton's ,american ,atlas is good4 ,the large cheap maps1 published two on one roller by ,lloyd1 are good2 if you can give but five dollars for your maps1 perhaps this is the best investment4 ,mr4 ,fay's beautiful atlas costs but three and a half dollars4 ,for the other hemisphere1 ,black's ,atlas is good4 ,rogers's1 published in ,edinburgh1 is very complete in its ,american maps4 ,stieler's is cheap and reliable4 ,when people talk of the books which no gentleman's library should be without1 the list may be boiled down1 ,i think--if in any stress we should be reduced to the bread-and-water diet--to such books as will cover these five fundamental necessities4 ,if you cannot buy the ,bible1 the agent of the ,county ,bible ,society will give you one4 ,you can buy the whole of ,shakespeare for fifty cents in ,dicks's edition4 ,and1 within two miles of the place where you live1 there are books enough for all the historical study ,i have prescribed4 ,so1 in what ,i now go on to say1 ,i shall take it for granted that we have all of us made thus much preparation1 or can make it4 ,these are the central stores of the picnic1 which we can fall back upon1 after our explorations in our various lines of literature4 ,now for our several courses of reading4 ,how am ,i to know what are your several tastes1 or the several lines of your genius8 ,here are1 as ,i learn from ,mr4 ,osgood1 some seventy-six thousand five hundred and forty-three ,young ,folks1 be the same more or less1 who are reading this paper4 ,how am ,i to tell what are their seventy-six thousand five hundred and forty-three tastes1 dispositions1 or lines of genius8 ,i cannot tell4 ,perhaps they could not tell themselves1 not being skilled in self-analysis2 and it is by no means necessary that they should be able to tell4 ,perhaps we can set down on paper what will be much better1 the rules or the system by which each of them may read well in the line of his own genius1 and so find out1 before he has done with this life1 what the line of that genius is1 as far as there is any occasion4 ,do ,not ,try ,to ,read ,everything4 ,that is the first rule4 ,do not think you must be a ,universal ,genius4 ,do not read all ,reviews1 as an old code ,i had bade young men do4 ,and give up1 as early as you can1 the passion1 with which all young people naturally begin1 of keeping up with the literature of the time4 ,as for the literature of the time1 if one were to adopt any extreme rule1 ,mr4 ,emerson's would be the better of the two possible extremes4 ,he says it is wise to read no book till it has been printed a year2 that1 before the year is well over1 many of those books drift out of sight1 which just now all the newspapers are telling you to read4 ,but then1 seriously1 ,i do not suppose he acts on that rule himself4 ,nor need you and ,i4 ,only1 we will not try to read them all4 ,here ,i must warn my young friend ,jamie not to go on talking about renouncing nineteenth century trash4 ,it will not do to use such words about a century in which have written ,goethe1 ,fichte1 ,cuvier1 ,schleiermacher1 ,martineau1 ,scott1 ,tennyson1 ,thackeray1 ,browning1 and ,dickens1 not to mention a hundred others whom ,jamie likes to read as much as ,i do4 ,no4 ,we will trust to conversation with the others1 who have had their different paths in this picnic party of ours1 to learn from them just the brightest and best things that they have seen and heard4 ,and we will try to be able to tell them1 simply and truly1 the best things we find on our own paths4 ,now1 for selecting the path1 what shall we do1--since one cannot in one little life attempt them all8 ,you can select for yourself1 if you will only keep a cool head1 and have your eyes open4 ,first of all1 remember that what you want from books is the information in them1 and the stimulus they give to you1 and the amusement for your recreation4 ,you do not read for the poor pleasure of saying you have read them4 ,you are reading for the subject1 much more than for the particular book1 and if you find that you have exhausted all the book has on your subject1 then you are to leave that book1 whether you have read it through or not4 ,in some cases you read because the author's own mind is worth knowing2 and then the more you read the better you know him4 ,but these cases do not affect the rule4 ,you read for what is in the books1 not that you may mark such a book off from a course of reading1 or say at the next meeting of the ,philogabblian ,society that you have just been reading ,kant or ,godwin4 ,what is the subject1 then1 which you want to read upon8 ,half the boys and girls who read this have been so well trained that they know4 ,they know what they want to know4 ,one is sure that she wants to know more about ,mary ,queen of ,scots2 another1 that he wants to know more about fly-fishing2 another1 that she wants to know more about the ,egyptian hieroglyphics2 another1 that he wants to know more about propagating new varieties of pansies2 another1 that she wants to know more about ,the ,ring and the ,book2 another1 that he wants to know more about the ,tenure of ,office bill ,happy is this half4 ,to know your ignorance is the great first step to its relief4 ,to confess it1 as has been said before1 is the second4 ,in a minute ,i will be ready to say what ,i can to this happy half2 but one minute first for the less happy half1 who know they want to read something because it is so nice to read a pleasant book1 but who do not know what that something is4 ,they come to us1 as their ancestors came to a relative of mine who was librarian of a town library sixty years ago3 ,please1 sir1 mother wants a sermon book1 and another book4 ,to these undecided ones ,i simply say1 now has the time come for decision4 ,your school studies have undoubtedly opened up so many subjects to you that you very naturally find it hard to select between them4 ,shall you keep up your drawing1 or your music1 or your history1 or your botany1 or your chemistry8 ,very well in the schools1 my dear ,alice1 to have started you in these things1 but now you are coming to be a woman1 it is for you to decide which shall go forward2 it is not for ,miss ,winstanley1 far less for me1 who never saw your face1 and know nothing of what you can or cannot do4 ,now you can decide in this way4 ,tell me1 or tell yourself1 what is the passage in your reading or in your life for the last week which rests on your memory4 ,let us see if we thoroughly understand that passage4 ,if we do not1 we will see if we cannot learn to4 ,that will give us a course of reading for the next twelve months1 or if we choose1 for the rest of our lives4 ,there is no end1 you will see1 to a true course of reading2 and1 on the other hand1 you may about as well begin at one place as another4 ,remember that you have infinite lives before you1 so you need not hurry in the details for fear the work should be never done4 ,now ,i must show you how to go to work1 by supposing you have been interested in some particular passage4 ,let us take a passage from ,macaulay1 which ,i marked in the ,edinburgh ,review for ,sydney to speak1 twenty-nine years ago1--,i think before ,i had ever heard ,macaulay's name4 ,a great many of you boys have spoken it at school since then1 and many of you girls have heard scraps from it4 ,it is a brilliant passage1 rather too ornate for daily food1 but not amiss for a luxury1 more than candied orange is after a state dinner4 ,he is speaking of the worldly wisdom and skilful human policy of the method of organization of the ,roman ,catholic ,church4 ,he says3-- ,the history of that ,church joins together the two great ages of human civilization4 ,no other institution is left standing which carries the mind back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the ,pantheon1 when camelopards and tigers bounded in the ,flavian amphitheatre4 ,the proudest royal houses are but of yesterday1 when compared with the line of the ,supreme ,pontiffs4 ,that line we trace back in an unbroken series1 from the ,pope who crowned ,napoleon in the nineteenth century1 to the ,pope who crowned ,pepin in the eighth2 and far beyond the time of ,pepin the august dynasty extends1 till it is lost in the twilight of fable4 ,the ,republic of ,venice came next in antiquity4 ,but the ,republic of ,venice was modern when compared to the ,papacy2 and the ,republic of ,venice is gone1 and the ,papacy remains4 ,the ,papacy remains1 not in decay1 not a mere antique1 but full of life and youthful vigor4 ,the ,catholic ,church is still sending forth to the farthest ends of the world missionaries as zealous as those who landed in ,kent with ,augustine2 and still confronting hostile kings with the same spirit with which she confronted ,attila4444 ,she was great and respected before the ,saxon had set foot on ,britain1 before the ,frank had passed the ,rhine1 when ,grecian eloquence still flourished at ,antioch1 when idols were still worshipped in the temple of ,mecca4 ,and she may still exist in undiminished vigor1 when some traveller from ,new ,zealand shall1 in the midst of a vast solitude1 take his stand on a broken arch of ,london ,bridge to sketch the ruins of ,st4 ,paul's4 ,i4 ,we will not begin by considering the wisdom or the mistake of the general opinion here laid down4 ,we will begin by trying to make out what is the real meaning of the leading words employed4 ,look carefully along the sentence1 and see if you are quite sure of what is meant by such terms as ,the ,roman ,catholic ,church1 the ,pantheon1 the ,flavian amphitheatre1 the ,supreme ,pontiffs1 the ,pope who crowned ,napoleon1 the ,pope who crowned ,pepin1 the ,republic of ,venice1 the missionaries who landed in ,kent1 ,augustine1 the ,saxon had set foot in ,britain1 the ,frank had passed the ,rhine1 ,grecian eloquence still flourished at ,antioch1 idols in ,mecca1 ,new ,zealand1 ,london ,bridge1 ,st4 ,paul's4 ,for really working up a subject--and this sentence now is to be our subject--,i advise a blank book1 and1 for my part1 ,i like to write down the key words or questions1 in a vertical line1 quite far apart from each other1 on the first pages4 ,you will see why1 if you will read on4 ,,ii4 ,now go to work on this list4 ,what do you really know about the organization of the ,roman ,catholic ,church8 ,if you find you are vague about it1 that such knowledge as you have is only half knowledge1 which is no knowledge1 read till you are clear4 ,much information is not necessary1 but good1 as far as it goes1 is necessary on any subject4 ,this is a controverted subject4 ,you ought to try1 therefore1 to read some statement by a ,catholic author1 and some statement by a ,protestant4 ,to find out what to read on this or any subject1 there are different clews4 #a4 ,any encyclopdia1 good or bad1 will set you on the trail4 ,most of you have or can have an encyclopdia at command4 ,there are one-volume encyclopdias better than nothing1 which are very cheap4 ,you can pick up an edition of the old ,encyclopdia ,americana1 in twelve volumes1 for ten or twelve dollars4 ,or you can buy ,appleton's1 which is really quite good1 for sixty dollars a set4 ,i do not mean to have you rest on any encyclopdia1 but you will find one at the start an excellent guide-post4 ,suppose you have the old ,encyclopdia ,americana4 ,you will find there that the ,roman ,catholic ,church is treated by two writers1--one a ,protestant1 and one a ,catholic4 ,read both1 and note in your book such allusions as interest you1 which you want more light upon4 ,do not note everything which you do not know1 for then you cannot get forward4 ,but note all that specially interests you4 ,for instance1 it seems that the ,roman ,catholic ,church is not so called by that church itself4 ,the officers of that church might call it the ,roman church1 or the ,catholic church1 but would not call it the ,roman ,catholic church4 ,at the ,congress of ,vienna1 ,cardinal ,consalvi objected to the joint use of the words ,roman ,catholic church4 ,do you know what the ,congress of ,vienna was8 ,no8 then make a memorandum1 if you want to know4 ,we might put in another for ,cardinal ,consalvi4 ,he was a man1 who had a father and mother1 perhaps brothers and sisters4 ,he will give us a little human interest1 if we stop to look him up4 ,but do not stop for him now4 ,work through ,roman ,catholic ,church1 and keep these memoranda in your book for another day4 #b4 ,quite different from the encyclopdia is another book of reference1 ,poole's ,index4 ,this is a general index to seventy-three magazines and reviews1 which were published between the years #ahjb and #aheb4 ,now a great deal of the best work of this century has been put into such journals4 ,a reference1 then1 to ,poole's ,index is a reference to some of the best separate papers on the subjects which for fifty years had most interest for the world of reading men and women4 ,let us try ,poole's ,index on ,the ,republic of ,venice4 ,there are references to articles on ,venice in the ,new ,england ,magazine1 in the ,pamphleteer1 in the ,monthly ,review1 ,edinburgh1 ,quarterly1 ,westminster1 and ,de ,bow's ,reviews4 ,copy all these references carefully1 if you have any chance at any time of access to any of these journals4 ,it is not1 you know1 at all necessary to have them in the house4 ,probably there is some friend's collection or public library where you can find one or more of them4 ,if you live in or near ,boston1 or ,new ,york1 or ,philadelphia1 or ,charleston1 or ,new ,orleans1 or ,cincinnati1 or ,chicago1 or ,st4 ,louis1 or ,ithaca1 you can find every one4 ,when you have carefully gone down this original list1 and made your memoranda for it1 you are prepared to work out these memoranda4 ,you begin now to see how many there are4 ,you must be guided1 of course1 in your reading1 by the time you have1 and by the opportunity for getting the books4 ,but1 aside from that1 you may choose what you like best1 for a beginning4 ,to make this simple by an illustration1 ,i will suppose you have been using the old ,encyclopdia ,americana1 or ,appleton's ,cyclopdia and ,poole's ,index only1 for your first list4 ,as ,i should draw it up1 it would look like this3-- ,,cyclop,,dia4 ,,poole',s ,,index4 ,,roman ,,catholic ,,church4 ,see 7for instance7 ,eclectic ,rev41 #dth ,s4 #ac1 #dhe4 ,council of ,trent4 ,quart4 ,rev41 #ga1 #ajh4 ,chrysostom4 ,for4 ,quart4 ,rev41 #bg1 #ahd4 ,congress of ,vienna4 ,brownson's ,rev41 #b;d ,s4 #a1 #dac2 #c1 #cji4 ,cardinal ,consalvi4 ,n4 ,brit4 ,rev41 #aj1 #ba4 ,,the ,,pantheon4 ,built by ,agrippa4 ,consecrated1 #fjg1 to ,st4 ,mary ad ,martyros4 ,called ,rotunda4 ,,the ,,flavian ,,amphitheatre4 ,the ,coliseum1 b4 by ,t4 ,flavius ,vespasian4 ,,supreme ,,pontiffs4 ,popes4 ,the line begins with ,new-,englander1 #g1 #afi4 ,st4 ,peter1 ,a4 ,d4 #db4 ,ends ,n4 ,brit4 ,rev41 #aa1 #ace4 with ,pius ,,ix41 #ahdf4 ,,pope ,,who ,,crowned ,,napoleon4 ,pius ,,vii41 at ,notre ,dame1 in ,for4 ,quart4 ,rev41 #bj1 #ed4 ,paris1 ,dec4 #b1 #ahjd4 ,,pope ,,who ,,crowned ,,pepin4 ,probably ,pepin le ,bref is meant4 ,but he was not crowned by a ,pope4 ,crowned by ,archbishop ,boniface of ,mayence1 at the advice of ,pope ,zachary4 b4 #gae4 d4 #gfh4 ,,republic ,,of ,,venice4 #deb to #ahae4 ,st4 ,real's ,history4 ,quart4 ,rev4 #ca1 #dbj4 ,otway's ,tragedy1 ,venice ,preserved4 ,month4 ,rev41 #ij1 #ebe4 ,hazlitt's ,hist1 of ,venice4 ,west4 ,rev41 #bc1 #ch4 ,ruskin's ,stones of ,venice4 ,,missionaries ,,in ,,kent4 ,dublin ,univ4 ,mag41 #ba1 #bab4 ,,augustine4 ,there are two ,augustines4 ,this is ,st4 ,austin1 b4 in #eth century1 d4 #fjd-fad4 ,southey's ,book of ,church4 ,sharon ,turner's ,anglo-,saxons4 ,wm4 of ,malmesbury4 ,bede's ,ecc4 ,history4 ,,saxon ,,in ,,britain4 ,turner as above4 ,edin4 ,rev41 #hi1 #gi4 ,ang4-,saxon ,chronicle4 ,quart4 ,rev41 #g1 #ib4 ,six old ,eng4 ,chronicles4 ,eclect4 ,rev41 #be1 #ffi4 ,,frank ,,passed ,,the ,,rhine4 ,well established on west side1 ,for4 ,quart4 ,rev41 #ag1 #aci4 at the beginning of #eth century4 ,,greek ,,eloquence ,,at ,,antioch4 ,muller's ,antiquitates ,antiochian ,greek ,orators4 ,ed4 ,rev41 #cf1 #fb4 ,,idols ,,in ,,mecca4 ,burckhardt's ,travels4 ,burton's ,travels4 ,,new ,,zealand4 #c islands1 as large as ,italy4 ,n4 ,am4 ,rev41 #ah1 #cbh4 ,discovered1 #afdb2 taken by ,cook for ,england1 #agfi4 ,gov4 sent out1 #ahch4 ,west4 ,rev41 #de1 #acc4 ,thomson's story of ,n4 ,z4 ,edin4 ,rev41 #ia1 #bca2 #ef1 #ccc4 ,cook's ,voyages4 ,n4 ,brit4 ,rev41 #af1 #agf4 ,sir ,g4 ,gray's ,poems1 c4 of ,living ,age4 ,maoris4 ,,london ,,bridge4 #e elliptical arches4 ,presents an aspect unequalled for interest and animation4 ,,st4 ,,paul',s4 ,built in thirty years between #afge and #agje1 by ,christ4 ,wren4 ,now ,i am by no means going to leave you to the reading of cyclopdias4 ,the vice of cyclopdias is that they are dull4 ,what is done for this passage of ,macaulay in the lists above is only preliminary4 ,it could be easily done in three hours' time1 if you went carefully to work4 ,and when you have done it1 you have taught yourself a good deal about your own knowledge and your own ignorance1--about what you should read and what you should not attempt4 ,so far it fits you for selecting your own course of reading4 ,i have arranged this only by way of illustration4 ,i do not mean that ,i think these a particularly interesting or particularly important series of subjects4 ,i do mean1 however1 to show you that the moment you will sift any book or any series of subjects1 you will be finding out where your ignorance is1 and what you want to know4 ,supposing you belong to the fortunate half of people who know what they need1 ,i should advise you to begin in just the same way4 ,for instance1 ,walter1 to whom ,i alluded above1 wants to know about ,fly-,fishing4 ,this is the way his list looks4 ,,fly-,,fishing4 ,,cyclopedia4 ,,poole',s ,,index4 7,for instance7 ,quart4 ,rev41 #fi1 #aba2 #cg1 #cde4 ,w4 ,scott1 ,redgauntlet4 ,edin4 ,rev41 #gh1 #df1 or #hg2 #ic1 #agd1 or #cdj4 ,dr4 ,davy's ,researches1 #ahci4 ,am4 ,whig ,rev41 #f1 #dij4 ,cuvier and ,valenciennes1 ,hist4 ,n4 ,brit4 ,rev41 #aa1 #cb1 or #ie2 ,i1 ,naturelle des ,poissons1 ,vol4 #cbf2 #h1 #afj2 or ,liv4 ,age1 #b1 ,,xxi4 #bia2 #ag1 ,i4 ,blackwood1 #ea1 #bif4 ,richardson's ,fauna ,bor4 ,amer4 ,quart4 ,rev41 #fg1 #ih1 or #ccb2 #fi1 #bbf4 ,blackwood1 #aj1 #bdi2 #di1 #cjb2 ,de ,kay1 ,zology of ,n4 ,y4 #ba1 #hae2 #bd1 #bdh2 #ce1 #gge2 ,agassiz1 ,lake ,superior4 #ch1 #aai2 #fc1 #fgc2 #e1 #abc2 #e1 #bha2 #g1 #acg4 ,fraser1 #db1 #acf4 ,see also1 ,izaak ,walton1 ,compleat ,angler4 7,walton and ,cotton first appeared1 #agej47 ,humphrey ,day's ,salmonia1 or ,the ,days of ,fly-,fishing1 ,blakey1 ,history of ,angling ,literature4 ,oppianus1 ,de ,venatione1 ,piscatione et ,aucupio4 7,halieutica translated47 ,jones's ,english translation was published in ,oxford1 #agbb4 ,bronner1 ,fischergedichte und ,erzahlungen 7,fishermen's ,songs and ,stories74 ,norris1 ,t41 ,american ,angler's ,book4 ,zouch1 ,life of ,iz4 ,walton4 ,salmon ,fisheries4 ,parliamentary ,reports4 ,annual4 ,blackwood's ,magazine1 an important landmark in ,english angling literature4 ,see ,noctes ,ambrosian4 ,h4 ,w4 ,beecher1 ,n4 ,y4 ,independent1 #ahec4 ,in the ,new ,york edition of ,walton and ,cotton is a list of books on ,angling1 which ,blakey enlarges4 ,his list contains four hundred and fifty titles4 ,american ,angler's ,guide1 #ahdi4 ,storer1 ,d4 ,h41 ,fishes of ,massachusetts4 ,storer1 ,d4 ,h41 ,fishes of ,n4 ,america4 ,girard1 ,fresh-,water ,fishes of ,n4 ,america 7,smithsonian ,contributions1 ,vol4 ,,iii474 ,richard ,penn1 ,maxims and ,hints for an ,angler1 and ,miseries of ,fishing1 #ahci4 ,james ,wilson1 ,the ,rod and the ,gun1 #ahdj4 ,herbert1 ,frank ,forester's ,fish of ,n4 ,america4 ,yarrel's ,british ,fishes4 ,the same1 on the ,growth of ,salmon4 ,boy's ,own ,book4 ,please to observe1 now1 that nobody is obliged to read up all the authorities that we have lighted on4 ,what the lists mean is this2--that you have made the inquiry for a sermon book and another book1 and you are now thus far on your way toward an answer4 ,these are the first answers that come to hand4 ,work on and you will have more4 ,i cannot pretend to give that answer for any one of you1--far less for all those who would be likely to be interested in all the subjects which are named here4 ,but with such clews as are given above1 you will soon find your ways into the different parts that interest you of our great picnic grove4 ,remember1 however1 that there are no royal roads4 ,the difference between a well-educated person and one not well educated is1 that the first knows how to find what he needs1 and the other does not4 ,it is not so much that the first is better informed on details than the second1 though he probably is4 ,but his power to collect the details at short notice is vastly greater than is that of the uneducated or unlearned man4 ,in different homes1 the resources at command are so different that ,i must not try to advise much as to your next step beyond the lists above4 ,there are many good catalogues of books1 with indexes to subjects4 ,in the ,congressional ,library1 my friend ,mr4 ,vinton is preparing a magnificent ,index of ,subjects1 which will be of great use to the whole nation4 ,in ,harvard ,college ,library they have a manuscript catalogue referring to the subjects described in the books of that collection4 ,the ,cross-,references of the ,astor ,catalogue1 and of the ,boston ,library ,catalogue1 are invaluable to all readers1 young or old4 ,your teacher at school can help you in nothing more than in directing you to the books you need on any subject4 ,do not go and say1 ,miss ,winstanley1 or ,miss ,parsons1 ,i want a nice book2 but have sense enough to know what you want it to be about4 ,be able to say1--,miss ,parsons1 ,i should like to know about heraldry1 or about butterflies1 or about water-color painting1 or about ,robert ,browning1 or about the ,mysteries of ,udolpho4 ,miss ,parsons will tell you what to read4 ,and she will be very glad to tell you4 ,or if you are not at school1 this very thing among others is what the minister is for4 ,do not be frightened4 ,he will be very glad to see you4 ,go round to his house1 not on ,saturday1 but at the time he receives guests1 and say to him3 ,mr4 ,ingham1 we girls have made quite a collection of old porcelain1 and we want to know more about it4 ,will you be kind enough to tell us where we can find anything about porcelain4 ,we have read ,miss ,edgeworth's ',prussian ,vase' and we have read ',palissy the ,potter1' and we should like to know more about ,svres1 and ,dresden1 and ,palissy4 ,ingham will be delighted1 and in a fortnight1 if you will go to work1 you will know more about what you ask for than any one person knows in ,america4 ,and ,i do not mean that all your reading is to be digging or hard work4 ,i can show that ,i do not1 by supposing that we carry out the plan of the list above1--on any one of its details1 and write down the books which that detail suggests to us4 ,perhaps ,,venice has seemed to you the most interesting head of these which we have named4 ,if we follow that up only in the references given above1 we shall find our book list for ,venice1 just as it comes1 in no order but that of accident1 is3-- ,st4 ,real1 ,relation des ,espagnols contre ,venise4 ,otway's ,venice ,preserved4 ,shakespeare's ,merchant of ,venice4 ,howells's ,venetian ,life4 ,blondus4 ,de ,origine ,venetorum4 ,muratori's ,annals4 ,ruskin's ,stones of ,venice4 ,d',israeli's ,contarini ,fleming4 ,contarina1 ,della ,republica di ,venetia4 ,flagg1 ,venice from #agig to #ahdi4 ,crassus1 ,de ,republica ,veneta4 ,jarmot1 ,de ,republica ,veneta4 ,voltaire's ,general ,history4 ,sismondi's ,history of ,italy4 ,lord ,byron's ,letters4 ,sketches of ,venetian ,history1 ,fam4 ,library1 #bf1 #bg4 ,venetian ,history1 ,hazlitt4 ,dandolo1 ,g4 ,la ,caduta della ,republica di ,venezia 7,the ,fall of the ,republic of ,venice74 ,ridolfi1 ,c41 ,lives of the ,venetian ,painters4 ,monagas1 ,j4 ,t41 ,late ,events in ,venice4 ,delavigne1 ,marino ,faliero1 a ,historical ,drama4 ,lord ,byron1 ,the same4 ,smedley's ,sketches from ,venetian ,history4 ,daru1 ,hist4 de la ,republique de ,venise4 ,so much for the way in which to choose your books4 ,as to the choice1 you will make it1 not ,i4 ,if you are a goose1 cackling a great deal1 silly at heart and wholly indifferent about to-morrow1 you will choose just what you call the interesting titles4 ,if you are a girl of sense1 or a boy of sense1 you will choose1 when you have made your list1 at least two books1 determined to master them4 ,you will choose one on the side of information1 and one for the purpose of amusement1 on the side of fancy4 ,if you choose in ,venice the ,merchant of ,venice1 you will not add to it ,venice ,preserved1 but you will add to it1 say the ,venetian chapters of ,sismondi's ,italy4 ,you will read every day2 and you will divide your reading time into the two departments1--you will read for fact and you will read for fancy4 ,roots must have leaves1 you know1 and leaves must have roots4 ,bodies must have spirits1 and1 for this world at least1 spirits must have bodies4 ,fact must be lighted by fancy1 and fancy must be balanced by fact4 ,making this the principle of your selection1 you may1 nay1 you must1 select for yourselves your books4 ,and in my next chapter ,i will do my best to teach you ,,how ,,to ,,read ,,them4 ,chapter ,,vi4 ,how ,to ,read4 ,,ii4 ,liston tells a story of a nice old lady--,i think the foster-sister of the godmother of his brother-in-law's aunt--who came to make them a visit in the country4 ,the first day after she arrived proved to be much such a day as this is1--much such a day as the first of a visit in the country is apt to be1--a heavy pelting north-easter1 when it is impossible to go out1 and every one is thrown on his own resources in-doors4 ,the different ladies under ,mrs4 ,liston's hospitable roof gathered themselves to their various occupations1 and some one asked old ,mrs4 ,dubbadoe if she would not like to read4 ,she said she should4 ,what shall ,i bring you from the library8 said ,miss ,ellen4 ,do not trouble yourself to go up stairs4 ,my dear ,ellen1 ,i should like the same book ,i had last year when ,i was here1 it was a very nice book1 and ,i was very much interested in it4 ,certainly1 said ,miss ,ellen2 what was it8 ,i will bring it at once4 ,i do not remember its name1 my dear2 your mother brought it to me2 ,i think she would know4 ,but1 unfortunately1 ,mrs4 ,liston1 when applied to1 had forgotten4 ,was it a novel1 ,mrs4 ,dubbadoe8 ,i can't remember that1--my memory is not as good as it was1 my dear1--but it was a very interesting book4 ,do you remember whether it had plates8 ,was it one of the books of birds1 or of natural history8 ,no1 dear1 ,i can't tell you about that4 ,but1 ,ellen1 you will find it1 ,i know4 ,the color of the cover was the color of the top of the baluster6 ,so ,ellen went4 ,she has a good eye for color1 and as she ran up stairs she took the shade of the baluster in her eye1 matched it perfectly as she ran along the books in the library with the ,russia half-binding of the coveted volume1 and brought that in triumph to ,mrs4 ,dubbadoe4 ,it proved to be the right book4 ,mrs4 ,dubbadoe found in it the piece of corn-colored worsted she had left for a mark the year before1 so she was able to go on where she had stopped then4 ,liston tells this story to trump one of mine about a schoolmate of ours1 who was explaining to me about his theological studies4 ,i asked him what he had been reading4 ,o1 a capital book2 ,king lent it to me2 ,i will ask him to lend it to you4 ,i said ,i would ask ,king for the book1 if he would tell me who was the author4 ,i do not remember his name4 ,i had not known his name before4 ,but that made no difference4 ,it is a capital book4 ,king told me ,i should find it so1 and ,i did2 ,i made a real study of it2 copied a good deal from it before ,i returned it4 ,i asked whether it was a book of natural theology4 ,i don't know as you would call it natural theology4 ,perhaps it was4 ,you had better see it yourself4 ,tell ,king it was the book he lent me4 ,i was a little persistent1 and asked if it were a book of biography4 ,well1 ,i do not know as ,i should say it was a book of biography4 ,perhaps you would say so4 ,i do not remember that there was much biography in it4 ,but it was an excellent book4 ,king had read it himself1 and ,i found it all he said it was4 ,i asked if it was critical1--if it explained ,scripture4 ,perhaps it did4 ,i should not like to say whether it did or not4 ,you can find that out yourself if you read it4 ,but it is a very interesting book and a very valuable book4 ,king said so1 and ,i found it was so4 ,you had better read it1 and ,i know ,king can tell you what it is4 ,now in these two stories is a very good illustration of the way in which a great many people read4 ,the notion comes into people's lives that the mere process of reading is itself virtuous4 ,because young men who read instead of gamble are known to be steadier than the gamblers1 and because children who read on ,sunday make less noise and general row than those who will play tag in the neighbors' front-yards1 there has grown up this notion1 that to read is in itself one of the virtuous acts4 ,some people1 if they told the truth1 when counting up the seven virtues1 would count them as ,purity1 ,temperance1 ,meekness1 ,frugality1 ,honesty1 ,courage1 and ,reading4 ,the consequence is that there are unnumbered people who read as ,mrs4 ,dubbadoe did or as ,lysimachus did1 without the slightest knowledge of what the books have contained4 ,my dear ,dollie1 ,pollie1 ,sallie1 ,marthie1 or any other of my young friends whose names end in ie who have favored me by reading thus far1 the chances are three out of four that ,i could take the last novel but three that you read1 change the scene from ,england to ,france1 change the time from now to the seventeenth century1 make the men swear by ,st4 ,denis1 instead of talking modern slang1 name the women ,jacqueline and ,marguerite1 instead of ,maud and ,blanche1 and1 if ,harpers would print it1 as ,i dare say they would if the novel was good1 you would read it through without one suspicion that you had read the same book before4 ,so you see that it is not certain that you know how to read1 even if you took the highest prize for reading in the ,amplian class of ,ingham ,university at the last exhibition4 ,you may pronounce all the words well1 and have all the rising inflections right1 and none of the falling ones wrong1 and yet not know how to read so that your reading shall be of any permanent use to you4 ,for what is the use of reading if you forget it all the next day8 ,but1 my dear ,mr4 ,hale1 says as good a girl as ,laura1 how am ,i going to help myself8 ,what ,i remember ,i remember1 and what ,i do not remember ,i do not4 ,i should be very glad to remember all the books ,i have read1 and all that is in them2 but if ,i can't1 ,i can't1 and there is the end of it4 ,no6 my dear ,laura1 that is not the end of it4 ,and that is the reason this paper is written4 ,a child of ,god can1 before the end comes1 do anything she chooses to1 with such help as he is willing to give her2 and he has been kind enough so to make and so to train you that you can train your memory to remember and to recall the useful or the pleasant things you meet in your reading4 ,do you know1 ,laura1 that ,i have here a note you wrote when you were eight years old8 ,it is as badly written as any note ,i ever saw4 ,there are also twenty words in it spelled wrong4 ,suppose you had said then1 ,if ,i can't1 ,i can't1 and there's an end of it4 ,you never would have written me in the lady-like1 manly handwriting you write in to-day1 spelling rightly as a matter of mere feeling and of course1 so that you are annoyed now that ,i should say that every word is spelled correctly4 ,will you think1 dear ,laura1 what a tremendous strain on memory is involved in all this8 ,will you remember that you and ,miss ,sears and ,miss ,winstanley1 and your mother1 most of all1 have trained your memory till it can work these marvels8 ,all you have to do now in your reading is to carry such training forward1 and you can bring about such a power of classification and of retention that you shall be mistress of the books you have read for most substantial purposes4 ,to read with such results is reading indeed4 ,and when ,i say ,i want to give some hints how to read1 it is for reading with that view4 ,when ,harry and ,lucy were on their journey to the sea-side1 they fell to discussing whether they had rather have the gift of remembering all they read1 or of once knowing everything1 and then taking their chances for recollecting it when they wanted it4 ,lucy1 who had a quick memory1 was willing to take her chance4 ,but ,harry1 who was more methodical1 hated to lose anything he had once learned1 and he thought he had rather have the good fairy give him the gift of recollecting all he had once learned4 ,for my part1 ,i quite agree with ,harry4 ,there are a great many things that ,i have no desire to know4 ,i do not want to know in what words the ,king of ,ashantee says1 ,cut off the heads of those women4 ,i do not want to know whether a centipede really has ninety-six legs or one hundred and four4 ,i never did know4 ,i never shall4 ,i have no occasion to know4 ,and ,i am glad not to have my mind lumbered up with the unnecessary information4 ,on the other hand1 that which ,i have once learned or read does in some way or other belong to my personal life4 ,i am very glad if ,i can reproduce that in any way1 and ,i am much obliged to anybody who will help me4 ,for reading1 then1 the first rules1 ,i think1 are3 ,do not read too much at a time2 stop when you are tired2 and1 in whatever way1 make some review of what you read1 even as you go along4 ,capel ,lofft says1 in quite an interesting book1 which plays about the surface of things without going very deep1 which he calls ,self-,formation1 ,footnote3 ,self-,formation4 ,crosby and ,nichols4 ,boston4 #ahde4 that his whole life was changed1 and indeed saved1 when he learned that he must turn back at the end of each sentence1 ask himself what it meant1 if he believed it or disbelieved it1 and1 so to speak1 that he must pack it away as part of his mental furniture before he took in another sentence4 ,that is just as a dentist jams one little bit of gold-foil home1 and then another1 and then another4 ,he does not put one large wad on the hollow tooth1 and then crowd it all in at once4 ,capel ,lofft says that this reflection--going forward as a serpent does1 by a series of backward bends over the line--will make a dull book entertaining1 and will make the reader master of every book he reads1 through all time4 ,for my part1 ,i think this is cutting it rather fine1 this chopping the book up into separate bits4 ,i had rather read as one of my wisest counsellors did2 he read1 say a page1 or a paragraph of a page or two1 more or less2 then he would look across at the wall1 and consider the author's statement1 and fix it on his mind1 and then read on4 ,i do not do this1 however4 ,i read half an hour or an hour1 till ,i am ready1 perhaps1 to put the book by4 ,then ,i examine myself4 ,what has this amounted to8 ,what does he say8 ,what does he prove8 ,does he prove it8 ,what is there new in it8 ,where did he get it8 ,if it is necessary in such an examination you can go back over the passage1 correct your first impression1 if it is wrong1 find out the meaning that the writer has carelessly concealed1 and such a process makes it certain that you yourself will remember his thought or his statement4 ,i can remember1 ,i think1 everything ,i saw in ,europe1 which was worth seeing1 if ,i saw it twice4 ,but there was many a wonder which ,i was taken to see in the whirl of sight-seeing1 of which ,i have no memory1 and of which ,i cannot force any recollection4 ,i remember that at ,malines--what we call ,mechlin--our train stopped nearly an hour4 ,at the station a crowd of guides were shouting that there was time to go and see ,rubens's picture of----1 at the church of----4 ,this seemed to us a droll contrast to the cry at our stations1 ,fifteen minutes for refreshments6 ,it offered such aesthetic refreshment in place of carnal oysters1 that purely for the frolic we went to see4 ,we were hurried across some sort of square into the church1 saw the picture1 admired it1 came away1 and forgot it1--clear and clean forgot it6 ,my dear ,laura1 ,i do not know what it was about any more than you do4 ,but if ,i had gone to that church the next day1 and had seen it again1 ,i should have fixed it forever on my memory4 ,moral3 ,renew your acquaintance with whatever you want to remember4 ,i think ,ingham says somewhere that it is the slight difference between the two stereoscopic pictures which gives to them1 when one overlies the other1 their relief and distinctness4 ,if he does not say it1 ,i will say it for him now4 ,i think it makes no difference how you make this mental review of the author1 but ,i do think it essential that1 as you pass from one division of his work to another1 you should make it somehow4 ,another good rule for memory is indispensable1 ,i think1--namely1 to read with a pencil in hand4 ,if the book is your own1 you had better make what ,i may call your own index to it on the hard white page which lines the cover at the end4 ,that is1 you can write down there just a hint of the things you will be apt to like to see again1 noting the page on which they are4 ,if the book is not your own1 do this on a little slip of paper1 which you may keep separately4 ,these memoranda will be1 of course1 of all sorts of things4 ,thus they will be facts which you want to know1 or funny stories which you think will amuse some one1 or opinions which you may have a doubt about4 ,suppose you had got hold of that very rare book1 ,veragas's ,history of the ,pacific ,ocean and its ,shores2 here might be your private index at the end of the first volume3-- ,percentage of salt in water1 #aa3 ,gov4 ,revillagigedo1 #ai3 ,caciques and potatoes1 #bc3 ,lime water for scurvy1 #bi4 ,enata1 ,kanaka1 8 #db3 ,magelhaens vs4 ,wilkes1 #eg3 ,coral insects1 #bj3 ,gigantic ferns1 #hd1 c41 c41 c4 ,very likely you may never need one of these references2 but if you do1 it is certain that you will have no time to waste in hunting for them4 ,make your memorandum1 and you are sure4 ,bear in mind all along that each book will suggest other books which you are to read sooner or later4 ,in your memoranda note with care the authors who are referred to of whom you know little or nothing1 if you think you should like to know more1 or ought to know more4 ,do not neglect this last condition1 however4 ,you do not make the memorandum to show it at the ,philogabblian2 you make it for yourself2 and it means that you yourself need this additional information4 ,whether to copy much from books or not8 ,that is a question1--and the answer is1--,that depends4 ,if you have but few books1 and much time and paper and ink2 and if you are likely to have fewer books1 why1 nothing is nicer and better than to make for use in later life good extract-books to your own taste1 and for your own purposes4 ,but if you own your books1 or are likely to have them at command1 time is short1 and the time spent in copying would probably be better spent in reading4 ,there are some very diffusive books1 difficult because diffusive1 of which it is well to write close digests1 if you are really studying them4 ,when we read ,john ,locke1 for instance1 in college1 we had to make abstracts1 and we used to stint ourselves to a line for one of his chatty sections4 ,that was good practice for writing1 and we remember what was in the sections to this hour4 ,if you copy1 make a first-rate index to your extracts4 ,they sell books prepared for the purpose1 but you may just as well make your own4 ,you see ,i am not contemplating any very rapid or slap-dash work4 ,you may put that on your novels1 or books of amusement1 if you choose1 and ,i will not be very cross about it2 but for the books of improvement1 ,i want you to improve by reading them4 ,do not gobble them up so that five years hence you shall not know whether you have read them or not4 ,what ,i advise seems slow to you1 but if you will1 any of you1 make or find two hours a day to read in this fashion1 you will be one day accomplished men and women4 ,very few professional men1 known to me1 get so much time as that for careful and systematic reading4 ,if any boy or girl wants really to know what comes of such reading1 ,i wish he would read the life of my friend ,george ,livermore1 which our friend ,charles ,deane has just now written for the ,historical ,society of ,massachusetts4 ,there was a young man1 who when he was a boy in a store began his systematic reading4 ,he never left active and laborious business2 but when he died1 he was one of the accomplished historical scholars of ,america4 ,he had no superior in his special lines of study2 he was a recognized authority and leader among men who had given their lives to scholarship4 ,i have not room to copy it here1 but ,i wish any of you would turn to a letter of ,frederick ,robertson's1 near the end of the second volume of his letters1 where he speaks of this very matter4 ,he says he read1 when he was at ,oxford1 but sixteen books with his tutors4 ,but he read them so that they became a part of himself1 as the iron enters a man's blood4 ,and they were books by sixteen of the men who have been leaders of the world4 ,no bad thing1 dear ,stephen1 to have in your blood and brain and bone the vitalizing element that was in the lives of such men4 ,i need not ask you to look forward so far as to the end of a life as long as ,mr4 ,george ,livermore's1 and as successful4 ,without asking that1 ,i will say again1 what ,i have implied already1 that any person who will take any special subject of detail1 and in a well-provided library will work steadily on that little subject for a fortnight1 will at the end of the fortnight probably know more of that detail than anybody in the country knows4 ,if you will study by subjects for the truth1 you have the satisfaction of knowing that the ground is soon very nearly all your own4 ,i do not pretend that books are everything4 ,i may have occasion some day to teach some of you ,how to ,observe1 and then ,i shall say some very-hard things about people who keep their books so close before their eyes that they cannot see ,god's world1 nor their fellow-men and women4 ,but books rightly used are society4 ,good books are the best society2 better than is possible without them1 in any one place1 or in any one time4 ,to know how to use them wisely and well is to know how to make ,shakespeare and ,milton and ,theodore ,hook and ,thomas ,hood step out from the side of your room1 at your will1 sit down at your fire1 and talk with you for an hour4 ,i have no such society at hand1 as ,i write these words1 except by such magic4 ,have you in your log-cabin in ,no4 #g8 ,chapter ,,vii4 ,how ,to ,go ,into ,society4 ,some boys and girls are born so that they enjoy society1 and all the forms of society1 from the beginning4 ,the passion they have for it takes them right through all the formalities and stiffness of morning calls1 evening parties1 visits on strangers1 and the like1 and they have no difficulty about the duties involved in these things4 ,i do not write for them1 and there is no need1 at all1 of their reading this paper4 ,there are other boys and girls who look with half horror and half disgust at all such machinery of society4 ,they have been well brought up1 in intelligent1 civilized1 happy homes4 ,they have their own varied and regular occupations1 and it breaks these all up1 when they have to go to the birthday party at the ,glascocks'1 or to spend the evening with the young lady from ,vincennes who is visiting ,mrs4 ,vandermeyer4 ,when they have grown older1 it happens1 very likely1 that such boys and girls have to leave home1 and establish themselves at one or another new home1 where more is expected of them in a social way4 ,here is ,stephen1 who has gone through the ,high ,school1 and has now gone over to ,new ,altona to be the second teller in the ,third ,national ,bank there4 ,stephen's father was in college with ,mr4 ,brannan1 who was quite a leading man in ,new ,altona4 ,madam ,chenevard is a sister of ,mrs4 ,schuyler1 with whom ,stephen's mother worked five years on the ,sanitary ,commission4 ,all the bank officers are kind to ,stephen1 and ask him to come to their houses1 and he1 who is one of these young folks whom ,i have been describing1 who knows how to be happy at home1 but does not know if he is entertaining or in any way agreeable in other people's homes1 really finds that the greatest hardship of his new life consists in the hospitalities with which all these kind people welcome him4 ,here is a part of a letter from ,stephen to me1--he writes pretty much everything to me3 444,mrs4 ,judge ,tolman has invited me to another of her evening parties4 ,everybody says they are very pleasant1 and ,i can see that they are to people who are not sticks and oafs4 ,but ,i am a stick and an oaf4 ,i do not like society1 and ,i never did4 ,so ,i shall decline ,mrs4 ,tolman's invitation2 for ,i have determined to go to no more parties here1 but to devote my evenings to reading4 ,now this is not snobbery or goodyism on ,stephen's part4 ,he is not writing a make-believe letter1 to deceive me as to the way in which he is spending his time4 ,he really had rather occupy his evening in reading than in going to ,mrs4 ,tolman's party1--or to ,mrs4 ,anybody's party1--and1 at the present moment1 he really thinks he never shall go to any parties again4 ,just so two little girls part from each other on the sidewalk1 saying1 ,i never will speak to you again as long as ,i live4 ,only ,stephen is in no sort angry with ,mrs4 ,tolman or ,mrs4 ,brannan or ,mrs4 ,chenevard4 ,he only thinks that their way is one way1 and his way is another4 ,his determination is the same as ,tom's was1 which ,i described in ,chapter ,,ii4 ,but where ,tom thought his failure was want of talking power1 ,steve really thinks that he hates society4 ,it is for boys and girls like ,stephen1 who think they are sticks and oafs1 and that they cannot go into society1 that this paper is written4 ,you need not get up from your seats and come and stand in a line for me to talk to you1--tallest at the right1 shortest at the left1 as if you were at dancing-school1 facing ,m4 ,labbass4 ,i can talk to you just as well where you are sitting2 and1 as ,obed ,clapp said to me once1 ,i know very well what you are going to say1 before you say it4 ,dear children1 ,i have had it said to me four-score and ten times by forty-six boys and forty-six girls who were just as dull and just as bright as you are1--as like you1 indeed1 as two pins4 ,there is ,dunster1--,horace ,punster1--at this moment the favorite talker in society in ,washington1 as indeed he is on the floor of the ,house of ,representatives4 ,ask1 the next time you are at ,washington1 how many dinner-parties are put off till a day can be found at which ,dunster can be present4 ,now ,i remember very well1 how1 a year or two after ,dunster graduated1 he and ,messer1 who is now ,lieutenant-,governor of ,labrador1 and some one whom ,i will not name1 were sitting on the shore of the ,cattaraugus ,lake1 rubbing themselves dry after their swim4 ,and ,dunster said he was not going to any more parties4 ,mrs4 ,judge ,park had asked him1 because she loved his sister1 but she did not care for him a draw1 and he did not know the ,cattaraugus people1 and he was afraid of the girls1 who knew a great deal more than he did1 and so he was no good to anybody1 and he would not go any longer4 ,he would stay at home and read ,plato in the original4 ,messer wondered at all this2 he enjoyed ,mrs4 ,judge ,park's parties1 and ,mrs4 ,dr4 ,holland's teas1 and he could not see why as bright a fellow as ,dunster should not enjoy them4 ,but ,i tell you1 said ,dunster1 that ,i do not enjoy them2 and1 what is more1 ,i tell you that these people do not want me to come4 ,they ask me because they like my sister1 as ,i said1 or my father1 or my mother4 ,then some one else1 who was there1 whom ,i do not name1 who was at least two years older than these young men1 and so was qualified to advise them1 addressed them thus3-- ,you talk like children4 ,listen4 ,it is of no consequence whether you like to go to these places or do not like to go4 ,none of us were sent to ,cattaraugus to do what we like to do4 ,we were sent here to do what we can to make this place cheerful1 spirited1 and alive1--a part of the kingdom of heaven4 ,now if everybody in ,cattaraugus sulked off to read ,plato1 or to read ',the ,three ,guardsmen1' ,cattaraugus would go to the dogs very fast1 in its general sulkiness4 ,there must be intimate social order1 and this is the method provided4 ,therefore1 first1 we must all of us go to these parties1 whether we want to or not2 because we are in the world1 not to do what we like to do1 but what the world needs4 ,second1 said this unknown some one1 nothing is more snobbish than this talk about ,mrs4 ,park's wanting us or not wanting us4 ,it simply shows that we are thinking of ourselves a good deal more than she is4 ,what ,mrs4 ,park wants is as many men at her party as she has women4 ,she has made her list so as to balance them4 ,as the result of that list1 she has said she wanted me4 ,therefore ,i am going4 ,perhaps she does want me4 ,if she does1 ,i shall oblige her4 ,perhaps she does not want me4 ,if she does not1 ,i shall punish her1 if ,i go1 for telling what is not true2 and ,i shall go cheered and buoyed up by that reflection4 ,anyway ,i go1 not because ,i want to or do not want to1 but because ,i am asked2 and in a world of mutual relationships it is one of the things that ,i must do4 ,no one replied to this address1 but they all three put on their dress-coats and went4 ,dunster went to every party in ,cattaraugus that winter1 and1 as ,i have said1 has since shown himself a most brilliant and successful leader of society4 ,the truth is to be found in this little sermon4 ,take society as you find it in the place where you live4 ,do not set yourself up1 at seventeen years old1 as being so much more virtuous or grand or learned than the young people round you1 or the old people round you1 that you cannot associate with them on the accustomed terms of the place4 ,then you are free from the first difficulty of young people who have trouble in society2 for you will not be stuck up1 to use a very happy phrase of your own age4 ,when anybody1 in good faith1 asks you to a party1 and you have no pre-engagement or other duty1 do not ask whether these people are above you or below you1 whether they know more or know less than you do1 least of all ask why they invited you1--but simply go4 ,it is not of much importance whether1 on that particular occasion1 you have what you call a good time or do not have it4 ,but it is of importance that you shall not think yourself a person of more consequence in the community than others1 and that you shall easily and kindly adapt yourself to the social life of the people among whom you are4 ,this is substantially what ,i have written to ,stephen about what he is to do at ,new ,altona4 ,now1 as for enjoying yourself when you have come to the party1--for ,i wish you to understand that1 though ,i have compelled you to go1 ,i am not in the least cross about it1--but ,i want you to have what you yourselves call a very good time when you come there4 ,o dear1 ,i can remember perfectly the first formal evening party at which ,i had a good time4 ,before that ,i had always hated to go to parties1 and since that ,i have always liked to go4 ,i am sorry to say ,i cannot tell you at whose house it was4 ,that is ungrateful in me4 ,but ,i could tell you just how the pillars looked between which the sliding doors ran1 for ,i was standing by one of them when my eyes were opened1 as the ,orientals say1 and ,i received great light4 ,i had been asked to this party1 as ,i supposed and as ,i still suppose1 by some people who wanted my brother and sister to come1 and thought it would not be kind to ask them without asking me4 ,i did not know five people in the room4 ,it was in a college town where there were five gentlemen for every lady1 so that ,i could get nobody to dance with me of the people ,i did know4 ,so it was that ,i stood sadly by this pillar1 and said to myself1 ,you were a fool to come here where nobody wants you1 and where you did not want to come2 and you look like a fool standing by this pillar with nobody to dance with and nobody to talk to4 ,at this moment1 and as if to enlighten the cloud in which ,i was1 the revelation flashed upon me1 which has ever since set me all right in such matters4 ,expressed in words1 it would be stated thus3 ,you are a much greater fool if you suppose that anybody in this room knows or cares where you are standing or where you are not standing4 ,they are attending to their affairs and you had best attend to yours1 quite indifferent as to what they think of you4 ,in this reflection ,i took immense comfort1 and it has carried me through every form of social encounter from that day to this day4 ,i don't remember in the least what ,i did1 whether ,i looked at the portfolios of pictures1--which for some reason young people think a very poky thing to do1 but which ,i like to do1--whether ,i buttoned some fellow-student who was less at ease than ,i1 or whether ,i talked to some nice old lady who had seen with her own eyes half the history of the world which is worth knowing4 ,i only know that1 after ,i found out that nobody else at the party was looking at me or was caring for me1 ,i began to enjoy it as thoroughly as ,i enjoyed staying at home4 ,not long after ,i read this in ,sartor ,resartus1 which was a great comfort to me3 ,what ,act of ,parliament was there that you should be happy8 ,make up your mind that you deserve to be hanged1 as is most likely1 and you will take it as a favor that you are hanged in silk1 and not in hemp4 ,of which the application in this particular case is this3 that if ,mrs4 ,park or ,mrs4 ,tolman are kind enough to open their beautiful houses for me1 to fill them with beautiful flowers1 to provide a band of music1 to have ready their books of prints and their foreign photographs1 to light up the walks in the garden and the greenhouse1 and to provide a delicious supper for my entertainment1 and then ask1 ,i will say1 only one person whom ,i want to see1 is it not very ungracious1 very selfish1 and very snobbish for me to refuse to take what is1 because of something which is not1--because ,ellen is not there or ,george is not8 ,what ,act of ,parliament is there that ,i should have everything in my own way8 ,as it is with most things1 then1 the rule for going into society is not to have any rule at all4 ,go unconsciously2 or1 as ,st4 ,paul puts it1 ,do not think of yourself more highly than you ought to think4 ,everything but conceit can be forgiven to a young person in society4 ,st4 ,paul1 by the way1 high-toned gentleman as he was1 is a very thorough guide in such affairs1 as he is in most others4 ,if you will get the marrow out of those little scraps at the end of his letters1 you will not need any hand-books of etiquette4 ,as ,i read this over1 to send it to the printer1 ,i recollect that1 in one of the nicest sets of girls ,i ever knew1 they called the thirteenth chapter of the ,first ,epistle to the ,corinthians the society chapter4 ,read it over1 and see how well it fits1 the next time ,maud has been disagreeable1 or you have been provoked yourself in the ,german4 ,the gentleman is quiet1 says ,mr4 ,emerson1 whose essay on society you will read with profit1 the lady is serene4 ,bearing this in mind1 you will not really expect1 when you go to the dance at ,mrs4 ,pollexfen's1 that while you are standing in the library explaining to ,mr4 ,sumner what he does not understand about the ,alabama ,claims1 watching at the same time with jealous eye the fair form of ,sybil as she is waltzing in that hated ,clifford's arms1--you will not1 ,i say1 really expect that her light dress will be wafted into the gas-light over her head1 she be surrounded with a lambent flame1 ,clifford basely abandon her1 while she cries1 ,o ,ferdinand1 ,ferdinand6--nor that you1 leaving ,mr4 ,sumner1 seizing ,mrs4 ,general ,grant's camel's hair shawl1 rushing down the ball-room1 will wrap it around ,sybil's uninjured form1 and receive then and there the thanks of her father and mother1 and their pressing request for your immediate union in marriage4 ,such things do not happen outside the ,saturday newspapers1 and it is a great deal better that they do not4 ,the gentleman is quiet and the lady is serene4 ,in my own private judgment1 the best thing you can do at any party is the particular thing which your host or hostess expected you to do when she made the party4 ,if it is a whist party1 you had better play whist1 if you can4 ,if it is a dancing party1 you had better dance1 if you can4 ,if it is a music party1 you had better play or sing1 if you can4 ,if it is a croquet party1 join in the croquet1 if you can4 ,when at ,mrs4 ,thorndike's grand party1 ,mrs4 ,colonel ,goffe1 at seventy-seven1 told old ,rufus ,putnam1 who was five years her senior1 that her dancing days were over1 he said to her1 ,well1 it seems to be the amusement provided for the occasion4 ,i think there is a good deal in that4 ,at all events1 do not separate yourself from the rest as if you were too old or too young1 too wise or too foolish1 or had not been enough introduced1 or were in any sort of different clay from the rest of the pottery4 ,and now ,i will not undertake any specific directions for behavior4 ,you know ,i hate them all4 ,i will only repeat to you the advice which my father1 who was my best friend1 gave me after the first evening call ,i ever made4 ,the call was on a gentleman whom both ,i and my father greatly loved4 ,i knew he would be pleased to hear that ,i had made the visit1 and1 with some pride1 ,i told him1 being1 as ,i calculate1 thirteen years five months and nineteen days old4 ,he was pleased1 very much pleased1 and he said so4 ,i am glad you made the call1 it was a proper attention to ,mr4 ,palfrey1 who is one of your true friends and mine4 ,and now that you begin to make calls1 let me give you one piece of advice4 ,make them short4 ,the people who see you may be very glad to see you4 ,but it is certain they were occupied with something when you came1 and it is certain1 therefore1 that you have interrupted them4 ,i was a little dashed in the enthusiasm with which ,i had told of my first visit4 ,but the advice has been worth ,i cannot tell how much to me1--years of life1 and hundreds of friends4 ,pelham's rule for a visit is1 ,stay till you have made an agreeable impression1 and then leave immediately4 ,a plausible rule1 but dangerous4 ,what if one should not make an agreeable impression after all8 ,did not ,belch stay till near three in the morning8 ,and when he went1 because ,i had dropped asleep1 did ,i not think him more disagreeable than ever8 ,for all ,i can say1 or anybody else can say1 it will be the manner of some people to give up meeting other people socially4 ,i am very sorry for them1 but ,i cannot help it4 ,all ,i can say is that they will be sorry before they are done4 ,i wish they would read ,aesop's fable about the old man and his sons and the bundle of rods4 ,i wish they would find out definitely why ,god gave them tongues and lips and ears4 ,i wish they would take to heart the folly of this constant struggle in which they live1 against the whole law of the being of a gregarious animal like man4 ,what is it that ,westerly writes me1 whose note comes to me from the mail just as ,i finish this paper8 ,i do not look for much advance in the world until we can get people out of their own self4 ,and what do you hear me quoting to you all the time1--which you can never deny1--but that the human race is the individual of which men and women are so many different members 8 ,you may kick against this law1 but it is true4 ,it is the truth around which1 like a crystal round its nucleus1 all modern civilization has taken order4 ,chapter ,,viii4 ,how ,to ,travel4 ,first1 as to manner4 ,you may travel on foot1 on horseback1 in a carriage with horses1 in a carriage with steam1 or in a steamboat or ship1 and also in many other ways4 ,of these1 so far as mere outside circumstance goes1 it is probable that the travelling with horses in a canal-boat is the pleasantest of all1 granting that there is no crowd of passengers1 and that the weather is agreeable4 ,but there are so few parts of the world where this is now practicable1 that we need not say much of it4 ,the school-girls of this generation may well long for those old halcyon days of ,miss ,portia ,lesley's ,school4 ,in that ideal establishment the girls went to ,washington to study political economy in the winter4 ,they went to ,saratoga in ,july and ,august to study the analytical processes of chemistry4 ,there was also a course there on the history of the ,revolution4 ,they went to ,newport alternate years in the same months1 to study the ,norse literature and swimming4 ,they went to the ,white ,sulphur ,springs and to ,bath1 to study the history of chivalry as illustrated in the annual tournaments4 ,they went to ,paris to study ,french1 to ,rome to study ,latin1 to ,athens to study ,greek4 ,in all parts of the world where they could travel by canals they did so4 ,while on the journeys they studied their arithmetic and other useful matters1 which had been passed by at the capitals4 ,and while they were on the canals they washed and ironed their clothes1 so as to be ready for the next stopping-place4 ,you can do anything you choose on a canal4 ,next to canal travelling1 a journey on horseback is the pleasantest4 ,it is feasible for girls as well as boys1 if they have proper escort and superintendence4 ,you see the country2 you know every leaf and twig2 you are tired enough1 and not too tired1 when the day is done4 ,when you are at the end of each day's journey you find you have1 all the way along1 been laying up a store of pleasant memories4 ,you have a good appetite for supper1 and you sleep in one nap for the nine hours between nine at night and six in the morning4 ,you might try this1 ,phillis1--you and ,robert4 ,i do not think your little pony would do1 but your uncle will lend you ,throg for a fortnight4 ,there is nothing your uncle will not do for you1 if you ask him the right way4 ,when ,robert's next vacation comes1 after he has been at home a week1 he will be glad enough to start4 ,you had better go now and see your ,aunt ,fanny about it4 ,she is always up to anything4 ,she and your ,uncle ,john will be only too glad of the excuse to do this thing again4 ,they have not done it since they and ,i and ,p4 came down through the ,dixville ,notch all four on a hand gallop1 with the rain running in sheets off our waterproofs4 ,get them to say they will go1 and then hold them up to it4 ,for dress1 you1 ,phillis1 will want a regular bloomer to use when you are scrambling over the mountains on foot4 ,indeed1 on the ,white ,mountains now1 the ladies best equipped ride up those steep pulls on men's saddles4 ,for that work this is much the safest4 ,have a simple skirt to button round your waist while you are riding4 ,it should be of waterproof1--the ,english is the best4 ,besides this1 have a short waterproof sack with a hood1 which you can put on easily if a shower comes4 ,be careful that it has a hood4 ,any crevice between the head cover and the back cover which admits air or wet to the neck is misery1 if not fatal1 in such showers as you are going to ride through4 ,you want another skirt for the evening1 and this and your tooth-brush and linen must be put up tight and snug in two little bags4 ,the old-fashioned saddle-bags will do nicely1 if you can find a pair in the garret4 ,the waterproof sack must be in another roll outside4 ,as for ,robert1 ,i shall tell him nothing about his dress4 ,a true gentleman is always so dressed that he can mount and ride for his life4 ,that was the rule three hundred years ago1 and ,i think it holds true now4 ,do not try to ride too much in one day4 ,at the start1 in particular1 take care that you do not tire your horses or yourselves4 ,for yourselves1 very likely ten miles will be enough for the first day4 ,it is not distance you are after1 it is the enjoyment of every blade of grass1 of every flying bird1 of every whiff of air1 of every cloud that hangs upon the blue4 ,walking is next best4 ,the difficulty is about baggage and sleeping-places2 and then there has been this absurd theory1 that girls cannot walk4 ,but they can4 ,school-boys--trying to make immense distances--blister their feet1 strain their muscles1 get disgusted1 borrow money and ride home in the stage4 ,but this is all nonsense4 ,distance is not the object4 ,five miles is as good as fifty4 ,on the other hand1 while the riding party cannot well be larger than four1 the more the merrier on the walking party4 ,it is true1 that the fare is sometimes better where there are but few4 ,any number of boys and girls1 if they can coax some older persons to go with them1 who can supply sense and direction to the high spirits of the juniors1 may undertake such a journey4 ,there are but few rules2 beyond them1 each party may make its own4 ,first1 never walk before breakfast4 ,if you like1 you may make two breakfasts and take a mile or two between4 ,but be sure to eat something before you are on the road4 ,second1 do not walk much in the middle of the day4 ,it is dusty and hot then2 and the landscape has lost its special glory4 ,by ten o'clock you ought to have found some camping-ground for the day2 a nice brook running through a grove1--a place to draw or paint or tell stories or read them or write them2 a place to make waterfalls and dams1--to sail chips or build boats1--a place to make a fire and a cup of tea for the oldsters4 ,stay here till four in the afternoon1 and then push on in the two or three hours which are left to the sleeping-place agreed upon4 ,four or five hours on the road is all you want in each day4 ,even resolute idlers1 as it is to be hoped you all are on such occasions1 can get eight miles a day out of that1--and that is enough for a true walking party4 ,remember all along1 that you are not running a race with the railway train4 ,if you were1 you would be beaten certainly2 and the less you think you are the better4 ,you are travelling in a method of which the merit is that it is not fast1 and that you see every separate detail of the glory of the world4 ,what a fool you are1 then1 if you tire yourself to death1 merely that you may say that you did in ten hours what the locomotive would gladly have finished in one1 if by that effort you have lost exactly the enjoyment of nature and society that you started for4 ,the perfection of undertakings in this line was ,mrs4 ,merriam's famous walking party in the ,green ,mountains1 with the ,wadsworth girls4 ,wadsworth was not their name1--it was the name of her school4 ,she chose eight of the girls when vacation came1 and told them they might get leave1 if they could1 to join her in ,brattleborough for this tramp4 ,and she sent her own invitation to the mothers and to as many brothers4 ,six of the girls came4 ,clara ,ingham was one of them1 and she told me all about it4 ,margaret ,tyler and ,etta were there4 ,there were six brothers also1 and ,archie ,muldair and his wife1 ,fanny ,muldair's mother4 ,they two tended out in a buggy1 but did not do much walking4 ,mr4 ,merriam was with them1 and1 quite as a surprise1 they had ,thurlessen1 a nice old ,swede1 who had served in the army1 and had ever since been attached to that school as chore-man4 ,he blacked the girls' shoes1 waited for them at concert1 and sometimes1 for a slight bribe1 bought almond candy for them in school hours1 when they could not possibly live till afternoon without a supply4 ,the girls said that the reason the war lasted so long was that ,old ,thurlessen was in the army1 and that nothing ever went quick when he was in it4 ,i believe there was something in this4 ,well1 ,old ,thurlessen had a canvas-top wagon1 in which he carried five tents1 five or six trunks1 one or two pieces of kitchen gear1 his own self and ,will ,corcoran4 ,the girls and boys did not so much as know that ,thurlessen was in the party4 ,that had all been kept a solemn secret4 ,they did not know how their trunks were going on1 but started on foot in the morning from the hotel1 passed up that beautiful village street in ,brattleborough1 came out through ,west ,dummerston1 and so along that lovely ,west ,river4 ,it was very easy to find a camp there1 and when the sun came to be a little hot1 and they had all blown off a little of the steam of the morning1 ,i think they were all glad to come upon ,mr4 ,muldair1 sitting in the wagon waiting for them4 ,he explained to them that1 if they would cross the fence and go down to the river1 they would find his wife had planted herself2 and there1 sure enough1 in a lovely little nook1 round which the river swept1 with rocks and trees for shade1 with shawls to lounge upon1 and the water to play with1 they spent the day4 ,of course they made long excursions into the woods and up and down the stream1 but here was head-quarters4 ,hard-boiled eggs from the haversacks1 with bread and butter1 furnished forth the meal1 and ,mr4 ,muldair insisted on toasting some salt-pork over the fire1 and teaching the girls to like it sandwiched between crackers4 ,well1 at four o'clock everybody was ready to start again1 and was willing to walk briskly4 ,and at six1 what should they see but the ,american flag flying1 and ,thurlessen's pretty little encampment of his five tents1 pitched in a horseshoe form1 with his wagon1 as a sort of commissary's tent1 just outside4 ,two tents were for the girls1 two tents for the boys1 and the head-quarters tent for ,mr4 and ,mrs4 ,merriam4 ,and that night they all learned the luxury and sweetness of sleeping upon beds of hemlock branches4 ,thurlessen had supper all ready as soon as they were washed and ready for it4 ,and after supper they sat round the fire a little while singing4 ,but before nine o'clock every one of them was asleep4 ,so they fared up and down through those lovely valleys of the ,green ,mountains1 sending ,thurlessen on about ten miles every day1 to be ready for them when night came4 ,if it rained1 of course they could put in to some of those hospitable ,vermont farmers' homes1 or one of the inns in the villages4 ,but1 on the whole1 they had good weather1 and boys and girls always hoped that they might sleep out-doors4 ,these are1 however1 but the variations and amusements of travel4 ,you and ,i would find it hard to walk to ,liverpool1 if that happened to be the expedition in hand or on foot4 ,and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred you and ,i will have to adapt ourselves to the methods of travel which the majority have agreed upon4 ,but for pleasure travel1 in whatever form1 much of what has been said already applies4 ,the best party is two1 the next best four1 the next best one1 and the worst three4 ,beyond four1 except in walking parties1 all are impossible1 unless they be members of one family under the command of a father or mother4 ,command is essential when you pass four4 ,all the members of the party should have or should make a community of interests4 ,if one draws1 all had best draw4 ,if one likes to climb mountains1 all had best climb mountains4 ,if one rises early1 all had best rise early2 and so on4 ,do not tell me you cannot draw4 ,it is quite time you did4 ,you are your own best teacher4 ,and there is no time or place so fit for learning as when you are sitting under the shade of a high rock on the side of ,white ,face1 or looking off into the village street from the piazza of a hotel4 ,the party once determined on and the route1 remember that the old conditions of travel and the new conditions of most travel of to-day are precisely opposite4 ,for in old travel1 as on horseback or on foot now1 you saw the country while you travelled4 ,many of your stopping-places were for rest1 or because night had fallen1 and you could see nothing at night4 ,under the old system1 therefore1 an intelligent traveller might keep in motion from day to day1 slowly1 indeed1 but seeing something all the time1 and learning what the country was through which he passed by talk with the people4 ,but in the new system1 popularly called the improved system1 he is shut up with his party and a good many other parties in a tight box with glass windows1 and whirled on through dust if it be dusty1 or rain if it be rainy1 under arrangements which make it impossible to converse with the people of the country1 and almost impossible to see what that country is4 ,there is a little conversation with the natives4 ,but it relates mostly to the price of pond-lilies or of crullers or of native diamonds4 ,i once put my head out of a window in ,ashland1 and1 addressing a crowd of boys promiscuously1 called ,john1 ,john4 ,john stepped forward1 as ,i had felt sure he would1 though ,i had not before had the pleasure of his acquaintance4 ,i asked how his mother was1 and how the other children were1 and he said they were very well4 ,but he did not say anything else1 and as the train started at that moment ,i was not able to continue the conversation1 which was at the best1 you see1 conducted under difficulties4 ,all this makes it necessary that1 in our modern travelling1 you select with particular care your places to rest1 and1 when you have selected them1 that you stay in them1 at the least one day1 that you may rest1 and that you may know something of the country you are passing4 ,a man or a strong woman may go from ,boston to ,chicago in a little more than twenty-five hours4 ,if he be going because he has to1 it is best for him to go in that way1 because he is out of his misery the sooner4 ,just so it is better to be beheaded than to be starved to death4 ,but a party going from ,boston to ,chicago purely on an expedition of pleasure1 ought not to advance more than a hundred miles a day1 and might well spend twenty hours out of every twenty-four at well-chosen stopping-places on the way4 ,they would avoid all large cities1 which are for a short stay exactly alike and equally uncomfortable2 they would choose pleasant places for rest1 and thus when they arrived at ,chicago they would have a real fund of happy1 pleasant memories4 ,applying the same principle to travel in ,europe1 ,i am eager to correct a mistake which many of you will be apt to make at the beginning1-- hot-blooded young ,americans as you are1 eager to put through what you are at1 even though it be the most exquisite of enjoyments1 and ignorant as you all are1 till you are taught1 of the possibilities of happy life before you1 if you will only let the luscious pulp of your various bananas lie on your tongue and take all the good of it1 instead of bolting it as if it were nauseous medicine4 ,because you have but little time in ,europe1 you will be anxious to see all you can4 ,that is quite right4 ,remember1 then1 that true wisdom is to stay three days in one place1 rather than to spend but one day in each of three4 ,if you insist on one day in ,oxford1 one in ,birmingham1 one in ,bristol1 why then there are three inns or hotels to be hunted up1 three packings and unpackings1 three sets of letters to be presented1 three sets of streets to learn1 and1 after it is all over1 your memories of those three places will be merely of the outside misery of travel4 ,give up two of them altogether1 then4 ,make yourself at home for the three days in whichever place of the three best pleases you4 ,sleep till your nine hours are up every night4 ,breakfast all together4 ,avail yourselves of your letters of introduction4 ,see things which are to be seen1 or persons who are to be known1 at the right times4 ,above all1 see twice whatever is worth seeing4 ,do not forget this rule2--we remember what we see twice4 ,it is that stereoscopic memory of which ,i told you once before4 ,we do not remember with anything like the same reality or precision what we have only seen once4 ,it is in some slight appreciation of this great fundamental rule1 that you stay three days in any place which you really mean to be acquainted with1 that ,miss ,ferrier lays down her bright rule for a visit1 that a visit ought to consist of three days1--the rest day1 the drest day1 and the pressed day4 ,and1 lastly1 dear friends1--for the most entertaining of discourses on the most fascinating of themes must have a lastly1--lastly1 be sure that you know what you travel for4 ,why1 we travel to have a good time1 says that incorrigible ,pauline ,ingham1 who will talk none but the ,yankee language4 ,dear ,pauline1 if you go about the world expecting to find that same good time of yours ready-made1 inspected1 branded1 stamped1 jobbed by the jobbers1 retailed by the retailers1 and ready for you to buy with your spending-money1 you will be sadly mistaken1 though you have for spending-money all that united health1 high spirits1 good-nature1 and kind heart of yours1 and all papa's lessons of forgetting yesterday1 leaving to-morrow alone1 and living with all your might to-day4 ,it will never do1 ,pauline1 to have to walk up to the inn-keeper and say1 ,please1 we have come for a good time1 and where shall we find it8 ,take care that you have in reserve one object1 ,i do not care much what it is4 ,be ready to press plants1 or be ready to collect minerals4 ,or be ready to wash in water-colors1 ,i do not care how poor they are4 ,or1 in ,europe1 be ready to inquire about the libraries1 or the baby-nurseries1 or the art-collections1 or the botanical gardens4 ,understand in your own mind that there is something you can inquire for and be interested in1 though you be dumped out of a car at ,new ,smithville4 ,it may1 perhaps1 happen that you do not for weeks or months revert to this reserved object of yours4 ,then happiness may come2 for1 as you have found out already1 ,i think1 happiness is something which happens1 and is not contrived4 ,on this theme you will find an excellent discourse in the beginning of ,mr4 ,freeman ,clarke's ,eleven ,weeks in ,europe4 ,for directions for the detail of travel1 there are none better than those in the beginning of ,rollo in ,europe4 ,there is much wisdom in the general directions to travellers in the prefaces to the old editions of ,murray4 ,a young ,american will of course eliminate the purely ,english necessities from both sides of those equations4 ,there is a good article by ,dr4 ,bellows on the matter in the ,north ,american ,review4 ,and you yourself1 after you have been forty-eight hours in ,europe1 will feel certain that you can write better directions than all the rest of us can1 put together4 ,and so1 my dear young friends1 the first half of this book comes to an end4 ,the programme of the beginning is finished1 and ,i am to say ,good by4 ,if ,i have not answered all the nice1 intelligent letters which one and another of you have sent me since we began together1 it has only been because ,i thought ,i could better answer the multitude of such unknown friends in print1 than a few in shorter notes of reply4 ,it has been to me a charming thing that so many of you have been tempted to break through the magic circle of the printed pages1 and come to closer terms with one who has certainly tried to speak as a friend to all of you4 ,do we all understand that in talking1 in reading1 in writing1 in going into society1 in choosing our books1 or in travelling1 there is no arbitrary set of rules8 ,the commandments are not carved in stone4 ,we shall do these things rightly if we do them simply and unconsciously1 if we are not selfish1 if we are willing to profit by other people's experience1 and if1 as we do them1 we can manage to remember that right and wrong depend much more on the spirit than on the manner in which the thing is done4 ,we shall not make many blunders if we live by the four rules they painted on the four walls of the ,detroit ,clubhouse4 ,do not you know what those were8 #a4 ,look up1 and not down4 #b4 ,look forward1 and not backward4 #c4 ,look out1 and not in1 #d4 ,lend a hand4 ,the next half of the book will be the application of these rules to life in school1 in vacation1 life together1 life alone1 and some other details not yet touched upon4 ,chapter ,,ix4 ,life ,at ,school4 ,i do not mean life at a boarding-school4 ,if ,i speak of that1 it is to be at another time4 ,no1 ,i mean life at a regular every-day school1 in town or in the country1 where you go in the morning and come away at eleven or at noon1 and go again in the afternoon1 and come away after two or three hours4 ,some young people hate this life1 and some like it tolerably well4 ,i propose to give some information which shall make it more agreeable all round4 ,and ,i beg it may be understood that ,i do not appear as counsel for either party1 in the instruction and advice ,i give4 ,that means that1 as the lawyers say1 ,i am not retained by the teachers1 formerly called schoolmistresses and schoolmasters1 or by the pupils1 formerly called boys and girls4 ,i have been a schoolmaster myself1 and ,i enjoyed the life very much1 and made among my boys some of the best of the friends of my life4 ,i have also been a school-boy1--and ,i roughed through my school life with comparative comfort and ease4 ,as master and as boy ,i learned some things which ,i think can be explained to boys and girls now1 so as to make life at school easier and really more agreeable4 ,my first rule is1 that you ,accept ,the ,situation4 ,perhaps you do not know what that means4 ,it means that1 as you are at school1 whether you really like going or not1 you determine to make the very best you can of it1 and that you do not make yourself and everybody else wretched by sulking and grumbling about it1 and wishing school was done1 and wondering why your father sends you there1 and asking leave to look at the clock in the other room1 and so on4 ,when ,dr4 ,kane or ,captain ,mc,glure was lying on a skin on a field of ice1 in a blanket bag buttoned over his head1 with three men one side of him and three the other1 and a blanket over them all1--with the temperature seventy-eight degrees below zero1 and daylight a month and a half away1 the position was by no means comfortable4 ,but a brave man does not growl or sulk in such a position4 ,he accepts the situation4 ,that is1 he takes that as a thing for granted1 about which there is to be no further question4 ,then he is in condition to make the best of it1 whatever that best may be4 ,he can sing ,we won't go home till morning1 or he can tell the men the story of ,william ,fitzpatrick and the ,belgian coffee-grinder1 or he can say good-night and imagine himself among the ,kentish hop-fields1--till before he knows it the hop-sticks begin walking round and round1 and the haycocks to make faces at him1--and--and--and--he--he--he is fast asleep4 ,that comfort comes of accepting the situation4 ,now here you are at school1 ,i will say1 for three hours4 ,accept the situation1 like a man or a woman1 and do not sulk like a fool4 ,as ,mr4 ,abbot says1 in his admirable rule1 in ,rollo or ,jonas1 ,when you grant1 grant cheerfully4 ,you have come here to school without a fight1 ,i suppose4 ,when your father told you to come1 you did not insult him1 as people do in very poor plays and very cheap novels4 ,you did not say to him1 ,miscreant and villain1 ,i renounce thee1 ,i defy thee to the teeth2 ,i am none of thine1 and henceforth ,i leave thee in thy low estate4 ,you did not leap in the middle of the night from a three-story window1 with your best clothes in a handkerchief1 and go and assume the charge of a pirate clipper1 which was lying hidden in a creek in the ,back ,bay4 ,on the contrary1 you went to school when the time came4 ,as you have done so1 determine1 first of all1 to make the very best of it4 ,the best can be made first-rate4 ,but a great deal depends on you in making it so4 ,to make the whole thing thoroughly attractive1 to make the time pass quickly1 and to have school life a natural part of your other life1 my second rule is1 ,do ,what ,you ,do ,with ,all ,your ,might4 ,it is a good rule in anything2 in sleeping1 in playing1 or in whatever you have in hand4 ,but nothing tends to make school time pass quicker2 and the great point1 as ,i will acknowledge1 is to get through with the school hours as quickly as we fairly can4 ,now if in written arithmetic1 for instance1 you will start instantly on the sums as soon as they are given out2 if you will bear on hard on the pencil1 so as to make clear white marks1 instead of greasy1 flabby1 pale ones on the slate2 if you will rule the columns for the answers as carefully as if it were a bank ledger you were ruling1 or if you will wash the slate so completely that no vestige of old work is there1 you will find that the mere exercise of energy of manner infuses spirit and correctness into the thing done4 ,i remember my drawing-teacher once snapped the top of my pencil with his forefinger1 gently1 and it flew across the room4 ,he laughed and said1 ,how can you expect to draw a firm line with a pencil held like that8 ,it was a good lesson1 and it illustrates this rule1--,do with all your might the work that is to be done4 ,when ,i was at school at the old ,latin ,school in ,boston1--opposite where ,ben ,franklin went to school and where his statue is now1--in the same spot in space where you eat your lunch if you go into the ladies' eating-room at ,parker's ,hotel1--when ,i was at school there1 ,i say1 things were in that semi-barbarous state1 that with a school attendance of four hours in the morning1 and three in the afternoon1 we had but five minutes' recess in the morning and five in the afternoon4 ,we went out in divisions of eight or ten each2 and the worst of all was that the play-ground 7now called so7 was a sort of platform1 of which one half was under cover1--all of which was1 ,i suppose1 sixteen feet long by six wide1 with high walls1 and stairs leading to it4 ,of course we could have sulked away all our recess there1 complaining that we had no better place4 ,instead of which1 we accepted the situation1 we made the best of it1 and with all our might entered on the one amusement possible in such quarters4 ,we provided a stout rope1 well knotted4 ,as soon as recess began1 we divided into equal parties1 one under cover and the other out1 grasping the rope1 and endeavoring each to drew the other party across the dividing line4 ,greeks and ,trojans you will see the game called in ,english books4 ,little we knew of either2 but we hardened our hands1 toughened our muscles1 and exercised our chests1 arms1 and legs much better than could have been expected1 all by accepting the situation and doing with all our might what our hands found to do4 ,lessons are set for average boys at school1--boys of the average laziness4 ,if you really go to work with all your might then1 you get a good deal of loose time1 which1 in general1 you can apply to that standing nuisance1 the evening lesson4 ,sometimes1 ,i know1 for what reason ,i do not know1 this study of the evening lesson in school is prohibited4 ,when it is1 the good boys and quick boys have to learn how to waste their extra time1 which seems to be a pity4 ,but with a sensible master1 it is a thing understood1 that it is better for boys or girls to study hard while they study1 and never to learn to dawdle4 ,taking it for granted that you are in the hands of such masters or mistresses1 ,i will take it for granted that1 when you have learned the school lesson1 there will be no objection to your next learning the other lesson1 which lazier boys will have to carry home4 ,lastly1 you will find you gain a great deal by giving to the school lesson all the color and light which every-day affairs can lend to it4 ,do not let it be a ghastly skeleton in a closet1 but let it come as far as it will into daily life4 ,when you read in ,colburn's ,oral ,arithmetic1 that a man bought mutton at six cents a pound1 and beef at seven1 ask your mother what she pays a pound now1 and do the sum with the figures changed4 ,when the boys come back after vacation1 find out where they have been1 and look out ,springfield1 and the ,notch1 and ,dead ,river1 and ,moosehead ,lake1 on the map1--and know where they are4 ,when you get a chance at the ,republican1 before the others have come down to breakfast1 read the ,vermont news1 under the separate head of that ,state1 and find out how many of those ,vermont towns are on your ,mitchell4 ,when it is your turn to speak1 do not be satisfied with a piece from the ,speaker1 that all the boys have heard a hundred times2 but get something out of the ,tribune1 or the ,companion1 or ,young ,folks1 or from the new ,tennyson at home4 ,i once went to examine a high school1 on a lonely hillside in a lonely country town4 ,the first class was in botany1 and they rattled off from the book very fast4 ,they said cotyledon1 and syngenesious1 and coniferous1 and such words1 remarkably well1 considering they did not care two straws about them4 ,well1 when it was my turn to make a few remarks1 ,i said1-- ,,huckleberry4 ,i do not remember another word ,i said1 but ,i do remember the sense of amazement that a minister should have spoken such a wicked word in a school-room4 ,what was worse1 ,i sent a child out to bring in some unripe huckleberries from the roadside1 and we went to work on our botany to some purpose4 ,my dear children1 ,i see hundreds of boys who can tell me what is thirteen seventeenths of two elevenths of five times one half of a bushel of wheat1 stated in pecks1 quarts1 and pints2 and yet if ,i showed them a grain of wheat1 and a grain of unhulled rice1 and a grain of barley1 they would not know which was which4 ,try not to let your school life sweep you wholly away from the home life of every day4 ,chapter ,x4 ,life ,in ,vacation4 ,how well ,i remember my last vacation6 ,i knew it was my last1 and ,i did not lose one instant of it4 ,six weeks of unalloyed6 ,true1 after school days are over1 people have what are called vacations4 ,your father takes his at the store1 and ,uncle ,william has the long vacation1 when the ,court does not sit4 ,but a man's vacation1 or a woman's1 is as nothing when it is compared with a child's or a young man's or a young woman's home from school4 ,for papa and ,uncle ,william are carrying about a set of cares with them all the time4 ,they cannot help it1 and they carry them bravely1 but they carry them all the same4 ,so you see a vacation for men and women is generally a vacation with its weight of responsibility4 ,but your vacations1 while you are at school1 though they have their responsibilities1 indeed1 have none under which you ought not to walk off as cheerfully as ,gretchen1 there1 walks down the road with that pail of milk upon her head4 ,i hope you will learn to do that some day1 my dear ,fanchon4 ,hear1 then1 the essential laws of vacation3-- ,first of all1 ,do ,not ,get ,into ,other ,people's ,way4 ,horace and ,enoch would not have made such a mess of it last summer1 and got so utterly into disgrace1 if they could only have kept this rule in mind4 ,but1 from mere thoughtlessness1 they were making people wish they were at the ,north ,pole all the time1 and it ended in their wishing that they were there themselves4 ,thus1 the very first morning after they had come home from ,leicester ,academy1--and1 indeed1 they had been welcomed with all the honors only the night before1--when ,margaret1 the servant1 came down into the kitchen1 she found her fire lighted1 indeed1 but there were no thanks to ,master ,enoch for that4 ,the boys were going out gunning that morning1 and they had taken it into their heads that the two old fowling-pieces needed to be thoroughly washed out1 and with hot water4 ,so they had got up1 really at half past four2 had made the kitchen fire themselves2 had put on ten times as much water as they wanted1 so it took an age to boil2 had got tired waiting1 and raked out some coals and put on some more water in a skillet2 had upset this over the hearth1 and tried to wipe it up with the cloth that lay over ,margaret's bread-cakes as they were rising2 had meanwhile taken the guns to pieces1 and laid the pieces on the kitchen table2 had piled up their oily cloths on the settle and on the chairs2 had spilled oil from the lamp-filler1 in trying to drop some into one of the ramrod sockets1 and thus1 by the time ,margaret did come down1 her kitchen and her breakfast both were in a very bad way4 ,horace said1 when he was arraigned1 that he had thought they should be all through before half past five2 that then they would have cleared up1 and have been well across the pasture1 out of ,margaret's way4 ,horace did not know that watched pots are mighty unsartin in their times of boiling4 ,now all this row1 leading to great unpopularity of the boys in regions where they wanted to be conciliatory1 would have been avoided if ,horace and ,enoch had merely kept out of the way4 ,there were the ,kendal-house in the back-yard1 or the wood-shed1 where they could have cleaned the guns1 and then nobody would have minded if they had spilled ten quarts of water4 ,this seems like a minor rule4 ,but ,i have put it first1 because a good deal of comfort or discomfort hangs on it4 ,scientifically1 the first rule would be1 ,save ,time4 ,this can only be done by system4 ,a vacation is gold1 you see1 if properly used2 it is distilled gold1--if there could be such1--to be correct1 it is burnished1 double-refined gold1 or gold purified4 ,it cannot be lengthened4 ,there is sure to be too little of it4 ,so you must make sure of all there is2 and this requires system4 ,it requires1 therefore1 that1 first of all1--even before the term time is over1--you all determine very solemnly what the great central business of the vacation shall be4 ,shall it be an archery club8 ,or will we build the ,falcon's ,nest in the buttonwood over on the ,strail8 ,or shall it be some other sport or entertainment8 ,let this be decided with great care2 and1 once decided1 hang to this determination1 doing something determined about it every living day4 ,in truth1 ,i recommend application to that business with a good deal of firmness1 on every day1 rain or shine1 even at certain fixed hours2 unless1 of course1 there is some general engagement of the family1 or of the neighborhood1 which interferes4 ,if you are all going on a lily party1 why1 that will take precedence4 ,then ,i recommend1 that1 quite distinct from this1 you make up your own personal and separate mind as to what is the thing which you yourself have most hungered and thirsted for in the last term1 but have not been able to do to your mind1 because the school work interfered so badly4 ,some such thing1 ,i have no doubt1 there is4 ,you wanted to make some electrotype medals1 as good as that first-rate one that ,muldair copied when he lived in ,paxton4 ,or you want to make some plaster casts4 ,or you want to read some particular book or books4 ,or you want to use ,john's tool-box for some very definite and attractive purpose4 ,very well2 take this up also1 for your individual or special business4 ,the other is the business of the crowd2 this is your avocation when you are away from the crowd4 ,i say away2 ,i mean it is something you can do without having to hunt them up1 and coax them to go on with you4 ,besides these1 of course there is all the home life4 ,you have the garden to work in4 ,you can help your mother wash the tea things4 ,you can make cake1 if you keep on the blind side of old ,rosamond2 and so on4 ,thus are you triply armed4 ,indeed1 ,i know no life which gets on well1 unless it has these three sides1 whether life with the others1 life by yourself1 or such life as may come without any plan or effort of your own4 ,no2 ,i do not know which of these things you will choose1--perhaps you will choose none of them4 ,but it is easy enough to see how fast a day of vacation will go by if you1 ,stephen1 or you1 ,clara1 have these several resources or determinations4 ,here is the ground-plan of it1 as ,i might steal it from ,fanchon's journals3-- ,,tuesday4--,second day of vacation4 ,fair4 ,wind west4 ,thermometer sixty-three degrees1 before breakfast4 ,down stairs in time4 ,mem4 #a4 ,be careful about this4 ,it makes much more disturbance in the household than you think for1 if you are late to breakfast1 and it sets back the day terribly4 ,wiped while ,sarah washed4 ,herbert read us the new number of ',tig and ,tag1' while we did this1 and made us scream1 by acting it with ,silas1 behind the sofa and on the chairs4 ,at nine1 all was done1 and we went up the pasture to ,mont ,blanc4 ,worked all the morning on the drawbridge4 ,we have got the two large logs into place1 and have dug out part of the trench4 ,home at one1 quite tired4 ,mem4 #b4 ,mont ,blanc is a great boulder1--part of a park of boulders1 in the edge of the wood-lot4 ,other similar rocks are named the ,jung-frau1 because unclimbable1 the ,aiguilles c4 ,this about the drawbridge and logs1 readers will understand as well as ,i do4 ,had just time to dress for dinner4 ,mr4 ,links1 or ,lynch1 was here2 a very interesting man1 who has descended an extinct volcano4 ,he is going to give me some ,pele's hair4 ,i think ,i shall make a museum4 ,after dinner we all sat on the piazza some time1 till he went away4 ,then ,i came up here1 and fixed my drawers4 ,i have moved my bed to the other side of the chamber4 ,this gives me a great deal more room4 ,then ,i got out my palette1 and washed it1 and my colors4 ,i am going to paint a cluster of grape-leaves for mamma's birthday4 ,it is a great secret4 ,i had only got the things well out1 when the ,fosdicks came1 and proposed we should all ride over with them to ,worcester1 where ,houdin1 the juggler1 was4 ,such a splendid time as we have had6 ,how he does some of the things ,i do not know4 ,i brought home a flag and three great peppermints for ,pet4 ,we did not get home till nearly eleven4 ,mem4 #c4 ,this is pretty late for young people of your age2 but1 as ,madame ,roland said1 a good deal has to be pardoned to the spirit of liberty2 and1 so far as ,i have observed1 in this time1 generally is4 ,now if you will analyze that bit of journal1 you will see1 first1 that the day is full of what ,mr4 ,clough calls ,the joy of eventful living4 ,that girl never will give anybody cause to say she is tired of her vacations1 if she can spend them in that fashion4 ,you will see1 next1 that it is all in system1 and1 as it happens1 just on the system ,i proposed4 ,for you will observe that there is the great plan1 with others1 of the fortress1 the drawbridge1 and all that2 there is the separate plan for ,fanchon's self1 of the water-color picture2 and1 lastly1 there is the unplanned surrender to the accident of the ,fosdicks coming round to propose ,houdin4 ,will you observe1 lastly1 that ,fanchon is not selfish in these matters1 but lends a hand where she finds an opportunity8 ,chapter ,,xi4 ,life ,alone4 ,when ,i was a very young man1 ,i had occasion to travel two hundred miles down the valley of the ,connecticut ,river4 ,i had just finished a delightful summer excursion in the service of the ,state of ,new ,hampshire as a geologist1--and ,i left the other geological surveyors at ,haverhill4 ,i remembered ,john ,ledyard4 ,do you1 dear ,young ,america8 ,john ,ledyard1 having determined to leave ,dartmouth ,college1 built himself a boat1 or digged for himself a canoe1 and sailed down on the stream reading the ,greek ,testament1 or ,plutarch's ,lives1 ,i forget which1 on the way4 ,here was ,i1 about to go down the same river4 ,i had ten dollars in my pocket1 be the same more or less4 ,could not ,i buy a boat for seven1 my provant for a week for three more1 and so arrive in ,springfield in ten days' time1 go up to the ,hardings' and spend the night1 and go down to ,boston1 on a free pass ,i had1 the next day8 ,had ,i been as young as ,i am now1 ,i should have done that thing4 ,i wanted to do it then1 but there were difficulties4 ,first1 whatever was to be done must be done at once4 ,for1 if ,i were delayed only a day at ,haverhill1 ,i should have1 when ,i had paid my bill1 but eight dollars and a half left4 ,then how buy the provant for three dollars1 and the boat for six8 ,so ,i went at once to the seaport or maritime district of that flourishing town1 to find1 to my dismay1 that there was no boat1 canoe1 dug-out1 or batteau1--there was nothing4 ,as ,i remember things now1 there was not any sort of coffin that would ride the waves in any sort of way4 ,there were1 however1 many pundits1 or learned men4 ,they are a class of people ,i have always found in places or occasions where something besides learning was needed4 ,they tried1 as is the fashion of their craft1 to make good the lack of boats by advice4 ,first1 they proved that it would have been of no use had there been any boats4 ,second1 they proved that no one ever had gone down from ,haverhill in a boat at that season of the year1--ergo1 that no one ought to think of going4 ,third1 they proved1 what ,i knew very well before1 that ,i could go down much quicker in the stage4 ,fourth1 with astonishing unanimity they agreed1 that1 if ,i would only go down as far as ,hanover1 there would be plenty of boats2 the river would have more water in it2 ,i should be past this fall and that fall1 this rapid and that rapid2 and1 in short1 that1 before the worlds were1 it seemed predestined that ,i should start from ,hanover4 ,all this they said in that seductive way in which a dry-goods clerk tells you that he has no checked gingham1 and makes you think you are a fool that you asked for checked gingham2 that you never should have asked1 least of all1 should have asked him4 ,so ,i left the beach at ,haverhill1 disconcerted1 disgraced1 conscious of my own littleness and folly1 and1 as ,i was bid1 took passage in the ,telegraph coach for ,hanover1 giving orders that ,i should be called in the morning4 ,i was called in the morning4 ,i mounted the stage-coach1 and ,i think we came to ,hanover about half past ten1--my first and last visit at that shrine of learning4 ,pretty hot it was on the top of the coach1 and ,i was pretty tired1 and a good deal chafed as ,i saw from that eyry the lovely1 cool river all the way at my side4 ,i took some courage when ,i saw ,white's dam and ,brown's dam1 or ,smith's dam and ,jones's dam1 or whatever the dams were1 and persuaded myself that it would have been hard work hauling round them4 ,nathless1 ,i was worn and weary when ,i arrived at ,hanover1 and was told there would be an hour before the ,telegraph went forward4 ,again ,i hurried to the strand4 ,this time ,i found a boat4 ,a poor craft it was1 but probably as good as ,ledyard's4 ,leaky1 but could be caulked4 ,destitute of row-locks1 but they could be made4 ,i found the owner4 ,yes1 he would sell her to me4 ,nay1 he was not particular about price4 ,perhaps he knew that she was not worth anything4 ,but1 with that loyalty to truth1 not to say pride of opinion1 which is a part of the true ,new-,englander's life1 this sturdy man said1 frankly1 that he did not want to sell her1 because he did not think ,i ought to go that way4 ,vain for me to represent that that was my affair1 and not his4 ,clearly he thought it was his4 ,did he think ,i was a boy who had escaped from parental care8 ,perhaps4 ,for at that age ,i had not this mustache or these whiskers4 ,had he1 in the ,laccadives ,islands1 some worthless son who had escaped from home to go a whaling8 ,did he wish in his heart that some other shipmaster had hindered him1 as he now was hindering me8 ,alas1 ,i know not6 ,only this ,i know1 that he advised me1 argued with me1 nay1 begged me not to go that way4 ,i should get aground4 ,i should be upset4 ,the boat would be swamped4 ,much better go by the ,telegraph4 ,dear reader1 ,i was young in life1 and ,i accepted the reiterated advice1 and took the ,telegraph4 ,it was one of about four prudent things which ,i have done in my life1 which ,i can remember now1 all of which ,i regret at this moment4 ,now1 why did ,i give up a plan1 at the solicitation of an utter stranger1 which ,i had formed intelligently1 and had looked forward to with pleasure8 ,was ,i afraid of being drowned8 ,not ,i4 ,hard to drown in the upper ,connecticut the boy who had1 for weeks1 been swimming three times a day in that river and in every lake or stream in upper or central ,new ,hampshire4 ,was ,i afraid of wetting my clothes8 ,not ,i4 ,hard to hurt with water the clothes in which ,i had slept on the top of ,mt4 ,washington1 swam the ,ammonoosuc1 or sat out a thunder-shower on ,mt4 ,jefferson4 ,dear boys and girls1 ,i was1 by this time1 afraid of myself4 ,i was afraid of being alone4 ,this is a pretty long text4 ,but it is the text for this paper4 ,you see ,i had had this four or five hours' pull down on the hot stage-coach4 ,i had been conversing with myself all the time1 and ,i had not found it the best of company4 ,i was quite sure that the voyage would cost a week4 ,maybe it would cost more4 ,and ,i was afraid that ,i should be very tired of it and of myself before the thing was done4 ,so ,i meekly returned to the ,telegraph1 faintly tried the same experiment at ,windsor1 for the last time1 and then took the ,telegraph for the night1 and brought up next day at ,greenfield4 ,can ,i1 perhaps1 give some hints to you1 boys and girls1 which will save you from such a mistake as ,i made then8 ,i do not pretend that you should court solitude4 ,that is all nonsense1 though there is a good deal of it in the books1 as there is of other nonsense4 ,you are made for society1 for converse1 sympathy1 and communion4 ,tongues are made to talk1 and ears are made to listen4 ,so are eyes made to see4 ,yet night falls sometimes1 when you cannot see4 ,and1 as you ought not be afraid of night1 you ought not be afraid of solitude1 when you cannot talk or listen4 ,what is there1 then1 that we can do when we are alone8 ,many things4 ,of which now it will be enough to speak a little in detail of five4 ,we can think1 we can read1 we can write1 we can draw1 we can sing4 ,of these we will speak separately4 ,of the rest ,i will say a word1 and hardly more4 ,first1 we can think4 ,and there are some places where we can do nothing else4 ,in a railway carriage1 for instance1 on a rainy or a frosty day1 you cannot see the country4 ,if you are without companions1 you cannot talk1--ought not1 indeed1 talk much1 if you had them4 ,you ought not read1 because reading in the train puts your eyes out1 sooner or later4 ,you cannot write4 ,and in most trains the usages are such that you cannot sing4 ,or1 when they sing in trains1 the whole company generally sings1 so that rules for solitude no longer apply4 ,what can you do then8 ,you can think4 ,learn to think carefully1 regularly1 so as to think with pleasure4 ,i know some young people who had two or three separate imaginary lives1 which they took up on such occasions4 ,one was a supposed life in the ,shenandoah ,valley in ,virginia4 ,robert used to plan the whole house and grounds2 just what horses he would keep1 what hounds1 what cows1 and other stock4 ,he planned all the neighbors' houses1 and who should live in them4 ,there were the ,fairfaxes1 very nice1 but rather secesh2 and the ,sydneys1 who had been loyal through and through4 ,there was that plucky ,frank ,fairfax1 and that pretty ,blanche ,sydney4 ,then there were riding parties1 archery parties1 picnics on the river1 expeditions to the ,natural ,bridge1 and once a year a regular meet for a fox-hunt4 ,springfield1 twenty-five minutes for refreshments1 says the conductor1 and ,robert is left to take up his history some other time4 ,it is a very good plan to have not simply stories on hand1 as he had1 but to be ready to take up the way to plan your garden1 the arrangement of your books1 the order of next year's ,reading ,club1 or any other truly good subjects which have been laid by for systematic thinking1 the first time you are alone4 ,bear this in mind as you read4 ,if you had been ,general ,sullivan1 at the battle of ,brandywine1 you are not quite certain whether you would have done as he did4 ,no4 ,well1 then1 keep that for a nut to crack the first time you have to be alone4 ,what would you have done8 ,this matter of being prepared to think is really a pretty important matter1 if you find some night that you have to watch with a sick friend4 ,you must not read1 write1 or talk there4 ,but you must keep awake4 ,unless you mean to have the time pass dismally slow1 you must have your regular topics to think over1 carefully and squarely4 ,an imaginary conversation1 such as ,madame de ,genlis describes1 is an excellent resource at such a time4 ,many and many a time1 as ,i have been grinding along at night on some railway in the ,middle ,states1 when it was too early to sleep1 and too late to look at the scenery1 have ,i called into imaginary council a circle of the nicest people in the world4 ,let me suppose1 ,i would say to myself1 that we were all at ,mrs4 ,tileston's in the front parlor1 where the light falls so beautifully1 on the laughing face and shoulder of that ,bacchante4 ,let me suppose that besides ,mrs4 ,tileston1 ,edith was there1 and ,emily and ,carrie and ,haliburton and ,fred4 ,suppose just then the door-bell rang1 and ,mr4 ,charles ,sumner came up stairs fresh from ,washington4 ,what should we all say and do8 ,why1 of course we should be glad to see him1 and we should ask him about ,washington and the ,session1--what sort of a person ,lady ,bruce was1--and whether it was really true that ,general ,butler said that bright thing about the ,governor of ,arkansas4 ,and ,mr4 ,sumner would say that ,general ,butler said a much better thing than that4 ,he said that m-m-m-m-m-- ,then ,mrs4 ,tileston would say1 ',o1 ,i thought that s-s-s-s-s--' ,then ,i should say1 ',o no6 ,i am sure that u-u-u-u--1 c4' ,then ,edith would laugh and say1 ',why1 no1 ,mr4 ,hale4 ,i am sure that1 c41 c41 c41 c4' ,you will find that the carrying out an imaginary conversation1 where you really fill these blanks1 and make the remarks of the different people in character1 is a very good entertainment1--what we called very good fun when you and ,i were at school1--and helps along the hours of your watching or of your travel greatly4 ,second1 as ,i said1 there is reading4 ,now ,i have already gone into some detail in this matter4 ,but under the head of solitude1 this is to be added1 that one is often alone1 when he can read4 ,and books1 of course1 are such a luxury4 ,but do you know that if you expect to be alone1 you had better take with you only books enough1 and not too many8 ,it is an embarrassment of riches1 sometimes1 to find yourself with too many books4 ,you are tempted to lay down one and take up another2 you are tempted to skip and skim too much1 so that you really get the good of none of them4 ,there is no time so good as the forced stopping-places of travel for reading up the hard1 heavy reading which must be done1 but which nobody wants to do4 ,here1 for two years1 ,i have been trying to make you read ,gibbon1 and you would not touch it at home4 ,but if ,i had you in the mission-house at ,mackinaw1 waiting for days for a steamboat1 and you had finished ,blood and ,thunder1 and ,sighs and ,tears1 and then found a copy of ,gibbon in the house1 ,i think you would go through half of it1 at least1 before the steamer came4 ,walter ,savage ,landor used to keep five books1 and only five1 by him1 ,i have heard it said4 ,when he had finished one of these1 and finished it completely1 he gave it away1 and bought another4 ,i do not recommend that1 but ,i do recommend the principle of thorough reading on which it is founded4 ,do not be fiddling over too many books at one time4 ,third1 ,but1 my dear ,mr4 ,hale1 ,i get so tired1 sometimes1 of reading4 ,of course you do4 ,who does not8 ,i never knew anybody who did not tire of reading sooner or later4 ,but you are alone1 as we suppose4 ,then be all ready to write4 ,take care that your inkstand is filled as regularly as the wash-pitcher on your washstand4 ,take care that there are pens and blotting-paper1 and everything that you need4 ,these should be looked to every day1 with the same care with which every other arrangement of your room is made4 ,when ,i come to make you that long-promised visit1 and say to you1 before my trunk is open1 ,i want to write a note1 ,blanche1 be all ready at the instant4 ,do not have to put a little water into the inkstand1 and to run down to papa's office for some blotting-paper1 and get the key to mamma's desk for some paper4 ,be ready to write for your life1 at any moment1 as ,walter1 there1 is ready to ride for his4 ,dear me6 ,mr4 ,hale1 ,i hate to write4 ,what shall ,i say8 ,do not say what ,mr4 ,hale has told you1 whatever else you do4 ,say what you yourself may want to see hereafter4 ,the chances are very small that anybody else1 save some dear friend1 will want to see what you write4 ,but1 of course1 your journal1 and especially your letters1 are matters always new1 for which the day itself gives plenty of subjects1 and these two are an admirable regular resort when you are alone4 ,as to drawing1 no one can have a better drawing-teacher than himself4 ,remember that4 ,and whoever can learn to write can learn to draw4 ,of all the boys who have ever entered at the ,worcester ,technical ,school1 it has proved that all could draw1 and ,i think the same is true at ,west ,point4 ,keep your drawings1 not to show to other people1 but to show yourself whether you are improving4 ,and thank me1 ten years hence1 that ,i advised you to do so4 ,you do not expect me to go into detail as to the method in which you can teach yourself4 ,this is1 however1 sure4 ,if you will determine to learn to see things truly1 you will begin to draw them truly4 ,it is1 for instance1 almost never that the wheel of a carriage really is round to your eye4 ,it is round to your thought4 ,but unless your eye is exactly opposite the hub of the wheel in the line of the axle1 the wheel does not make a circle on the retina of your eye1 and ought not to be represented by a circle in your drawing4 ,to draw well1 the first resolution and the first duty is to see well4 ,second1 do not suppose that mere technical method has much to do with real success4 ,soft pencil rather than hard2 sepia rather than ,india ink4 ,it is pure truth that tells in drawing1 and that is what you can gain4 ,take perfectly simple objects1 at a little distance1 to begin with4 ,yes1 the gate-posts at the garden gate are as good as anything4 ,draw the outline as accurately as you can1 but remember there is no outline in nature1 and that the outline in drawing is simply conventional2 represent--which means present again1 or re-present--the shadows as well as you can4 ,notice is the shadow under the cap of the post deeper than that of the side4 ,then let it be re-presented so on your paper4 ,do this honestly1 as well as you can4 ,keep it to compare with what you do next week or next month4 ,and if you have a chance to see a good draughtsman work1 quietly watch him1 and remember4 ,do not hurry1 nor try hard things at the beginning4 ,above all1 do not begin with large landscapes4 ,as for singing1 there is nothing that so lights up a whole house as the strain1 through the open windows1 of some one who is singing alone4 ,we feel sure1 then1 that there is at least one person in that house who is well and is happy4 ,chapter ,,xii4 ,habits ,in ,church4 ,perhaps ,i can fill a gap1 if ,i say something to young people about their habits in church-going1 and in spending the hour of the church service4 ,when ,i was a boy1 we went to school on weekdays for four hours in the morning and three in the afternoon4 ,we went to church on ,sunday at about half past ten1 and church let out at twelve4 ,we went again in the afternoon1 and the service was a little shorter4 ,i knew and know precisely how much shorter1 for ,i sat in sight of the clock1 and bestowed a great deal too much attention on it4 ,but ,i do not propose to tell you that4 ,till ,i was taught some of the things which ,i now propose to teach you1 this hour and a half in church seemed to me to correspond precisely to the four hours in school1--,i mean it seemed just as long4 ,the hour and twenty minutes of the afternoon seemed to me to correspond precisely with the three hours of afternoon school4 ,after ,i learned some of these things1 church-going seemed to me very natural and simple1 and the time ,i spent there was very short and very pleasant to me4 ,i should say1 then1 that there are a great many reasonably good boys and girls1 reasonably thoughtful1 also1 who find the confinement of a pew oppressive1 merely because they do not know the best way to get the advantage of a service1 which is really of profit to children as it is to grown-up people1--and which never has its full value as it does when children and grown people join together in it4 ,now to any young people who are reading this paper1 and are thinking about their own habits in church1 ,i should say very much what ,i should about swimming1 or drawing1 or gardening2 that1 if the thing to be done is worth doing at all1 you want to do it with your very best power4 ,you want to give yourself up to it1 and get the very utmost from it4 ,you go to church1 ,i will suppose1 twice a day on ,sunday4 ,is it not clearly best1 then1 to carry out to the very best the purpose with which you are there8 ,you are there to worship ,god4 ,steadily and simply determine that you will worship him1 and you will not let such trifles distract you as often do distract people from this purpose4 ,what if the door does creak8 what if a dog does bark near by8 what if the horses outside do neigh or stamp8 ,you do not mean to confess that you1 a child of ,god1 are going to submit to dogs1 or horses1 or creaking doors6 ,if you will give yourself to the service with all your heart and soul1--with all your might1 as a boy does to his batting or his catching at base-ball2 if1 when the congregation is at prayer1 you determine that you will not be hindered in your prayer2 or1 when the time comes for singing1 that you will not be hindered from joining in the singing with voice or with heart1--why1 you can do so4 ,i never heard of a good fielder in base-ball missing a fly because a dog barked1 or a horse neighed1 on the outside of the ball-ground4 ,if ,i kept a high school1 ,i would call together the school once a month1 to train all hands in the habits requisite for listeners in public assemblies4 ,they should be taught that just as rowers in a boat-race row and do nothing else1--as soldiers at dress parade present arms1 shoulder arms1 and the rest1 and do nothing else1 no matter what happens1 during that half-hour1--that so1 when people meet to listen to an address or to a concert they should listen1 and do nothing else4 ,it is perfectly easy for people to get control and keep control of this habit of attention4 ,if ,i had the exercise ,i speak of1 in a high school1 the scholars should be brought together1 as ,i say1 and carried through a series of discipline in presence of mind4 ,books1 resembling hymn-books in weight and size1 should be dropped from galleries behind them1 till they were perfectly firm under such scattering fire1 and did not look round2 squeaking dolls1 of the size of large children1 should be led squeaking down the passages of the school-room1 and other strange objects should be introduced1 until the scholars were all proof1 and did not turn towards them once4 ,every one of those scholars would thank me afterwards4 ,think of it4 ,you give a dollar1 that you may hear one of ,thomas's concerts4 ,how little of your money's worth you get1 if twenty times1 as the concert goes on1 you must turn round to see if it was ,mrs4 ,grundy who sneezed1 or ,mr4 ,bundy2 or if it was ,mr4 ,golightly or ,mrs4 ,heavyside who came in too late at the door4 ,and this attention to what is before you is a matter of habit and discipline4 ,you should determine that you will only do in church what you go to church for1 and adhere to your determination until the habit is formed4 ,if you find1 as a great many boys and girls do1 that the sermon in church comes in as a stumbling-block in the way of this resolution1 that you cannot fix your attention steadily upon it1 ,i recommend that you try taking notes of it4 ,i have never known this to fail4 ,it is not necessary to do this in short-hand1 though that is a very charming accomplishment4 ,any one of you can teach himself how to write short-hand1 and there is no better practice than you can make for yourself at church in taking notes of sermons4 ,but supposing you cannot write short-hand4 ,take a little book with stiff covers1 such as you can put in your pocket4 ,the reporters use books of ruled paper1 of the length of a school writing-book1 but only two or three inches wide1 and opening at the end4 ,that is a very good shape4 ,then you want a pencil or two cut sharp before you go to church4 ,you will learn more easily what you want to write than ,i can teach you4 ,you cannot write the whole1 even of the shortest sentence1 without losing part of the next4 ,but you can write the leading ideas1 perhaps the leading words4 ,when you go home you will find you have a skeleton1 as it is called1 of the whole sermon4 ,and1 if you want to profit by the exercise1 you may very well spend an hour of the afternoon in writing out in neat and finished form a sketch of some one division of it4 ,but1 even if you do nothing with the notes after you come home1 you will find that they have made the sermon very short for you2 that you have been saved from sleepiness1 and that you afterwards remember what the preacher said1 with unusual distinctness4 ,you will also gradually gain a habit of listening1 with a view to remembering2 noticing specially the course and train of the argument or of the statement of any speaker4 ,of course ,i need not say that in church you must be reverent in manner1 must not disturb others1 and must not occupy yourself intentionally with other people's dress or demeanor4 ,if you really meant or wanted to do these things1 you would not be reading this paper4 ,but it may be worth while to say that even children and other young people may remember to advantage that they form a very important part of the congregation4 ,if1 therefore1 the custom of worship where you are arranges for responses to be read by the people1 you1 who are among the people1 are to respond4 ,if it provides for congregational singing1 and you can sing the tune1 you are to sing4 ,it is certain that it requires the people all to be in their places when the service begins4 ,that you can do as well as the oldest of them4 ,when the service is ended1 do not hurry away4 ,do not enter into a wild and useless competition with the other boys as to which shall leap off the front steps the soonest upon the grass of the churchyard4 ,you can arrange much better races elsewhere4 ,when the benediction is over1 wait a minute in your seat2 do not look for your hat and gloves till it is over1 and then quietly and without jostling leave the church1 as you might pass from one room of your father's house into another1 when a large number of his friends were at a great party4 ,that is precisely the condition of things in which you are all together4 ,observe1 dear children1 ,i am speaking only of habits of outside behavior at church4 ,i intentionally turn aside from speaking of the communion with ,god1 to which the church will help you1 and the help from your ,saviour which the church will make real4 ,these are very great blessings1 as ,i hope you will know4 ,do not run the risk of losing them by neglecting the little habits of concentrated thought and of devout and simple behavior which may make the hour in church one of the shortest and happiest hours of the week4 ,chapter ,,xiii4 ,life ,with ,children4 ,there is a good deal of the life of boys and girls which passes when they are with other boys and girls1 and involves some difficulties with a great many pleasures1 all its own4 ,it is generally taken for granted that if the children are by themselves1 all will go well4 ,and if you boys and girls did but know it1 many very complimentary things are said about you in this very matter4 ,children do understand each other so well4 ,children get along so well with each other4 ,i feel quite relieved when the children find some companions4 ,this sort of thing is said behind the children's backs at the very moment when the same children1 quite strangers to each other1 are wishing that they were at home themselves1 or at least that these sudden new companions were4 ,there is a well-studied picture of this mixed-up life of boys and girls with other boys and girls who are quite strangers to them in the end of ,miss ,edgeworth's ,sequel to ,frank1--a book which ,i cannot get the young people to read as much as ,i wish they would4 ,and ,i do not at this moment remember any other sketch of it in fiction quite so well managed1 with so little overstatement1 and with so much real good sense which children may remember to advantage4 ,of course1 in the first place1 you are to do as you would be done by4 ,but1 when you have said this1 a question is still involved1 for you do not know for a moment how you would be done by2 or if you do know1 you know simply that you would like to be let off from the company of these new-found friends4 ,if ,i did as ,i would be done by1 said ,clara1 ,i should turn round and walk to the other end of the piazza1 and ,i should leave the whole party of these strange girls alone4 ,i was having a very good time without them1 and ,i dare say they would have a better time without me4 ,but papa brought me to them1 and said their father was in college with him1 and that he wanted that we should know each other4 ,so ,i could not do1 in that case1 exactly as ,i would be done by without displeasing papa1 and that would not be doing to him at all as ,i would be done by4 ,the ,english of all this is1 my dear ,clara1 that in that particular exigency on the piazza at ,newbury you had a nice book1 and you would have been glad to be left alone2 nay1 at the bottom of your heart1 you would be glad to be left alone a good deal of your life4 ,but you do not want to be left alone all your life4 ,and if your father had taken you to ,old ,point ,comfort for a month1 instead of ,newbury1 and you were as much a stranger to the ways there as this shy ,lucy ,percival is to our ,northern ways at ,newbury1 you would be very much obliged to any nice ,virginian girl who swallowed down her dislike of ,yankees in general1 and came and welcomed you as prettily as1 in fact1 you did the ,percivals when your father brought you to them4 ,the doing as you would be done by requires a study of all the conditions1 not of the mere outside accident of the moment4 ,the direction familiarly given is that we should meet strangers half-way4 ,but ,i do not find that this wholly answers4 ,these strangers may be represented by globules of quicksilver1 or1 indeed1 of water1 on a marble table4 ,suppose you pour out two little globules of quicksilver at each of two points _/4 4_/ like these two4 ,suppose you make the globules just so large that they meet half-way1 thus1 _/,,oo_/4 ,at the points where they touch they only touch4 ,it even seems as if there were a little repulsion1 so that they shrink away from each other4 ,but1 if you will enlarge one of the drops never so little1 so that it shall meet the other a very little beyond half-way1 why1 the two will gladly run together into one1 and will even forget that they ever have been parted4 ,that is the true rule for meeting strangers4 ,meet them a little bit more than half-way4 ,you will find in life that the people who do this are the cheerful people1 and happy1 who get the most out of society1 and1 indeed1 are everywhere prized and loved4 ,all this is worth saying in a book published in ,boston1 because ,new-,englanders inherit a great deal of the ,english shyness1--which the ,french call mauvaise honte1 or bad shame1--and they need to be cautious particularly to meet strangers a little more than half-way4 ,boston people1 in particular1 are said to suffer from the habits of distance or reserve4 ,but ,i am sure ,i do not know what to say to them1 says ,robert1 who with a good deal of difficulty has been made to read this paper thus far4 ,my dear ,bob1 have ,i said that you must talk to them8 ,i knew you pretended that you could not talk to people1 though yesterday1 when ,i was trying to get my nap in the hammock1 ,i certainly heard a great deal of rattle from somebody who was fixing his boat with ,clem ,waters in the woodhouse4 ,but ,i have never supposed that you were to sit in agreeable conversation about the weather1 or the opera1 with these strange boys and girls4 ,nobody but prigs would do that1 and ,i am glad to say you are not a prig4 ,but if you were turned in on two or three boys as ,clara was on the ,percival girls1 a good thing to say would be1 ,would you like to go in swimming8 or ,how would you like to see us clean our fish8 or ,i am going up to set snares for rabbits2 how would you like to go8 ,give them a piece of yourself4 ,that is what ,i mean by meeting more than half-way4 ,frankly1 honorably1 without unfair reserve1--which is to say1 like a gentleman1--share with these strangers some part of your own life which makes you happy4 ,clara1 there1 will do the same thing4 ,she will take these girls to ride1 or she will teach them how to play copack1 or she will tell them about her play of the ,sleeping ,beauty1 and enlist some of them to take parts4 ,this is what ,i mean by meeting people more than half-way4 ,it may be that some of the chances of life pitchfork in upon you and your associates a bevy of little children smaller than yourselves1 whom you are expected to keep an eye upon4 ,this is a much severer trial of your kindness1 and of your good sense also1 than the mere introduction to strange boys and girls of your own age4 ,little children seem very exacting4 ,they are not so to a person who understands how to manage them4 ,but very likely you do not understand1 and1 whether you do or do not1 they require a constant eye4 ,you will find a good deal to the point in ,jonas's directions to ,rollo1 and in ,beechnut's directions to those children in ,vermont2 and perhaps in what ,jonas and ,beechnut did with the boys and girls who were hovering round them all the time you will find more light than in their directions4 ,children1 particularly little children1 are very glad to be directed1 and to be kept even at work1 if they are in the company of older persons1 and think they are working with them4 ,jonas states it thus3 ,boys will do any amount of work if there is somebody to plan for them1 and they will like to do it4 ,if there is any undertaking of an afternoon1 and you find that there is a body of the younger children who want to be with you who are older1 do not make them and yourselves unhappy by rebuking them for tagging after you4 ,of course they tag after you4 ,at their age you were glad of such improving company as yours is4 ,it has made you what you are4 ,instead of scolding them1 then1 just avail yourselves of their presence1 and make the occasion comfortable to them1 by giving them some occupation for their hands4 ,see how cleverly ,fanny is managing down on the beach with those four little imps4 ,fanny really wants to draw1 and she has her water-colors1 and ,edward ,holiday has his and is teaching her4 ,and these four children from the hotel have tagged down after her4 ,you would say that was too bad1 and you would send them home1 ,i am afraid4 ,fanny has not said any such thing4 ,she has accepted the position1 and made herself queen of it1 as she is apt to do4 ,she showed ,reginald1 first of all1 how to make a rainbow of pebbles1--violet pebbles1 indigo pebbles1 blue pebbles1 and so on to red ones4 ,she explained that it had to be quite large so as to give the good effect4 ,in a minute ,ellen had the idea and started another1 and then little ,jo began to help ,ellen1 and ,phil to help ,rex4 ,and there those four children have been tramping back and forth over the beach for an hour1 bringing and sorting and arranging colored pebbles1 while ,edward and ,fanny have gone on quietly with their drawing4 ,in short1 the great thing with children1 as with grown people1 is to give them something to do4 ,you can take a child of two years on your knee1 while there is reading aloud1 so that the company hopes for silence4 ,well1 if you only tell that child to be still1 he will be wretched in one minute1 and in two will be on the floor and rushing wildly all round the room4 ,but if you will take his little plump hand and pat a cake it on yours1 or make his little fat fingers into steeples or letters or rabbits1 you can keep him quiet without saying a single word for half an hour4 ,at the end of the most tiresome railway journey1 when everybody in the car is used up1 the children most of all1 you can cheer up these poor tired little things who have been riding day and night for six days from ,pontchatrain1 if you will take out a pair of scissors and cut out cats and dogs and dancing-girls from the newspaper or from the back of a letter1 and will teach them how to parade them along on the velvet of the car4 ,indeed1 ,i am not quite sure but you will entertain yourself as much as any of them4 ,in any acting of charades1 any arrangement of tableaux vivans1 or similar amusements1 you will always find that the little children are well pleased1 and1 indeed1 are fully satisfied1 if they also can be pressed into the service as slaves or soldiers1 or1 as the procession-makers say1 citizens generally1 or what the stage-managers call super-numeraries4 ,they need not be intrusted with speaking parts2 it is enough for them to know that they are recognized as a part of the company4 ,i do not think that ,i enjoy anything more than ,i do watching a birthday party of children who have known each other at a good ,kinder-,garten school like dear ,mrs4 ,heard's4 ,instead of sitting wearily around the sides of the room1 with only such variations as can be rendered by a party of rude boys playing tag up and down the stairs and in the hall1 these children1 as soon as four of them arrive1 begin to play some of the games they have been used to playing at school1 or branch off into other games which neither school nor recess has all the appliances for4 ,this is because these children are trained together to associate with each other4 ,the misfortune of most schools is that1 to preserve the discipline1 the children are trained to have nothing to do with each other1 and it is only at recess1 or in going and coming1 that they get the society which is the great charm and only value of school life4 ,in college1 or in any good academy1 things are so managed that young men study together when they choose2 and there is no better training4 ,in any way you manage it1 bring that about4 ,if the master will let you and ,rachel sit on the garden steps while you study the ,telemachus1--or if you1 ,robert and ,horace1 can go up into the belfry and work out the ,algebra together1 it will be better for the ,telemachus1 better for the ,algebra1 and much better for you4 ,chapter ,,xiv4 ,life ,with ,your ,elders4 ,have you ever read ,amyas ,leigh8 ,amyas ,leigh is an historical novel1 written by ,charles ,kingsley1 an ,english author4 ,his object1 or one of his objects1 was to extol the old system of education1 the system which trained such men as ,walter ,raleigh and ,philip ,sidney4 ,the system was this4 ,when a boy had grown up to be fourteen or fifteen years old1 he was sent away from home by his father to some old friend of his father1 who took him into his train or company for whatever service or help he could render4 ,and so1 of a sudden1 the boy found himself constantly in the company of men1 to learn1 as he could1 what they were doing1 and to become a man himself under their contagion and sympathy4 ,we have abandoned this system4 ,we teach boys and girls as much from books as we can1 and we give them all the fewer chances to learn from people or from life4 ,none the less do the boys and girls meet men and women4 ,and ,i think it is well worth our while1 in these papers1 to see how much good and how much pleasure they can get from the companionship4 ,i reminded you1 in the last chapter1 of ,jonas and ,beechnut's wise advice about little children4 ,do you remember what ,jonas told ,rollo1 when ,rollo was annoyed because his father would not take him to ride8 ,that instruction belongs to our present subject4 ,rollo was very fond of riding with his father and mother1 but he thought he did not often get invited1 and that1 when he invited himself1 he was often refused4 ,he confided in ,jonas on the subject4 ,jonas told him substantially two things3 ,first1 that his father would not ask him any the more often because he teased him for an invitation4 ,the teazing was in itself wrong1 and did not present him in an agreeable light to his father and mother1 who wanted a pleasant companion1 if they wanted any4 ,this was the first thing4 ,the second was that ,rollo did not make himself agreeable when he did ride4 ,he soon wanted water to drink4 ,or he wondered when they should get home4 ,or he complained because the sun shone in his eyes4 ,he made what the inn-keeper called a great row generally1 and so when his father and mother took their next ride1 if they wanted rest and quiet1 they were very apt not to invite him4 ,rollo took the hint4 ,the next time he had an invitation to ride1 he remembered that he was the invited party1 and bore himself accordingly4 ,he did not pitch in in the conversation4 ,he did not obtrude his own affairs4 ,he answered when he was spoken to1 listened when he was not spoken to1 and found that he was well rewarded by attending to the things which interested his father and mother1 and to the matters he was discussing with her4 ,and so it came about that ,rollo1 by not offering himself again as captain of the party1 became a frequent and a favorite companion4 ,now in that experience of ,rollo's there is involved a good deal of the philosophy of the intercourse between young people and their elders4 ,yes1 ,i know what you are saying1 ,theodora and ,george1 just as well as if ,i heard you4 ,you are saying that you are sure you do not want to go among the old folks1--certainly you shall not go if you are not wanted4 ,but ,i wish you to observe that sometimes you must go among them1 whether you want to or not2 and if you must1 there are two things to be brought about1--first1 that you get the utmost possible out of the occasion2 and1 second1 that the older people do4 ,so1 if you please1 we will not go into a huff about it1 but look the matter in the face1 and see if there is not some simple system which governs the whole4 ,do you remember perhaps1 ,george1 the first time you found out what good reading there was in men's books1--that day when you had sprained your ankle1 and found ,mayne ,reid palled a little bit1--when ,i brought you ,lossing's ,field-,book of the ,revolution1 as you sat in the wheel-chair1 and you read away upon that for hours8 ,do you remember how1 when you were getting well1 you used to limp into my room1 and ,i let you hook down books with the handle of your crutch1 so that you read the ,english ,parrys and ,captain ,back1 and then got hold of my great ,schoolcraft and ,catlin1 and finally improved your ,french a good deal1 before you were well1 on the thirty-nine volumes of ,garnier's ,imaginary ,voyages 8 ,you remember that8 ,so do ,i4 ,that was your first experience in grown-up people's books1--books that are not written down to the supposed comprehension of children4 ,now there is an experience just like that open to each of you1 ,theodora and ,george1 whenever you will choose to avail yourselves of it in the society of grown-up people1 if you will only take that society simply and modestly1 and behave like the sensible boy and girl that you really are4 ,do not be tempted to talk among people who are your elders4 ,those horrible scrapes that ,frank used to get into1 such as ,harry once got into1 arose1 like most scrapes in this world1 from their want of ability to hold their tongues4 ,speak when you are spoken to1 not till then1 and then get off with as little talk as you can4 ,after the second ,french revolution1 my young friend ,walter used to wish that there might be a third1 so that he might fortunately be in the gallery of the revolutionary convention just when everything came to a dead lock2 and he used to explain to us1 as we sat on the parallel bars together at recess1 how he would just spring over the front of the gallery1 swing himself across to the canopy above the ,speaker's seat1 and slide down a column to the ,tribune1 there where the orators speak1 you know1 and how he would take advantage of the surprise to address them in their own language2 how he would say ,franais1--mes frres 7which means1 ,frenchmen1--brothers72 and how1 in such strains of burning eloquence1 he would set all right so instantaneously that he would be proclaimed ,dictator1 placed in a carriage instantly1 and drawn by an adoring and grateful people to the ,palace of the ,tuileries1 to live there for the rest of his natural life4 ,it was natural for ,walter to think he could do all that if he got the chance4 ,but ,i remember1 in planning it out1 he never got much beyond ,franais1--mes frres and in forty years this summer1 in which time four revolutions have taken place in ,france1 ,walter has never found the opportunity4 ,it is seldom1 very seldom1 that in a mixed company it is necessary for a boy of sixteen1 or a girl of fifteen1 to get the others out of a difficulty4 ,you may burn to interrupt1 and to cry out ,franais1--mes frres but you had better bite your tongue1 and sit still4 ,do not explain that ,rio ,janeiro is the capital of ,brazil4 ,in a few minutes it will appear that they all knew it1 though they did not mention it1 and1 by your waiting1 you will save yourself horrible mortification4 ,meanwhile you are learning things in the nicest way in the world4 ,do not you think that ,amyas ,leigh enjoyed what he learned of ,guiana and the ,orinoco ,river much more than you enjoy all you have ever learned of it8 ,yes4 ,he learned it all by going there in the company of ,walter ,raleigh and sundry other such men4 ,suppose1 ,george1 that you could get the engineers1 ,mr4 ,burnell and ,mr4 ,philipson1 to take you with them when they run the new railroad line1 this summer1 through the passes of the ,adirondack ,mountains4 ,do you not think you shall enjoy that more even than reading ,mr4 ,murray's book1 far more than studying levelling and surveying in the first class at the ,high ,school4 ,get a chance to carry chain for them1 if you can4 ,no matter if you lose at school two medals1 three diplomas1 and four double promotions by your absence4 ,come round to me some afternoon1 and ,i will tell you in an hour all the school-boys learned while you were away in the mountains2 all1 ,i mean1 that you cannot make up in a well-used month after your return4 ,and please to remember this1 all of you1 though it seems impossible4 ,remember it as a fact1 even if you cannot account for it1 that though we all seem so old to you1 just as if we were dropping into our graves1 we do not1 in practice1 feel any older than we did when we were sixteen4 ,true1 we have seen the folly of a good many things which you want to see the folly of4 ,we do not1 therefore1 in practice1 sit on the rocks in the spray quite so near to the water as you do2 and we go to bed a little earlier1 even on moonlight nights4 ,this is the reason that1 when the whole merry party meet at breakfast1 we are a little more apt to be in our places than--some young people ,i know4 ,but1 for all that1 we do not feel any older than we did when we were sixteen4 ,we enjoy building with blocks as well1 and we can do it a great deal better2 we like the ,arabian ,nights just as well as we ever did2 and we can laugh at a good charade quite as loud as any of you can4 ,so you need not take it on yourselves to suppose that because you are among old people1--by which you mean married people1--all is lost1 and that the hours are to be stupid and forlorn4 ,the best series of parties1 lasting year in and out1 that ,i have ever known1 were in ,worcester1 ,massachusetts1 where old and young people associated together more commonly and frequently than in any other town ,i ever happened to live in1 and where1 for that very reason1 society was on the best footing4 ,i have seen a boy of twelve take a charming lady1 three times his age1 down ,pearl ,street on his sled4 ,and ,i have ridden in a riding party to ,paradise with twenty other horsemen and with twenty-one horsewomen1 of whom the youngest1 ,theodora1 was younger than you are1 and quite as pretty1 and the oldest very likely was a judge on the ,supreme ,bench4 ,i will not say that she did not like to have one of the judges ride up and talk with her quite as well as if she had been left to ,ferdinand ,fitz-,mortimer4 ,i will say that some of the ,fitz-,mortimer tribe did not ride as well as they did ten years after4 ,above all1 dear children1 work out in life the problem or the method by which you shall be a great deal with your father and your mother4 ,there is no joy in life like the joy you can have with them4 ,fun or learning1 sorrow or jollity1 you can share it with them as with nobody beside4 ,you are just like your father1 ,theodora1 and you1 ,george1 ,i see your mother's face in you as you stand behind the bank counter1 and ,i wonder what you have done with your curls4 ,i say you are just like4 ,i am tempted to say you are the same4 ,and you can and you will draw in from them notions and knowledges1 lights on life1 and impulses and directions which no books will ever teach you1 and which it is a shame to work out from long experience1 when you can--as you can--have them as your birthright4 ,chapter ,,xv4 ,habits of ,reading4 ,i have devoted two chapters of this book to the matter of ,reading1 speaking of the selection of books and of the way to read them4 ,but since those papers were first printed1 ,i have had ,i know not how many nice notes from young people1 in all parts of this land1 asking all sorts of additional directions4 ,where the matter has seemed to me private or local1 ,i have answered them in private correspondence4 ,but ,i believe ,i can bring together1 under the head of ,habits of ,heading1 some additional notes1 which will at least reinforce what has been said already1 and will perhaps give clearness and detail4 ,all young people read a good deal1 but ,i do not see that a great deal comes of it4 ,they think they have to read a good many newspapers and a good many magazines4 ,these are entertaining1--they are very entertaining4 ,but it is not always certain that the reader gets from them just what he needs4 ,on the other hand1 it is certain that people who only read the current newspapers and magazines get very little good from each other's society1 because they are all fed with just the same intellectual food4 ,you hear them repeat to each other the things they have all read in the ,daily ,trumpet1 or the ,saturday ,woodpecker4 ,in these things1 of course1 there can be but little variety1 all the ,saturday ,woodpeckers of the same date being very much like each other4 ,when1 therefore1 the people in the same circle meet each other1 their conversation cannot be called very entertaining or very improving1 if this is all they have to draw upon4 ,it reminds one of the pictures in people's houses in the days of ,art ,unions4 ,an ,art ,union gave you1 once a year1 a very cheap engraving4 ,but it gave the same engraving to everybody4 ,so1 in every house you went to1 for one year1 you saw the same men dancing on a flat-boat4 ,then1 a year after1 you saw ,queen ,mary signing ,lady ,jane ,grey's death-warrant4 ,she kept signing it all the time4 ,you might make seventeen visits in an afternoon4 ,everywhere you saw her signing away on that death-warrant4 ,you came to be very tired of the death-warrant and of ,queen ,mary4 ,well1 that is much the same way in which seventeen people improve each other1 who have all been reading the ,daily ,trumpet and the ,saturday ,woodpecker1 and have read nothing beside4 ,i see no objection1 however1 to light reading1 desultory reading1 the reading of newspapers1 or the reading of fiction1 if you take enough ballast with it1 so that these light kites1 as the sailors call them1 may not carry your ship over in some sudden gale4 ,the principle of sound habits of reading1 if reduced to a precise rule1 comes out thus3 ,that for each hour of light reading1 of what we read for amusement1 we ought to take another hour of reading for instruction4 ,nor have ,i any objection to stating the same rule backward2 for that is a poor rule that will not work both ways4 ,it is1 ,i think1 true1 that for every hour we give to grave reading1 it is well to give a corresponding hour to what is light and amusing4 ,now a great deal more is possible under this rule than you boys and girls think at first4 ,some of the best students in the world1 who have advanced its affairs farthest in their particular lines1 have not in practice studied more than two hours a day4 ,walter ,scott1 except when he was goaded to death1 did not work more4 ,dr4 ,bowditch translated the great ,mcanique ,cleste in less than two hours' daily labor4 ,i have told you already of ,george ,livermore4 ,but then this work was regular as the movement of the planets which ,dr4 ,bowditch and ,la ,place described4 ,it did not stop for whim or by accident1 more than ,jupiter stops in his orbit because a holiday comes round4 ,but what in the world do you suppose ,mr4 ,hale means by 'grave reading1' or 'improving reading'8 ,does he mean only those stupid books that 'no gentleman's library should be without'8 ,i suppose somebody reads them at some time1 or they would not be printed2 but ,i am sure ,i do not know when or where or how to begin4 ,this is what ,theodora says to ,florence1 when they have read thus far4 ,let us see4 ,in the first place1 you are not1 all of you1 to attempt everything4 ,do one thing well1 and read one subject well2 that is much better than reading ten subjects shabbily and carelessly4 ,what is your subject8 ,it is not hard to find that out4 ,here you are1 living perhaps on the very road on which the ,english troops marched to ,lexington and ,concord4 ,in one of the beams of the barn there is a hole made by a musket-ball1 which was fired as they retreated4 ,how much do you know of that march of theirs8 ,how much have you read of the accounts that were written of it the next day8 ,have you ever read ,bancroft's account of it8 or ,botta's8 or ,frothingham's8 ,there is a large book1 which you can get at without much difficulty1 called the ,american ,archives4 ,the ,congress of this country ordered its preparation1 at immense expense1 that you and people like you might be able to study1 in detail1 the early history in the original documents1 which are reprinted there4 ,in that book you will find the original accounts of the battle as they were published in the next issues of the ,massachusetts newspapers4 ,you will find the official reports written home by the ,english officers4 ,you will find the accounts published by order of the ,provincial ,congress4 ,when you have read these1 you begin to know something about the battle of ,lexington4 ,then there are such books as ,general ,heath's ,memoirs1 written by people who were in the battle1 giving their account of what passed1 and how it was done4 ,if you really want to know about a piece of history which transpired in part under the windows of your house1 you will find you can very soon bring together the improving and very agreeable solid reading which my rule demands4 ,perhaps you do not live by the road that leads to ,lexington4 ,everybody does not4 ,still you live somewhere1 and you live next to something4 ,as ,dr4 ,thaddeus ,harris said to me 7,yes1 ,harry1 the same who made your insect-book71 ,if you have nothing else to study1 you can study the mosses and lichens hanging on the logs on the woodpile in the woodhouse4 ,try that winter botany4 ,observe for yourself1 and bring together the books that will teach you the laws of growth of those wonderful plants4 ,at the end of a winter of such careful study ,i believe you could have more knowledge of ,god's work in that realm of nature than any man in ,america now has1 if ,i except perhaps some five or six of the most distinguished naturalists4 ,i have told you about making your own index to any important book you read4 ,i ought to have advised you somewhere not to buy many books4 ,if you are reading in books from a library1 never1 as you are a decently well-behaved boy or girl1 never make any sort of mark upon a page which is not your own4 ,all you need1 then1 for your index1 is a little page of paper1 folded in where you can use it for a book-mark1 on which you will make the same memorandum which you would have made on the fly-leaf1 were the book your own4 ,in this case you will keep these memorandum pages together in your scrap-book1 so that you can easily find them4 ,and if1 as is very likely1 you have to refer to the book afterward1 in another edition1 you will be glad if your first reference has been so precise that you can easily find the place1 although the paging is changed4 ,john ,locke's rule is this3 ,refer to the page1 with another reference to the number of pages in the volume4 ,at the same time tell how many volumes there are in the set you use4 ,you would enter ,charles ,,ii4's escape from ,england1 as described in the ,pictorial ,history of ,england1 thus3-- ,charles ,,ii4 escapes after battle of ,worcester4 ,pictorial ,hist4 ,eng4 #cia_/hee1 ,vol #c_/d4 ,you will have but little difficulty in finding your place in any edition of the ,pictorial ,history1 if you have made as careful a reference as this is4 ,my own pupils1 if ,i may so call the young friends who read with me1 will laugh when they see the direction that you go to the original authorities whenever you can do so4 ,for ,i send them on very hard-working tramps1 that they may find the original authorities1 and perhaps they think that ,i am a little particular about it4 ,of course1 it depends a good deal on what your circumstances are1 whether you can go to the originals4 ,but if you are near a large library1 the sooner you can cultivate the habit of looking in the original writers1 the more will you enjoy the study of history1 of biography1 of geography1 or of any other subject4 ,it is stupid enough to learn at school1 that the ,bay of ,god's ,mercy is in ,n4 ,latitude #gc1 ,w4 ,longitude #aag4 ,but read ,captain ,mc,clure's account of the way the ,resolute ran into the ,bay of ,god's ,mercy1 and what good reason he had for naming it so1 and ,i think you will never again forget where it is1 or look on the words as only the answer to a stupid map question4 ,i was saying very much what ,i have been writing1 last ,thursday1 to ,ella1 with whom ,i had a nice day's sail2 and she1 who is only too eager about her reading and study1 said she did not know where to begin4 ,she felt her ignorance so terribly about every separate thing that she wanted to take hold everywhere4 ,she had been reading ,lothair1 and found she knew nothing about ,garibaldi and the battle of ,aspramonte4 ,then she had been talking about the long ,arctic days with a traveller1 and she found she knew nothing about the ,arctic regions4 ,she was ashamed to go to a concert1 and not know the difference between the lives of ,mozart and of ,mendelssohn4 ,i had to tell ,ella1 what ,i have said to you1 that we cannot all of us do all things4 ,far less can we do them all at once4 ,i reminded her of the rule for ,european travelling1--which you may be sure is good1--that it is better to spend three days in one place than one day each in three places4 ,and ,i told ,ella that she must apply the same rule to subjects4 ,take these very instances4 ,if she really gets well acquainted with ,mendelssohn's life1--feels that she knows him1 his habit of writing1 and what made him what he was1--she will enjoy every piece of his music she ever hears with ten times the interest it had for her before4 ,but if she looks him out in a cyclopdia and forgets him1 and looks out ,mercadante and forgets him1 and finally mixes up ,mozart and ,mercadante and ,mendelssohn and ,meyerbeer1 because all four of these names begin with ,m1 why1 she will be where a great many very nice boys and girls are who go to concerts1 but where as sensible a girl as ,ella does not want to be1 and where ,i hope none of you want to be for whom ,i am writing4 ,but perhaps this is more than need be said after what is in ,chapters ,v4 and ,,vi4 ,now you may put down this book and read for recreation4 ,shall it be the ,bloody ,dagger1 or shall it be the ,injured ,grandmother8 ,chapter ,,xvi4 ,getting ,ready4 ,when ,i have written a quarter part of this paper the horse and wagon will be brought round1 and ,i shall call for ,ferguson and ,putnam to go with me for a swim4 ,when ,i stop at ,ferguson's house1 he will himself come to the door with his bag of towels1--,i shall not even leave the wagon1--,ferguson will jump in1 and then we shall drive to ,putnam's4 ,when we come to ,putnam's house1 ,ferguson will jump out and ring the bell4 ,a girl will come to the door1 and ,ferguson will ask her to tell ,horace that we have come for him4 ,she will look a little confused1 as if she did not know where he was1 but she will go and find him4 ,ferguson and ,i will wait in the wagon three or four minutes and then ,horace will come4 ,ferguson will ask him if he has his towels1 and he will say1 ,o no1 ,i laid them down when ,i was packing my lunch1 and he will run and get them4 ,just as we start1 he will ask me to excuse him just a moment1 and he will run back for a letter his father wants him to post as we come home4 ,then we shall go and have a good swim together4 ,footnote3 ,p4 ,s4--,we have been and returned1 and all has happened substantially as ,i said4 ,now1 in the regular line of literature made and provided for young people1 ,i should go on and make out that ,ferguson1 simply by his habit of promptness and by being in the right place when he is needed1 would rise rapidly to the highest posts of honor and command1 becoming indeed ,khan of ,tartary1 or ,president of the ,united ,states1 as the exigencies and costume of the story might require4 ,but ,horace1 merely from not being ready on occasion1 would miserably decline1 and come to a wretched felon's end2 owing it1 indeed1 only to the accident of his early acquaintance with ,ferguson1 that1 when the sheriff is about to hang him1 a pardon arrives just in time from him 7the ,president74 ,but ,i shall not carry out for you any such horrible picture of these two good fellows' fates4 ,in my judgment1 one of these results is almost as horrible as is the other4 ,i will tell you1 however1 that the habit of being ready is going to make for ,ferguson a great deal of comfort in this world1 and bring him in a great deal of enjoyment4 ,and1 on the other hand1 ,horace the ,unready1 as they would have called him in ,french history1 will work through a great deal of discomfort and mortification before he rids himself of the habit which ,i have illustrated for you4 ,it is true that he has a certain rapidity1 which somebody calls shiftiness1 of resolution and of performance1 which gets him out of his scrapes as rapidly as he gets in4 ,but there is a good deal of vital power lost in getting in and getting out1 which might be spent to better purpose1--for pure enjoyment1 or for helping other people to pure enjoyment4 ,the art of getting ready1 then1 shall be the closing subject of this little series of papers4 ,of course1 in the wider sense1 all education might be called the art of getting ready1 as1 in the broadest sense of all1 ,i hope all you children remember every day that the whole of this life is the getting ready for life beyond this4 ,bear that in mind1 and you will not say that this is a trivial accomplishment of ,ferguson's1 which makes him always a welcome companion1 often and often gives him the power of rendering a favor to somebody who has forgotten something1 and1 in short1 in the twenty-four hours of every day1 gives to him all the time there is4 ,it is also one of those accomplishments1 as ,i believe1 which can readily be learned or gained1 not depending materially on temperament or native constitution4 ,it comes almost of course to a person who has his various powers well in hand1--who knows what he can do1 and what he cannot do1 and does not attempt more than he can perform4 ,on the other hand1 it is an accomplishment very difficult of acquirement to a boy who has not yet found what he is good for1 who has forty irons in the fire1 and is changing from one to another as rapidly as the circus-rider changes1 or seems to change1 from ,mr4 ,pickwick to ,sam ,weller4 ,form the habit1 then1 of looking at to-morrow as if you were the master of to-morrow1 and not its slave4 ,there's no such word as fail6 ,that is what ,richelieu says to the boy1 and in the real conviction that you can control such circumstances as made ,horace late for our ride1 you have the power that will master them4 ,as ,mrs4 ,henry said to her husband1 about leaping over the high bar1--,throw your heart over1 ,john1 and your heels will go over4 ,that is a very fine remark1 and it covers a great many problems in life besides those of circus-riding4 ,you are1 thus far1 master of to-morrow4 ,it has not outflanked you1 nor circumvented you at any point4 ,you do not propose that it shall4 ,what1 then1 is the first thing to be sought by way of getting ready1 of preparation8 ,it is vivid imagination of to-morrow4 ,ask in advance1 ,what time does the train start8 ,answer1 ,seven minutes of eight4 ,what time is breakfast8 ,answer1 ,for the family1 half past seven4 ,then ,i will now1 lest it be forgotten1 ask ,mary to give me a cup of coffee at seven fifteen2 and1 lest she should forget it1 ,i will write it on this card1 and she may tuck the card in her kitchen-clock case4 ,what have ,i to take in the train8 ,answer1 ,father's foreign letters1 to save the ,english mail1 my own ',young ,folks' to be bound1 and ,fanny's breast-pin for a new pin4 ,then ,i hang my hand-bag now on the peg under my hat1 put into it the ,young ,folks and the breast-pin box1 and ask father to put into it the ,english letters when they are done4 ,do you not see that the more exact the work of the imagination on ,tuesday1 the less petty strain will there be on memory when ,wednesday comes8 ,if you have made that preparation1 you may lie in bed ,wednesday morning till the very moment which shall leave you time enough for washing and dressing2 then you may take your breakfast comfortably1 may strike your train accurately1 and attend to your commissions easily4 ,whereas ,horace1 on his method of life1 would have to get up early to be sure that his things were brought together1 in the confusion of the morning would not be able to find ,no4 #aa of the ,young ,folks1 in looking for that would lose his breakfast1 and afterwards would lose the train1 and1 looking back on his day1 would find that he rose early1 came to town late1 and did not get to the bookbinder's1 after all4 ,the relief from such blunders and annoyance comes1 ,i say1 in a lively habit of imagination1 forecasting the thing that is to be done4 ,once forecast in its detail1 it is very easy to get ready for it4 ,do you not remember1 in ,swiss ,family ,robinson1 that when they came to a very hard pinch for want of twine or scissors or nails1 the mother1 ,elizabeth1 always had it in her wonderful bag8 ,i was young enough when ,i first read ,swiss ,family to be really taken in by this1 and to think it magic4 ,indeed1 ,i supposed the bag to be a lady's work-bag of beads or melon-seeds1 such as were then in fashion1 and to have such quantities of things come out of it was in no wise short of magic4 ,it was not for many1 many years that ,i observed that ,francis sat on this bag in his tub1 as they sailed to the shore4 ,in those later years1 however1 ,i also noticed a sneer of ,ernest's which ,i had overlooked before4 ,he says1 ,i do not see anything very wonderful in taking out of a bag the same thing you have put into it4 ,but his wise father says that it is the presence of mind which in the midst of shipwreck put the right things into the bag which makes the wonder4 ,now1 in daily life1 what we need for the comfort and readiness of the next day is such forecast and presence of mind1 with a vivid imagination of the various exigencies it will bring us to4 ,jo ,matthew was the most prompt and ready person1 with one exception1 whom ,i have ever had to deal with4 ,i hope ,jo will read this4 ,if he does1 will he not write to me8 ,i said to ,jo once when we were at work together in the barn1 that ,i wished ,i had his knack of laying down a tool so carefully that he knew just where to find it4 ,ah1 said he1 laughing1 we learned that in the cotton-mill4 ,when you are running four looms1 if something gives way1 it will not do to be going round asking where this or where that is4 ,now ,jo's answer really fits all life very well4 ,the tide will not wait1 dear ,pauline1 while you are asking1 ,where is my blue bow8 ,nor will the train wait1 dear ,george1 while you are asking1 ,where is my ,walton's ,arithmetic8 ,we are all in a great mill1 and we can master it1 or it will master us1 just as we choose to be ready or not ready for the opening and shutting of its opportunities4 ,i remember that when ,haliburton was visiting ,general ,hooker's head-quarters1 he arrived just as the ,general1 with a brilliant staff1 was about to ride out to make an interesting examination of the position4 ,he asked ,haliburton if he would join them1 and1 when ,haliburton accepted the invitation gladly1 he bade an aid mount him4 ,the aid asked ,haliburton what sort of horse he would have1 and ,haliburton said he would--and he knew he could--ride anything4 ,he is a thorough horseman4 ,you see what a pleasure it was to him that he was perfectly ready for that contingency1 wholly unexpected as it was4 ,i like to hear him tell the story1 and ,i often repeat it to young people1 who wonder why some persons get forward so much more easily than others4 ,warburton1 at the same moment1 would have had to apologize1 and say he would stay in camp writing letters1 though he would have had nothing to say4 ,for ,warburton had never ridden horses to water or to the blacksmith's1 and could not have mounted on the stupidest beast in the head-quarters encampment4 ,the difference between the two men is simply that the one is ready and the other is not4 ,nothing comes amiss in the great business of preparation1 if it has been thoroughly well learned4 ,and the strangest things come of use1 too1 at the strangest times4 ,a sailor teaches you to tie a knot when you are on a fishing party1 and you tie that knot the next time when you are patching up the ,emperor of ,russia's carriage for him1 in a valley in the ,ural ,mountains4 ,but getting ready does not mean the piling in of a heap of accidental accomplishments4 ,it means sedulously examining the coming duty or pleasure1 imagining it even in its details1 decreeing the utmost punctuality so far as you are concerned1 and thus entering upon them as a knight armed from head to foot4 ,this is the man whom ,wordsworth describes1-- ,who1 if he be called upon to face ,some awful moment to which ,heaven has joined ,great issues1 good or bad for human kind1 ,is happy as a ,lover2 and attired ,with sudden brightness1 like a man inspired2 ,and through the heat of conflict keeps the law ,in calmness made1 and sees what he foresaw2 ,or if an unexpected call succeed1 ,come when it will1 is equal to the need4 ,the ,end4