f all that life brings with it. Whence this romantic
turn that all our family are possessed with? Whence this love for
every place and every country but that in which we reside--for every
occupation but our own? this desire of fortune, and yet this eagerness
to dissipate? I perceive, my dear sir, that I am at intervals
for indulging this splenetic manner, and following my own taste,
regardless of yours.

The reasons you have given me for breeding up your son as a scholar
are judicious and convincing; I should, however, be glad to know for
what particular profession he is designed. If he be assiduous and
divested of strong passions (for passions in youth always lead to
pleasure), he may do very well in your college; for it must be owned
that the industrious poor have good encouragement there, perhaps
better than in any other in Europe. But if he has ambition, strong
passions, and an exquisite sensibility of contempt, do not send him
there, unless you have no other trade for him except your own. It is
impossible to conceive how much may be done by a proper education
at home. A boy, for instance, who understands perfectly well Latin,
French, Arithmetic, and the principles of the Civil Law, and can
write a fine hand, has an education that may qualify him for any
undertaking; and these parts of learning should be better inculcated,
let him be designed for whatever calling he will.

Above all things let him never touch a romance or novel; these paint
beauty in colours more charming than nature, and describe happiness
that man never tastes. How delusive, how destructive are those
pictures of consummate bliss! They teach the youthful mind to sigh
after beauty and happiness that never existed; to despise the little
good which fortune has mixed in our cup, by expecting more than she
ever gave; and, in general, take the word of a man who has seen
the world and who has studied human nature more by experience than
precept; take my word for it, that books teach us very little of the
world. The greatest merit in a state of poverty would only serve to
make the possessor ridiculous--may distress, but cannot relieve him.
Frugality, and even avarice, in the lower orders of mankind, are
true ambition. These afford the only ladder for the poor to rise to
preferment. Teach then, my dear sir, to your son thrift and economy.
Let his poor wandering uncle's example be placed before his eyes. I
had learned from books to be disinterested and gen