when you come to read history, you will find that in proportion as
nations have been _free_ has been their reverence for the laws. But,
there is a wide difference between lawful and cheerful obedience and
that servility which represents people as laying petitions 'at the
_king's feet_,' which makes us imagine that we behold the supplicants
actually crawling upon their bellies. There is something so abject in
this expression; there is such horrible self-abasement in it, that I do
hope that every youth, who shall read this, will hold in detestation the
reptiles who make use of it. In all other countries, the lowest
individual can put a petition into the _hands_ of the chief magistrate,
be he king or emperor: let us hope, that the time will yet come when
Englishmen will be able to do the same. In the meanwhile I beg you to
despise these worse than pagan parasites.

38. Hitherto I have addressed you chiefly relative to the things to be
_avoided_: let me now turn to the things which you ought _to do_. And,
first of all, the _husbanding of your time_. The respect that you will
receive, the real and _sincere respect_, will depend entirely on what
you are able _to do_. If you be rich, you may purchase what is called
respect; but it is not worth having. To obtain respect worth possessing,
you must, as I observed before, do more than the common run of men in
your state of life; and, to be enabled to do this, you must manage well
_your time_: and, to manage it well, you must have as much of the
_day-light_ and as little of the _candle-light_ as is consistent with
the due discharge of your duties. When people get into the habit of
sitting up _merely for the purpose of talking_, it is no easy matter to
break themselves of it: and if they do not go to bed early, they cannot
rise early. Young people require more sleep than those that are grown
up: there must be the number of hours, and that number cannot well be,
on an average, less than _eight_: and, if it be more in winter time, it
is all the better; for, an hour in bed is better than an hour spent over
fire and candle in an idle gossip. People never should sit talking till
they do not know what to talk about. It is said by the country-people,
that one hour's sleep before midnight is worth more than two are worth
after midnight, and this I believe to be a fact; but it is useless to go
to bed early and even to rise early, if the time be not well employed
after rising. In general, half