r became a good general. I
challenge you, in all history, to find a record of a good soldier who
was not grave and earnest in his youth. And, in general, I have no
patience with people who talk about 'the thoughtlessness of youth'
indulgently, I had infinitely rather hear of thoughtless old age, and
the indulgence due to _that_. When a man has done his work, and nothing
can any way be materially altered in his fate, let him forget his toil,
and jest with his fate, if he will; but what excuse can you find for
wilfulness of thought, at the very time when every crisis of future
fortune hangs on your decisions? A youth thoughtless! when all the
happiness of his home for ever depends on the chances, or the passions,
of an hour! A youth thoughtless! when the career of all his days depends
on the opportunity of a moment! A youth thoughtless! when his every act
is a foundation-stone of future conduct, and every imagination a
fountain of life or death! Be thoughtless in _any_ after years, rather
than now--though, indeed, there is only one place where a man may be
nobly thoughtless,--his deathbed. No thinking should ever be left to be
done there.

Having, then, resolved that you will not waste recklessly, but earnestly
use, these early days of yours, remember that all the duties of her
children to England may be summed in two words--industry, and honour. I
say first, industry, for it is in this that soldier youth are especially
tempted to fail. Yet surely, there is no reason because your life may
possibly or probably be shorter than other men's, that you should
therefore waste more recklessly the portion of it that is granted you;
neither do the duties of your profession, which require you to keep your
bodies strong, in any wise involve the keeping of your minds weak. So
far from that, the experience, the hardship, and the activity of a
soldier's life render his powers of thought more accurate than those of
other men; and while, for others, all knowledge is often little more
than a means of amusement, there is no form of science which a soldier
may not at some time or other find bearing on business of life and
death. A young mathematician may be excused for langour in studying
curves to be described only with a pencil; but not in tracing those
which are to be described with a rocket. Your knowledge of a wholesome
herb may involve the feeding of an army; and acquaintance with an
obscure point of geography, the success of a campaig