ad taken up Greek and Latin and had begun to manifest some
interest in these studies, when a friend, in whom I had some confidence,
advised me against wasting my time on obsolete words. He said: "Learn
English first, young man. I'll wager there are plenty of good Anglo-Saxon
words that you can't pronounce or define. For example, tell me what
'y-c-l-e-p-t' spells and what it means."

Thus being picked up on a trifling, useless English word, I decided to
give up the study of dead languages and confine myself to my
mother-tongue. Rhetoric and lexicography were hobbies with me for a time,
but before a great while I thought I needed "mental drill"; so I turned my
attention to mathematics. The subject became dry and uninteresting in the
usual length of time; besides, I began seriously to question mathematics
as being in the utilitarian class of studies. Certainly very little of it
was necessary as a business qualification. I recalled the fact that one
of the best business men, in a mediocre station of life, whom I had ever
known, could not write his own name and his wife had to count his money
for him. So I threw away my Euclid and tried something else; but I would
voluntarily tire of each study in a little while, or drop it at the
counter-suggestion of some friend. Thus I changed from one course to
another as a weather-cock is veered by the ever-changing wind to every
point of the compass.

Then I took up the fad of building air-castles. It is hard to laugh down
this species of architecture--the erection of atmospheric mansions. Every
one has it, in a way, but with me it had broken out in a very virulent
form. It makes one feel mean, indeed, to arouse from one of these Elysian
escapades only to find his feet on the commonest sort of clay.
Day-dreaming never produces the kind of dream that comes true, and mental
speculating is about as useless as indulging in Western mining stock.
Well-laid plans are all right, but ideals that you can't even hope to live
up to have no place in life's calendar. Dabbling with the unattainable is
calculated to sour us on the world and turn the milk of human kindness
into buttermilk. It may be likened to the predicament in which old
Tantalus was placed in the lake, where the water receded when he attempted
to drink it, and delicious fruits always just eluded his grasp.

Next I got hold of the delusion that I was studying and working too hard.
Goodness knows that what little I did was as desultor