e. But if, by accident, two
or three hours are sometimes wanting for some useful purpose, borrow them
from your sleep. Six, or at most seven hours sleep is, for a constancy,
as much as you or anybody can want; more is only laziness and dozing; and
is, I am persuaded, both unwholesome and stupefying. If, by chance, your
business, or your pleasures, should keep you up till four or five o'clock
in the morning, I would advise you, however, to rise exactly at your
usual time, that you may not lose the precious morning hours; and that
the want of sleep may force you to go to bed earlier the next night. This
is what I was advised to do when very young, by a very wise man; and
what, I assure you, I always did in the most dissipated part of my life.
I have very often gone to bed at six in the morning and rose,
notwithstanding, at eight; by which means I got many hours in the morning
that my companions lost; and the want of sleep obliged me to keep good
hours the next, or at least the third night. To this method I owe the
greatest part of my reading: for, from twenty to forty, I should
certainly have read very little, if I had not been up while my
acquaintances were in bed. Know the true value of time; snatch, seize,
and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no
procrastination; never put off till to-morrow what you can do today. That
was the rule of the famous and unfortunate Pensionary De Witt; who, by
strictly following it, found time, not only to do the whole business of
the republic, but to pass his evenings at assemblies and suppers, as if
he had had nothing else to do or think of.
Adieu, my dear friend, for such I shall call you, and as such I shall,
for the future, live with you; for I disclaim all titles which imply an
authority, that I am persuaded you will never give me occasion to
exercise.
'Multos et felices', most sincerely, to Mr. Harte.
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