University of Virginia Library

LETTER IV.

Your letter has relieved me from great uneasiness—
as I got none from you last week, and was afraid that you
were sick, or that some accident had befallen you. Why,
my dear boy, did this happen?—and why will you, through
carelessness, expose those who love you to suffer on your account?
I would not write myself, hoping that my silence
would be a more forcible admonition than any I could devise.

Your letter is not a bad one, although it has some errors
in it; it might have been more correct, yet worse. Do not,
however, undervalue correctness; for, although mere freedom
from defect does not constitute excellence, which is in
itself a positive quality, yet great defects deform the greatest
excellence.

We do not say "from there," but "from thence." The
present participle of the verb "to put," is spelled with a
double t, "putting," and not "puting." The word plough
(in every sense of it) is spelled with "ugh," and not a "w,"
as you have it, "plowing." I have much fault to find with
the handwriting of your letter: it is hurried, confused, in
short, a mere scratch, indistinct, and hardly legible; where
I am obliged to guess at the letters; and, from the mode of
writing and folding up in a hurry, before the ink had dried,
much blotted. Take my advice, my son, and do not attempt
a running hand yet. The way to acquire a good running
hand, is to begin with a fair, large, clean-cut, and
distinct character. Children always learn to stand alone,
and to walk, step by step, before they run. There is another
excellent rule, which, if you now adhere to it, will be
of great service to you through life: "make haste slowly."
Hurry always occasions blunder and delay. When, therefore,
you make any mistake, or blot, write all over again,

fairly. The labour of doing this will make you careful and
correct; and, when the habit is formed, the trouble is over.
Habit is truly called "second nature." To form good habits
is almost as easy as to fall into bad. What is the difference
between an industrious, sober man and an idle drunken
one, but their respective habits? 'Tis just as easy for
Mr. Harrison to be temperate and active, as 'tis for poor
Knowles to be the reverse; with this great difference, that,
exclusively of the effects of their respective courses of life on
their respectability and fortunes, the exercises of the one are
followed by health, pleasure, and peace of mind, whilst
those of the other engender disease, pain, and discontent—
to say nothing of poverty in its most hideous shape, want,
squalid misery, and the contempt of the world, contrasted
with affluent plenty, a smiling family, and the esteem of all
good men. Perhaps you cannot believe that there exists a
being who would hesitate which of these two lots to choose.
Alas! my son, vice puts on such alluring shapes, indolence
is so seducing, that, (like the flies in Æsop,) we revel whilst
the sun shines, and for a few hours' temporary pleasure pay
the price of perishing miserably in the winter of our old
age. The industrious ants are wiser. By a little forbearance
at the moment, by setting a just value on the future,
and disregarding present temptation, they secure an honourable
and comfortable asylum. All nature, my son, is a volume,
speaking comfort and offering instruction to the good
and wise. But "the fool saith in his heart, There is no God:"
he shuts his eyes to the great book of Nature that lies open
before him. Your fate, my dear Theodorick, is in your
own hands. Like Hercules, every young man has his choice
between pleasure, falsely so called, and infamy, or laborious
virtue and a fair fame. In old age, indeed long before,
we begin to feel the folly, or wisdom, of our selection. I
confidently trust that you, my son, will choose wisely. In
seven years from this time, you will repent, or rejoice, at
the disposition which you make of the present hour.