University of Virginia Library

LETTER XVIII.

Dr. Haller writes me that you have become exceedingly
diligent of late, and that the good effect of your industry
is manifested by your advancement in your studies.
I can scarcely make you sensible of the pleasure which this
intelligence has given me. I laid awake the greater part of
the night, after I received the letter, thinking of you, and
pleasing myself with imagining your future progress in life.
Whether you prove a useful or creditable member of society
or not, depends altogether upon yourself; and I am truly rejoiced
to hear that you possess the inclination, in as great a
degree as you do the power: not that I have hitherto doubted
your disposition to learn; but there is a wide difference between
a boy's getting his lesson from a sense of duty, or a
fear of punishment, and his applying himself, with zeal, from
a conviction that he is consulting his future advantage, and
from an honourable ambition to distinguish himself. To excel,
there must be something of this ardour. Without it, nothing
better than a tame mediocrity can be expected. The
taste for reading, which you are now forming, will be a source
of pleasure to you through life. If the indolent and the debauched
could conceive the enjoyment of a literary mind,
their boasted pleasures would become loathsome to them.

You say that your mathematical lessons are "in the first
book:"—of what? Euclid, I suppose; but why this obscurity,
or, rather, this omission? Do you read the evangelists in
Greek with tolerable facility? How do you like that language?
Do you continue to translate English into French
and Latin? If you see Quasha when he comes down again,
send me Edgeworth's Tales by him. By the way, call at
Major Scott's every evening after this comes to hand, and
you will know when the wagon comes down. I expect it
will be in town about Wednesday or Thursday. Inquire at

Gordon's, Ellis', and Allen's, and the different stores, for
shot No. 8; get me a bag, and send it up by Quasha; the Major
will pay for it, or, what is the same thing, furnish you
with money to do it. Order Quasha to call at Webster's cabinet
shop for a mahogany press, and a bedstead of mine, and,
if there are any oyster shells in Richmond, get a hogshead for
me, and send them up by the wagon. The Major is busy,
and I do not like to trouble him. Show him this letter, and
he will advance the money for the shot and shells.