University of Virginia Library

LETTER XIX.

The time has, at length, arrived, when I may once
more indulge myself with the pleasure of your company. It
is an unspeakable satisfaction to me, you may be assured, and,
I trust, not less so to yourselves. Enclosed are twenty dollars,
(five a piece, besides ten for your journey,) which may discharge
any little debts that you may have contracted, although
I hope you have not exposed yourselves to the inconvenience
of any debt, however small: but I know that
this is an error into which youthful heedlessness is too apt to
run. If you have escaped it, you have exercised more judgment
than I possessed at your age; the want of which cost

me many a heart-ache. When any bauble caught my fancy,
I would, perhaps, buy it on credit, and always for twice as
much, at least, as it was worth. In a day or two, cloyed with
the possession of what, to my youthful imagination, had appeared
so very desirable, I would readily have given it away
to the first comer; but, in discarding it, I could not exonerate
myself from the debt which I had unwittingly incurred, the recollection
of which incessantly haunted me. Many a night's
sleep has been broken by sad reflection, on the difficulty into
which I had plunged myself, and in devising means of extrication.
At the approach of my creditor, I shrunk, and looked,
no doubt, as meanly as I felt: for the relation between debtor
and creditor is that of a slave to his master. It begins with
the subjugation of the mind, and ends with the enslavement
of the body. The ancients sold the person of the debtor to
slavery for the benefit of the creditor; we imprison it: neither
punishment too severe for the wretch, who is abject
enough to submit to conditions which may, ultimately, lead
to so humiliating a consequence. The most intolerable portion
of his lot is its degradation, and to this he has deliberately
consented to subject himself, upon a contingency! At the
same time, he must have the soul of Nero, who could inflict
upon a fellow being so much misery, (and this is the strongest
argument against capital punishment: for human butchery
presupposes human butchers, monsters whom society
should not tolerate, much less nourish in her bosom;) I except,
however, the case of a fraudulent debtor. For if he
may be enslaved in the penitentiary, who steals a dollar, surely
he may be punished with imprisonment, or hard labour,
who dishonestly embezzles, or withholds, a hundred, which
he justly owes, and is able to pay. He is the greater rogue
of the two, for he adds breach of trust to robbery. You did
not trust the highwayman who forcibly, or the thief who privately,
took your dollar, or your money. You never put it into
their hands with a sacred promise, expressed, or implied, to
restore it again; but secured it against both as well as you
could. Speaking of promises, (and every debtor is a promiser,
and too often a promise-breaker,) you cannot be too
much on your guard against them, unless where the performance
is undoubtedly in your power, and, at the same
time, will conduce to your honour or benefit, or those of
another. When I was a boy, I was sometimes betrayed into
promises, by the artful solicitation of others, principally servants,
whom I had not the firmness to deny. The courage
which enables us to say "no" to an improper application,
cannot be too soon acquired. The want of it has utterly ruined
many an amiable man. My word, in a moment of facility,
being once passed, I was even more tormented with the
thoughts of the obligation into which I had unthinkingly entered,
than by the importunity of those to whom it had been
given. Let me advise you both to profit by my warning,
and never make a promise which you can honourably avoid.
When any one proposes a matter to you, in the least degree
repugnant to your feelings, have the courage to give a resolute,
yet mild, denial. Do not, through false shame, through
a vicious modesty, entrap yourself into a situation which
may dye your cheeks with real shame. Say, "No, it will
not be in my power; I cannot:" or, if it be a thing which
you would willingly do, but doubt your ability, take care to
say, "I cannot promise, but, if it be in my power, I will do
it." Remember, too, that no good man will ever exact a
promise of a boy, or a very young person, but for their good;
never for his own benefit. You may safely promise to try
to get so many lines in Virgil, &c.; and if you do honestly
endeavour to effect it, your word is not forfeited. In short,
a promise is always a serious evil to him who gives it; often
to him who receives it; (unless it have his advantage for its
object;) for, putting full faith in it, he takes his measures accordingly,
and is, perchance, thereby ruined. As to the promiser,
he is like the keeper, who amused the spectators of
his lion by putting his head into the animal's mouth. This
he did frequently, and got it out in safety, until, at last, the
lion, in a fit of ill-humour, bit it off. Your word ought to be
dearer to you than your head: beware, then, how you put it
into the lion's mouth. If it were proposed to you to save
your lives by a lie, and either of you had the weakness to
consent, I should pity him, but, at the same time, despise
him from my very soul. From all this, you will readily infer
how dangerous it is to be the depository of a secret.
Curiosity, my dear boys, is a powerful passion, but beware
of entering into stipulations with any one for indulging it. He
who discloses his secret to another, is generally supposed to
do that person a favour; but how falsely, a few moments' consideration
will show. He who offers to confide a secret to
you, takes a great liberty, and, in fact, asks you to do him a
great favour, that of keeping it, which none but a friend has
any claim to do. You would be safer, and act a less foolish
part, to promise to keep his money for him, at your own risk,
and refund what might be lost or stolen, because you would
be sure that it was in your exclusive custody, whereas, the
secret may be, and, probably, has been, intrusted by the possessor
to others besides yourself, and, when he finds it divulged,
you are involved in the general suspicion. But this is not all.
You lay yourself open to embarrassment in many ways. Suppose
William Gerard Hamilton had confided to you that he
was the author of the letters of Junius, and you should be
questioned about it. If Hamilton were your friend, you would
have no hesitation, for it would be your duty, boldly to undertake
the preservation of his secret, and faithfully to perform
it; but why all this for a stranger? unless that stranger
be friendless, and have qualities to recommend him to your
esteem or compassion. Having become the depository of a
secret, it must be preserved, at whatever risk. It cannot be
betrayed without infamy. He who does it is a perjured
traitor. Well! you are asked, "Do you know the author
of Junius?" You may reply, (because it is an unfair question,)
"What right have you to inquire?" But, suppose Hamilton
to be suspected, and you, being in habits of particular
intimacy with him, are supposed to know, and are directly
asked "Is not William Gerard Hamilton the author
of Junius?" What's to be done? If you falter, or are
silent, you betray your friend as effectually as if you answered
affirmatively, "He is." This is a painful predicament,
indeed, to an ingenuous mind. You cannot betray your friend
without incurring the blackest guilt. Your obligation to him
is anterior to the other, and supersedes it; for the condition
upon which you were trusted was that you should not disclose
it, and that condition embraces this very case. You have
then stipulated with him that if you are asked the question,
you will say "NO,' and endeavour to look "NO." This stipulation
is virtually contained in that to keep the secret. Your
part then is decided: you give a firm denial;—the only case
in which it is permitted to violate truth, and that for its preservation.
But, remember, there must be no concealed guilt
in that latent truth. When the Persian youth were taught to
draw the bow, to speak the truth, and to keep a secret, (which,
in fact, is nothing but adhering to the truth, the divulger being,
at once, a liar and a traitor,) they overran all the western
Asia; but when they became corrupt and unfaithful to
their word, a handful of Greeks was an over-match for millions
of them. A liar is always a coward. I have thus, my
dear boys, thrown out, at greater length than I intended, some
principles for your consideration. Keep this letter, and read
it again—but do not show it; not that I am ashamed of it;
but it is not right to show letters, or repeat private conversation,
except in very particular circumstances. Never do it,
until you are old enough to judge of those circumstances, and
then with scrupulous delicacy.

On Saturday, the river was almost as low as it was last
summer, and, by the middle of the next day, there was the
highest fresh that has been known since August, 1795, the
month before you were born, my dear Buona. Do you know
that there are Sorees (vulgo Soarusses) here. I killed one in
the ice-pond, just before I went to Roanoke, and Mr. Woodson
tells me that he has killed four, besides a great many ortolans.
I returned from Roanoke, after a fortnight's absence,
last night, and, whilst there, I killed ortolans in abundance.
This puts me in mind, my dear Theodore, to request that you

will bring me the articles of which you have a list subjoined.
God bless you both, my dear boys.