diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/8hdit10.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/8hdit10.txt | 5155 |
1 files changed, 5155 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/old/8hdit10.txt b/old/8hdit10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6a3a8d3 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/8hdit10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5155 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of How To Do It, by Edward Everett Hale +#2 in our series by Edward Everett Hale + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: How To Do It + +Author: Edward Everett Hale + +Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8904] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on August 22, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO DO IT *** + + + + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +How To Do It. + +By + +Edward Everett Hale. + + + + +Contents. + + + +Chapter I. Introductory.--How We Met +Chapter II. How To Talk +Chapter III. Talk +Chapter IV. How To Write +Chapter V. How To Read. I. +Chapter VI. How To Read. II. +Chapter VII. How To Go Into Society +Chapter VIII. How To Travel +Chapter IX. Life At School +Chapter X. Life In Vacation +Chapter XI. Life Alone +Chapter XII. Habits In Church +Chapter XIII. Life With Children +Chapter XIV. Life With Your Elders +Chapter XV. Habits Of Reading +Chapter XVI. Getting Ready + + + + + +How To Do It. + + + + +Chapter I. + +Introductory.--How We Met. + + + +The papers which are here collected enter in some detail into the success +and failure of a large number of young people of my acquaintance, who are +here named as + + Alice Faulconbridge, + Bob Edmeston, + Clara, + Clem Waters, + Edward Holiday, + Ellen Liston, + Emma Fortinbras, + Enoch Putnam, _brother of_ Horace, + Esther, + Fanchon, + Fanny, _cousin to_ Hatty Fielding + Florence, + Frank, + George Ferguson (Asaph Ferguson's _brother_), + Hatty Fielding, + Herbert, + Horace Putnam, + Horace Felltham (_a very different person_), + Jane Smith, + Jo Gresham, + Laura Walter, + Maud Ingletree, + Oliver Ferguson, _brother to_ Asaph _and_ George, + Pauline, + Rachel, + Robert, + Sarah Clavers, + Stephen, + Sybil, + Theodora, + Tom Rising, + Walter, + William Hackmatack, + William Withers. + +It may be observed that there are thirty-four of them. They make up a +very nice set, or would do so if they belonged together. But, in truth, +they live in many regions, not to say countries. None of them are too +bright or too stupid, only one of them is really selfish, all but one or +two are thoroughly sorry for their faults when they commit them, and all +of them who are good for anything think of themselves very little. There +are a few who are approved members of the Harry Wadsworth Club. That means +that they "look up and not down," they "look forward and not back," they +"look out and not in," and they "lend a hand." These papers were first +published, much as they are now collected, in the magazine "Our Young +Folks," and in that admirable weekly paper "The Youth's Companion," which +is held in grateful remembrance by a generation now tottering off the +stage, and welcomed, as I see, with equal interest by the grandchildren as +they totter on. From time to time, therefore, as the different series have +gone on, I have received pleasant notes from other young people, whose +acquaintance I have thus made with real pleasure, who have asked more +explanation as to the points involved. I have thus been told that my +friend, Mr. Henry Ward Beecher, is not governed by all my rules for young +people's composition, and that Miss Throckmorton, the governess, does not +believe Archbishop Whately is infallible. I have once and again been asked +how I made the acquaintance of such a nice set of children. And I can well +believe that many of my young correspondents would in that matter be glad +to be as fortunate as I. + +Perhaps, then, I shall do something to make the little book more +intelligible, and to connect its parts, if in this introduction I tell of +the one occasion when the _dramatis personae_ met each other; and in order +to that, if I tell how they all met me. + +First of all, then, my dear young friends, I began active life, as soon as +I had left college, as I can well wish all of you might do. I began in +keeping school. Not that I want to have any of you do this long, unless an +evident fitness or "manifest destiny" appear so to order. But you may be +sure that, for a year or two of the start of life, there is nothing that +will teach you your own ignorance so well as having to teach children the +few things you know, and to answer, as best you can, their questions on +all grounds. There was poor Jane, on the first day of that charming visit +at the Penroses, who was betrayed by the simplicity and cordiality of the +dinner-table--where she was the youngest of ten or twelve strangers--into +taking a protective lead of all the conversation, till at the very last I +heard her explaining to dear Mr. Tom Coram himself,--a gentleman who had +lived in Java ten years,--that coffee-berries were red when they were +ripe. I was sadly mortified for my poor Jane as Tom's eyes twinkled. She +would never have got into that rattletrap way of talking if she had kept +school for two years. Here, again, is a capital letter from Oliver +Ferguson, Asaph's younger brother, describing his life on the Island at +Paris all through the siege. I should have sent it yesterday to Mr. +Osgood, who would be delighted to print it in the Atlantic Monthly, but +that the spelling is disgraceful. Mr. Osgood and Mr. Howells would think +Oliver a fool before they had read down the first page. "L-i-n, lin, +n-e-n, nen, linen." Think of that! Oliver would never have spelled "linen" +like that if he had been two years a teacher. You can go through four +years at Harvard College spelling so, but you cannot go through two years +as a schoolmaster. + +Well, I say I was fortunate enough to spend two years as an assistant +schoolmaster at the old Boston Latin School,--the oldest institution of +learning, as we are fond of saying, in the United States. And there first +I made my manhood's acquaintance with boys. + +"Do you think," said dear Dr. Malone to me one day, "that my son Robert +will be too young to enter college next August?" "How old will he be?" +said I, and I was told. Then as Robert was at that moment just six months +younger than I, who had already graduated, I said wisely, that I thought +he would do, and Dr. Malone chuckled, I doubt not, as I did certainly, at +the gravity of my answer. A nice set of boys I had. I had above me two of +the most loyal and honorable of gentlemen, who screened me from all +reproof for my blunders. My discipline was not of the best, but my +purposes were; and I and the boys got along admirably. + +It was the old schoolhouse. I believe I shall explain in another place, +in this volume, that it stood where Parker's Hotel stands, and my room +occupied the spot in space where you, Florence, and you, Theodora, dined +with your aunt Dorcas last Wednesday before you took the cars for +Andover,--the ladies' dining-room looking on what was then Cook's Court, +and is now Chapman Place. Who Cook was I know not. The "Province Street" +of to-day was then much more fitly called "Governor's Alley." For boys +do not know that that minstrel-saloon so long known as "Ordway's," just +now changed into Sargent's Hotel, was for a century, more or less, the +official residence of the Governor of Massachusetts. It was the +"Province House." + +On the top of it, for a weathercock, was the large mechanical brazen +Indian, who, whenever he heard the Old South clock strike twelve, shot off +his brazen arrow. The little boys used to hope to see this. But just as +twelve came was the bustle of dismissal, and I have never seen one who did +see him, though for myself I know he did as was said, and have never +questioned it. That opportunity, however, was up stairs, in Mr. Dixwell's +room. In my room, in the basement, we had no such opportunity. + +The glory of our room was that it was supposed, rightly or not, that a +part of it was included in the old schoolhouse which was there before the +Revolution. There were old men still living who remembered the troublous +times, the times that stirred boys' souls, as the struggle for +independence began. I have myself talked with Jonathan Darby Robbins, who +was himself one of the committee who waited on the British general to +demand that their coasting should not be obstructed. There is a reading +piece about it in one of the school-books. This general was not Gage, as +he is said to be in the histories, but General Haldimand; and his +quarters were at the house which stood nearly where Franklin's statue +stands now, just below King's Chapel. His servant had put ashes on the +coast which the boys had made, on the sidewalk which passes the Chapel as +you go down School Street. When the boys remonstrated, the servant +ridiculed them,--he was not going to mind a gang of rebel boys. So the +boys, who were much of their fathers' minds, appointed a committee, of +whom my friend was one, to wait on General Haldimand himself. They called +on him, and they told him that coasting was one of their inalienable +rights and that he must not take it away. The General knew too well that +the people of the town must not be irritated to take up his servant's +quarrel, and he told the boys that their coast should not be interfered +with. So they carried their point. The story-book says that he clasped his +hands and said, "Heavens! Liberty is in the very air! Even these boys +speak of their rights as do their patriot sires!" But of this Mr. Robbins +told me nothing, and as Haldimand was a Hessian, of no great enthusiasm +for liberty, I do not, for my part, believe it. + +The morning of April 19, 1775, Harrison Gray Otis, then a little boy of +eight years old, came down Beacon Street to school, and found a brigade of +red-coats in line along Common Street,--as Tremont Street was then +called,--so that he could not cross into School Street. They were Earl +Percy's brigade. Class in history, where did Percy's brigade go that day, +and what became of them before night? A red-coat corporal told the Otis +boy to walk along Common Street, and not try to cross the line. So he did. +He went as far as Scollay's Building before he could turn their flank, +then he went down to what you call Washington Street, and came up to +school,--late. Whether his excuse would have been sufficient I do not +know. He was never asked for it. He came into school just in time to hear +old Lovel, the Tory schoolmaster, say, "War's begun and school's done. +_Dimittite libros_"--which means, "Put away your books." They put them +away, and had a vacation of a year and nine months thereafter, before the +school was open again. + +Well, in this old school I had spent four years of my boyhood, and here, +as I say, my manhood's acquaintance with boys began. I taught them Latin, +and sometimes mathematics. Some of them will remember a famous Latin poem +we wrote about Pocahontas and John Smith. All of them will remember how +they capped Latin verses against the master, twenty against one, and put +him down. These boys used to cluster round my table at recess and talk. +Danforth Newcomb, a lovely, gentle, accurate boy, almost always at the +head of his class,--he died young. Shang-hae, San Francisco, Berlin, +Paris, Australia,--I don't know what cities, towns, and countries have the +rest of them. And when they carry home this book for their own boys to +read, they will find some of their boy-stories here. + +Then there was Mrs. Merriam's boarding-school. If you will read the +chapter on travelling you will find about one of the vacations of her +girls. Mrs. Merriam was one of Mr. Ingham's old friends,--and he is a man +with whom I have had a great deal to do. Mrs. Merriam opened a school for +twelve girls. I knew her very well, and so it came that I knew her ways +with them. Though it was a boarding-school, still the girls had just as +"good a time" as they had at home, and when I found that some of them +asked leave to spend vacation with her I knew they had better times. I +remember perfectly the day when Mrs. Phillips asked them down to the old +mansion-house, which seems so like home to me, to eat peaches. And it was +determined that the girls should not think they were under any "company" +restraint, so no person but themselves was present when the peaches were +served, and every girl ate as many as for herself she determined best. +When they all rode horseback, Mrs. Merriam and I used to ride together +with these young folks behind or before, as it listed them. So, not +unnaturally, being a friend of the family, I came to know a good many of +them very well. + +For another set of them--you may choose the names to please +yourselves--the history of my relationship goes back to the Sunday school +of the Church of the Unity in Worcester. The first time I ever preached in +that church, namely, May 3, 1846, there was but one person in it who had +gray hair. All of us of that day have enough now. But we were a set of +young people, starting on a new church, which had, I assure you, no dust +in the pulpit-cushions. And almost all the children were young, as you may +suppose. The first meeting of the Sunday school showed, I think, +thirty-six children, and more of them were under nine than over. They are +all twenty-five years older now than they were then. Well, we started +without a library for the Sunday school. But in a corner of my study Jo +Matthews and I put up some three-cornered shelves, on which I kept about a +hundred books such as children like, and young people who are no longer +children; and then, as I sat reading, writing, or stood fussing over my +fuchsias or labelling the mineralogical specimens, there would come in one +or another nice girl or boy, to borrow a "Rollo" or a "Franconia," or to +see if Ellen Liston had returned "Amy Herbert." And so we got very good +chances to find each other out. It is not a bad plan for a young minister, +if he really want to know what the young folk of his parish are. I know +it was then and there that I conceived the plan of writing "Margaret +Percival in America" as a sequel to Miss Sewell's "Margaret Percival," and +that I wrote my half of that history. + +The Worcester Sunday school grew beyond thirty-six scholars; and I have +since had to do with two other Sunday schools, where, though the children +did not know it, I felt as young as the youngest of them all. And in that +sort of life you get chances to come at nice boys and nice girls which +most people in the world do not have. + +And the last of all the congresses of young people which I will name, +where I have found my favorites, shall be the vacation congresses,--when +people from all the corners of the world meet at some country hotel, and +wonder who the others are the first night, and, after a month, wonder +again how they ever lived without knowing each other as brothers and +sisters. I never had a nicer time than that day when we celebrated +Arthur's birthday by going up to Greely's Pond. "Could Amelia walk so +far? She only eight years old, and it was the whole of five miles by a +wood-road, and five miles to come back again." Yes, Amelia was certain she +could. Then, "whether Arthur could walk so far, he being nine." Why, of +course he could if Amelia could. So eight-year-old, nine-year-old, +ten-year-old, eleven-year-old, and all the rest of the ages,--we tramped +off together, and we stumbled over the stumps, and waded through the mud, +and tripped lightly, like Somnambula in the opera, over the log bridges, +which were single logs and nothing more, and came successfully to Greely's +Pond,--beautiful lake of Egeria that it is, hidden from envious and lazy +men by forest and rock and mountain. And the children of fifty years old +and less pulled off shoes and stockings to wade in it; and we caught in +tin mugs little seedling trouts not so long as that word "seedling" is on +the page, and saw them swim in the mugs and set them free again; and we +ate the lunches with appetites as of Arcadia; and we stumped happily home +again, and found, as we went home, all the sketch-books and bait-boxes +and neckties which we had lost as we went up. On a day like that you get +intimate, if you were not intimate before. + +O dear! don't you wish you were at Waterville now? + +Now, if you please, my dear Fanchon, we will not go any further into the +places where I got acquainted with the heroes and heroines of this book. +Allow, of those mentioned here, four to the Latin school, five to the +Unity Sunday school, six to the South Congregational, seven to vacation +acquaintance, credit me with nine children of my own and ten brothers and +sisters, and you will find no difficulty in selecting who of these are +which of those, if you have ever studied the science of "Indeterminate +Analysis" in Professor Smythe's Algebra. + +"Dear Mr. Hale, you are making fun of us. We never know when you are +in earnest." + +Do not be in the least afraid, dear Florence. Remember that a central rule +for comfort in life is this, "Nobody was ever written down an ass, except +by himself." + +Now I will tell you how and when the particular thirty-four names above +happened to come together. + +We were, a few of us, staying at the White Mountains. I think no New +England summer is quite perfect unless you stay at least a day in the +White Mountains. "Staying in the White Mountains" does not mean climbing on +top of a stage-coach at Centre Harbor, and riding by day and by night for +forty-eight hours till you fling yourself into a railroad-car at +Littleton, and cry out that "you have done them." No. It means just living +with a prospect before your eye of a hundred miles' radius, as you may +have at Bethlehem or the Flume; or, perhaps, a valley and a set of hills, +which never by accident look twice the same, as you may have at the Glen +House or Dolly Cop's or at Waterville; or with a gorge behind the house, +which you may thread and thread and thread day in and out, and still not +come out upon the cleft rock from which flows the first drop of the lovely +stream, as you may do at Jackson. It means living front to front, lip to +lip, with Nature at her loveliest, Echo at her most mysterious, with +Heaven at its brightest and Earth at its greenest, and, all this time, +breathing, with every breath, an atmosphere which is the elixir of life, +so pure and sweet and strong. At Greely's you are, I believe, on the +highest land inhabited in America. That land has a pure air upon it. Well, +as I say, we were staying in the White Mountains. Of course the young +folks wanted to go up Mount Washington. We had all been up Osceola and +Black Mountain, and some of us had gone up on Mount Carter, and one or two +had been on Mount Lafayette. But this was as nothing till we had stood on +Mount Washington himself. So I told Hatty Fielding and Laura to go on to +the railroad-station and join a party we knew that were going up from +there, while Jo Gresham and Stephen and the two Fergusons and I would go +up on foot by a route I knew from Randolph over the real Mount Adams. +Nobody had been up that particular branch of Israel's run since Channing +and I did in 1841. Will Hackmatack, who was with us, had a blister on his +foot, so he went with the riding party. He said that was the reason, +perhaps he thought so. The truth was he wanted to go with Laura, and +nobody need be ashamed of that any day. + +I spare you the account of Israel's river, and of the lovely little +cascade at its very source, where it leaps out between two rocks. I spare +you the hour when we lay under the spruces while it rained, and the little +birds, ignorant of men and boys, hopped tamely round us. I spare you even +the rainbow, more than a semicircle, which we saw from Mount Adams. +Safely, wetly, and hungry, we five arrived at the Tiptop House about six, +amid the congratulations of those who had ridden. The two girls and Will +had come safely up by the cars,--and who do you think had got in at the +last moment when the train started but Pauline and her father, who had +made a party up from Portland and had with them Ellen Liston and Sarah +Clavers. And who do you think had appeared in the Glen House party, when +they came, but Esther and her mother and Edward Holiday and his father. Up +to this moment of their lives some of these young people had never seen +other some. But some had, and we had not long been standing on the rocks +making out Sebago and the water beyond Portland before they were all very +well acquainted. All fourteen of us went in to supper, and were just +beginning on the goat's milk, when a cry was heard that a party of young +men in uniform were approaching from the head of Tuckerman's Ravine. Jo +and Oliver ran out, and in a moment returned to wrench us all from our +corn-cakes that we might welcome the New Limerick boat-club, who were on a +pedestrian trip and had come up the Parkman Notch that day. Nice, brave +fellows they were,--a little foot-sore. Who should be among them but Tom +himself and Bob Edmeston. They all went and washed, and then with some +difficulty we all got through tea, when the night party from the Notch +House was announced on horseback, and we sallied forth to welcome them. +Nineteen in all, from all nations. Two Japanese princes, and the Secretary +of the Dutch legation, and so on, as usual; but what was not as usual, +jolly Mr. Waters and his jollier wife were there,--she astride on her +saddle, as is the sensible fashion of the Notch House,--and, in the long +stretching line, we made out Clara Waters and Clem, not together, but +Clara with a girl whom she did not know, but who rode better than she, and +had whipped both horses with a rattan she had. And who should this girl be +but Sybil Dyer! + +As the party filed up, and we lifted tired girls and laughing mothers off +the patient horses, I found that a lucky chance had thrown Maud and her +brother Stephen into the same caravan. There was great kissing when my +girls recognized Maud, and when it became generally known that I was +competent to introduce to others such pretty and bright people as she and +Laura and Sarah Clavers were, I found myself very popular, of a sudden, +and in quite general demand. + +And I bore my honors meekly, I assure you. I took nice old Mrs. Van +Astrachan out to a favorite rock of mine to see the sunset, and, what was +more marvellous, the heavy thunder-cloud, which was beating up against the +wind; and I left the young folks to themselves, only aspiring to be a +Youth's Companion. I got Will to bring me Mrs. Van Astrachan's black furs, +as it grew cold, but at last the air was so sharp and the storm clearly so +near, that we were all driven in to that nice, cosey parlor at the Tiptop +House, and sat round the hot stove, not sorry to be sheltered, indeed, +when we heard the heavy rain on the windows. + +We fell to telling stories, and I was telling of the last time I was +there, when, by great good luck, Starr King turned up, having come over +Madison afoot, when I noticed that Hall, one of those patient giants who +kept the house, was called out, and, in a moment more, that he returned +and whispered his partner out. In a minute more they returned for their +rubber capes, and then we learned that a man had staggered into the stable +half frozen and terribly frightened, announcing that he had left some +people lost just by the Lake of the Clouds. Of course, we were all +immensely excited for half an hour or less, when Hall appeared with a +very wet woman, all but senseless, on his shoulder, with her hair hanging +down to the ground. The ladies took her into an inner room, stripped off +her wet clothes, and rubbed her dry and warm, gave her a little brandy, +and dressed her in the dry linens Mrs. Hall kept ready. Who should she +prove to be, of all the world, but Emma Fortinbras! The men of the party +were her father and her brothers Frank and Robert. + +No! that is not all. After the excitement was over they joined us in our +circle round the stove,--and we should all have been in bed, but that Mr. +Hall told such wonderful bear-stories, and it was after ten o'clock that +we were still sitting there. The shower had quite blown over, when a +cheery French horn was heard, and the cheery Hall, who was never +surprised, I believe, rushed out again, and I need not say Oliver rushed +out with him and Jo Gresham, and before long we all rushed out to welcome +the last party of the day. + +These were horseback people, who had come by perhaps the most charming +route of all,--which is also the oldest of all,--from what was Ethan +Crawford's. They did not start till noon. They had taken the storm, +wisely, in a charcoal camp,--and there are worse places,--and then they +had spurred up, and here they were. Who were they? Why, there was an army +officer and his wife, who proved to be Alice Faulconbridge, and with her +was Hatty Fielding's Cousin Fanny, and besides them were Will Withers and +his sister Florence, who had made a charming quartette party with Walter +and his sister Theodora, and on this ride had made acquaintance for the +first time with Colonel Mansfield and Alice. All this was wonderful enough +to me, as Theodora explained it to me when I lifted her off her horse, but +when I found that Horace Putnam and his brother Enoch were in the same +train, I said I did believe in astrology. + +For though I have not named Jane Smith nor Fanchon, that was because you +did not recognize them among the married people in the Crawford House +party,--and I suppose you did not recognize Herbert either. How should +you? But, in truth, here we all were up above the clouds on the night of +the 25th of August. + +Did not those Ethan Crawford people eat as if they had never seen +biscuits? And when at last they were done, Stephen, who had been out in +the stables, came in with a black boy he found there, who had his fiddle; +and as the Colonel Mansfield party came in from the dining-room, Steve +screamed out, "Take your partners for a Virginia Reel." No! I do not know +whose partner was who; only this, that there were seventeen boys and men +and seventeen girls or women, besides me and Mrs. Van Astrachan and +Colonel Mansfield and Pauline's mother. And we danced till for one I was +almost dead, and then we went to bed, to wake up at five in the morning to +see the sunrise. + +As we sat on the rocks, on the eastern side, I introduced Stephen to +Sybil Dyer,--the last two who had not known each other. And I got talking +with a circle of young folks about what the communion of saints +is,--meaning, of course, just such unselfish society as we had there. And +so dear Laura said, "Why will you not write us down something of what you +are saying, Mr. Hale?" And Jo Gresham said, "Pray do,--pray do; if it +were only to tell us + +"HOW TO DO IT." + + + + +Chapter II. + + + +I wish the young people who propose to read any of these papers to +understand to whom they are addressed. My friend, Frederic Ingham, has a +nephew, who went to New York on a visit, and while there occupied himself +in buying "travel-presents" for his brothers and sisters at home. His +funds ran low; and at last he found that he had still three presents to +buy and only thirty-four cents with which to buy them. He made the +requisite calculation as to how much he should have for each,--looked in +at Ball and Black's, and at Tiffany's, priced an amethyst necklace, which +he thought Clara would like, and a set of cameos for Fanfan, and found +them beyond his reach. He then tried at a nice little toy-shop there is a +little below the Fifth Avenue House, on the west, where a "clever" woman +and a good-natured girl keep the shop, and, having there made one or two +vain endeavors to suit himself, asked the good-natured girl if she had +not "got anything a fellow could buy for about eleven cents." She found +him first one article, then another, and then another. Wat bought them +all, and had one cent in his pocket when he came home. + +In much the same way these several articles of mine have been waiting in +the bottom of my inkstand and the front of my head for seven or nine +years, without finding precisely the right audience or circle of readers. +I explained to Mr. Fields--the amiable Sheik of the amiable tribe who +prepare the "Young Folks" for the young folks--that I had six articles all +ready to write, but that they were meant for girls say from thirteen to +seventeen, and boys say from fourteen to nineteen. I explained that girls +and boys of this age never read the "Atlantic," O no, not by any means! +And I supposed that they never read the "Young Folks," O no, not by any +means! I explained that I could not preach them as sermons, because many +of the children at church were too young, and a few of the grown people +were too old. That I was, therefore, detailing them in conversation to +such of my young friends as chose to hear. On which the Sheik was so good +as to propose to provide for me, as it were, a special opportunity, which +I now use. We jointly explain to the older boys and girls, who rate +between the ages of thirteen and nineteen, that these essays are +exclusively for them. + +I had once the honor--on the day after Lee's surrender--to address the +girls of the 12th Street School in New York. "Shall I call you 'girls' or +'young ladies'?" said I. "Call us girls, call us girls," was the unanimous +answer. I heard it with great pleasure; for I took it as a nearly certain +sign that these three hundred young people were growing up to be true +women,--which is to say, ladies of the very highest tone. + +"Why did I think so?" Because at the age of fifteen, sixteen, and +seventeen they took pleasure in calling things by their right names. + +So far, then, I trust we understand each other, before any one begins to +read these little hints of mine, drawn from forty-five years of very quiet +listening to good talkers; which are, however, nothing more than hints. + + + +How To Talk. + + +Here is a letter from my nephew Tom, a spirited, modest boy of seventeen, +who is a student of the Scientific School at New Limerick. He is at home +with his mother for an eight weeks' vacation; and the very first evening +of his return he went round with her to the Vandermeyers', where was a +little gathering of some thirty or forty people,--most of them, as he +confesses, his old schoolmates, a few of them older than himself. But poor +Tom was mortified, and thinks he was disgraced, because he did not have +anything to say, could not say it if he had, and, in short, because he +does not talk well. He hates talking parties, he says, and never means to +go to one again. + +Here is also a letter from Esther W., who may speak for herself, and the +two may well enough be put upon the same file, and be answered together:-- + +"Please listen patiently to a confession. I have what seems to me very +natural,--a strong desire to be liked by those whom I meet around me in +society of my own age; but, unfortunately, when with them my manners have +often been unnatural and constrained, and I have found myself thinking of +myself, and what others were thinking of me, instead of entering into the +enjoyment of the moment as others did. I seem to have naturally very +little independence, and to be very much afraid of other people, and of +their opinion. And when, as you might naturally infer from the above, I +often have not been successful in gaining the favor of those around me, +then I have spent a great deal of time in the selfish indulgence of 'the +blues,' and in philosophizing on the why and the wherefore of some +persons' agreeableness and popularity and others' unpopularity." + +There, is not that a good letter from a nice girl? + +Will you please to see, dear Tom, and you also, dear Esther, that both of +you, after the fashion of your age, are confounding the method with the +thing. You see how charmingly Mrs. Pallas sits back and goes on with her +crochet while Dr. Volta talks to her; and then, at the right moment, she +says just the right thing, and makes him laugh, or makes him cry, or makes +him defend himself, or makes him explain himself; and you think that there +is a particular knack or rule for doing this so glibly, or that she has a +particular genius for it which you are not born to, and therefore you both +propose hermitages for yourselves because you cannot do as she does. Dear +children, it would be a very stupid world if anybody in it did just as +anybody else does. There is no particular method about talking or talking +well. It is one of the things in life which "does itself." And the only +reason why you do not talk as easily and quite as pleasantly as Mrs. +Pallas is, that you are thinking of the method, and coming to me to +inquire how to do that which ought to do itself perfectly, simply, and +without any rules at all. + +It is just as foolish girls at school think that there is some particular +method of drawing with which they shall succeed, while with all other +methods they have failed. "No, I can't draw in india-ink [pronounced +in-jink], 'n' I can't do anything with crayons,--I hate crayons,--'n' I +can't draw pencil-drawings, 'n' I won't try any more; but if this tiresome +old Mr. Apelles was not so obstinate, 'n' would only let me try the +'monochromatic drawing,' I know I could do that. 'T so easy. Julia Ann, +she drew a beautiful piece in only six lessons." + +My poor Pauline, if you cannot see right when you have a crayon in your +hand, and will not draw what you see then, no "monochromatic system" is +going to help you. But if you will put down on the paper what you see, as +you see it, whether you do it with a cat's tail, as Benjamin West did it, +or with a glove turned inside out, as Mr. Hunt bids you do it, you will +draw well. The method is of no use, unless the thing is there; and when +you have the thing, the method will follow. + +So there is no particular method for talking which will not also apply to +swimming or skating, or reading or dancing, or in general to living. And +if you fail in talking, it is because you have not yet applied in talking +the simple master-rules of life. + +For instance, the first of these rules is, + + + Tell the Truth. + +Only last night I saw poor Bob Edmeston, who has got to pull through a +deal of drift-wood before he gets into clear water, break down completely +in the very beginning of his acquaintance with one of the nicest girls I +know, because he would not tell the truth, or did not. I was standing +right behind them, listening to Dr. Ollapod, who was explaining to me the +history of the second land-grant made to Gorges, and between the sentences +I had a chance to hear every word poor Bob said to Laura. Mark now, Laura +is a nice clever girl, who has come to make the Watsons a visit through +her whole vacation at Poughkeepsie; and all the young people are delighted +with her pleasant ways, and all of them would be glad to know more of her +than they do. Bob really wants to know her, and he was really glad to be +introduced to her. Mrs. Pollexfen presented him to her, and he asked her +to dance, and they stood on the side of the cotillon behind me and in +front of Dr. Ollapod. After they had taken their places, Bob said: "Jew go +to the opera last week, Miss Walter?" He meant, "Did you go to the opera +last week?" + +"No," said Laura, "I did not." + +"O, 't was charming!" said Bob. And there this effort at talk stopped, as +it should have done, being founded on nothing but a lie; which is to say, +not founded at all. For, in fact, Bob did not care two straws about the +opera. He had never been to it but once, and then he was tired before it +was over. But he pretended he cared for it. He thought that at an evening +party he must talk about the opera, and the lecture season, and the +assemblies, and a lot of other trash, about which in fact he cared +nothing, and so knew nothing. Not caring and not knowing, he could not +carry on his conversation a step. The mere fact that Miss Walter had shown +that she was in real sympathy with him in an indifference to the opera +threw him off the track which he never should have been on, and brought +his untimely conversation to an end. + +Now, as it happened, Laura's next partner brought her to the very same +place, or rather she never left it, but Will Hackmatack came and claimed +her dance as soon as Bob's was done. Dr. Ollapod had only got down to the +appeal made to the lords sitting in equity, when I noticed Will's +beginning. He spoke right out of the thing he was thinking of. + +"I saw you riding this afternoon," he said. + +"Yes," said Laura, "we went out by the red mills, and drove up the hill by +Mr. Pond's." + +"Did you?" said Will, eagerly. "Did you see the beehives?" + +"Beehives? no;--are there beehives?" + +"Why, yes, did not you know that Mr. Pond knows more about bees than +all the world beside? At least, I believe so. He has a gold medal from +Paris for his honey or for something. And his arrangements there are +very curious." + +"I wish I had known it," said Laura. "I kept bees last summer, and they +always puzzled me. I tried to get books; but the books are all written for +Switzerland, or England, or anywhere but Orange County." + +"Well," said the eager Will, "I do not think Mr. Pond has written any +book, but I really guess he knows a great deal about it. Why, he told +me--" &c., &c., &c. + +It was hard for Will to keep the run of the dance; and before it was over +he had promised to ask Mr. Pond when a party of them might come up to the +hill and see the establishment; and he felt as well acquainted with Laura +as if he had known her a month. All this ease came from Will's not +pretending an interest where he did not feel any, but opening simply where +he was sure of his ground, and was really interested. More simply, Will +did not tell a lie, as poor Bob had done in that remark about the opera, +but told the truth. + +If I were permitted to write more than thirty-five pages of this +note-paper (of which this is the nineteenth), I would tell you twenty +stories to the same point. And please observe that the distinction +between the two systems of talk is the eternal distinction between the +people whom Thackeray calls snobs and the people who are gentlemen and +ladies. Gentlemen and ladies are sure of their ground. They pretend to +nothing that they are not. They have no occasion to act one or another +part. It is not possible for them, even in the _choice of subjects_, to +tell lies. + +The principle of selecting a subject which thoroughly interests you +requires only one qualification. You may be very intensely interested in +some affairs of your own; but in general society you have no right to talk +of them, simply because they are not of equal interest to other people. Of +course you may come to me for advice, or go to your master, or to your +father or mother, or to any friend, and in form lay open your own troubles +or your own life, and make these the subject of your talk. But in general +society you have no right to do this. For the rule of life is, that men +and women must not think of themselves, but of others: they must live for +others, and then they will live rightly for themselves. So the second rule +for talk would express itself thus:-- + + + Do Not Talk About Your Own Affairs. + +I remember how I was mortified last summer, up at the Tiptop House, though +I was not in the least to blame, by a display Emma Fortinbras made of +herself. There had gathered round the fire in the sitting-room quite a +group of the different parties who had come up from the different houses, +and we all felt warm and comfortable and social; and, to my real delight, +Emma and her father and her cousin came in,--they had been belated +somewhere. She is a sweet pretty little thing, really the belle of the +village, if we had such things, and we are all quite proud of her in one +way; but I am sorry to say that she is a little goose, and sometimes she +manages to show this just when you don't want her to. Of course she shows +this, as all other geese show themselves, by cackling about things that +interest no one but herself. When she came into the room, Alice ran to her +and kissed her, and took her to the warmest seat, and took her little cold +hands to rub them, and began to ask her how it had all happened, and +where they had been, and all the other questions. Now, you see, this was +a very dangerous position. Poor Emma was not equal to it. The subject was +given her, and so far she was not to blame. But when, from the misfortunes +of the party, she rushed immediately to detail individual misfortunes of +her own, resting principally on the history of a pair of boots which she +had thought would be strong enough to last all through the expedition, and +which she had meant to send to Sparhawk's before she left home to have +their heels cut down, only she had forgotten, and now these boots were +thus and thus, and so and so, and _she_ had no others with her, and _she_ +was sure that _she_ did not know what _she_ should do when _she_ got up in +the morning,--I say, when she got as far as this, in all this thrusting +upon people who wanted to sympathize a set of matters which had no +connection with what interested them, excepting so far as their personal +interest in her gave it, she violated the central rule of life; for she +showed she was thinking of herself with more interest than she thought of +others with. Now to do this is bad living, and it is bad living which +will show itself in bad talking. + +But I hope you see the distinction. If Mr. Agassiz comes to you on the +Field day of the Essex Society, and says: "Miss Fanchon, I understand that +you fell over from the steamer as you came from Portland, and had to swim +half an hour before the boats reached you. Will you be kind enough to tell +me how you were taught to swim, and how the chill of the water affected +you, and, in short, all about your experience?" he then makes choice of +the subject. He asks for all the detail. It is to gratify him that you go +into the detail, and you may therefore go into it just as far as you +choose. Only take care not to lug in one little detail merely because it +interests you, when there is no possibility that, in itself, it can have +an interest for him. + +Have you never noticed how the really provoking silence of these brave men +who come back from the war gives a new and particular zest to what they +tell us of their adventures? We have to worm it out of them, we drag it +from them by pincers, and, when we have it, the flavor is all pure. It is +exactly what we want,--life highly condensed; and they could have given us +indeed nothing more precious, as certainly nothing more charming. But when +some Bobadil braggart volunteers to tell how _he_ did this and that, how +_he_ silenced this battery, and how _he_ rode over that field of carnage, +in the first place we do not believe a tenth part of his story, and in the +second place we wish he would not tell the fraction which we suppose is +possibly true. + +Life is given to us that we may learn how to live. That is what it is for. +We are here in a great boarding-school, where we are being trained in the +use of our bodies and our minds, so that in another world we may know how +to use other bodies and minds with other faculties. Or, if you please, +life is a gymnasium. Take which figure you choose. Because of this, good +talk, following the principle of life, is always directed with a general +desire for learning rather than teaching. No good talker is obtrusive, +thrusting forward his observation on men and things. He is rather +receptive, trying to get at other people's observations; and what he says +himself falls from him, as it were, by accident, he unconscious that he is +saying anything that is worth while. As the late Professor Harris said, +one of the last times I saw him, "There are unsounded depths in a man's +nature of which he himself knows nothing till they are revealed to him by +the plash and ripple of his own conversation with other men." This great +principle of life, when applied in conversation, may be stated simply then +in two words,-- + + Confess Ignorance. + +You are both so young that you cannot yet conceive of the amount of +treasure that will yet be poured in upon you, by all sorts of people, if +you do not go about professing that you have all you want already. You +know the story of the two school-girls on the Central Railroad. They were +dead faint with hunger, having ridden all day without food, but, on +consulting together, agreed that they did not dare to get out at any +station to buy. A modest old doctor of divinity, who was coming home from +a meeting of the "American Board," overheard their talk, got some +sponge-cake, and pleasantly and civilly offered it to them as he might +have done to his grandchildren. But poor Sybil, who was nervous and +anxious, said, "No, thank you," and so Sarah thought she must say, "No, +thank you," too; and so they were nearly dead when they reached the +Delavan House. Now just that same thing happens whenever you pretend, +either from pride or from shyness, that you know the thing you do not +know. If you go on in that way you will be starved before long, and the +coroner's jury will bring in a verdict, "Served you right." I could have +brayed a girl, whom I will call Jane Smith, last night at Mrs. Pollexfen's +party, only I remembered, "Though thou bray a fool in a mortar, his +foolishness will not depart from him," and that much the same may be said +of fools of the other sex. I could have brayed her, I say, when I saw how +she was constantly defrauding herself by cutting off that fine Major +Andrew, who was talking to her, or trying to. Really, no instances give +you any idea of it. From a silly boarding-school habit, I think, she kept +saying "Yes," as if she would be disgraced by acknowledging ignorance. +"You know," said he, "what General Taylor said to Santa Anna, when they +brought him in?" "Yes," simpered poor Jane, though in fact she did not +know, and I do not suppose five people in the world do. But poor Andrew, +simple as a soldier, believed her and did not tell the story, but went on +alluding to it, and they got at once into helpless confusion. Still, he +did not know what the matter was, and before long, when they were speaking +of one of the Muhlbach novels, he said, "Did you think of the resemblance +between the winding up and Redgauntlet?" "O yes," simpered poor Jane +again, though, as it proved, and as she had to explain in two or three +minutes, she had never read a word of Redgauntlet. She had merely said +"Yes," and "Yes," and "Yes" not with a distinct notion of fraud, but from +an impression that it helps conversation on if you forever assent to what +is said. This is an utter mistake; for, as I hope you see by this time, +conversation really depends on the acknowledgment of ignorance,--being, +indeed, the providential appointment of God for the easy removal of such +ignorance. + +And here I must stop, lest you both be tired. In my next paper I shall +begin again, and teach you, 4. To talk to the person you are talking with, +and not simper to her or him, while really you are looking all round the +room, and thinking of ten other persons; 5. Never in any other way to +underrate the person you talk with, but to talk your best, whatever that +may be; and, 6. To be brief,--a point which I shall have to illustrate at +great length. + +If you like, you may confide to the Letter-Box your experiences on these +points, as well as on the three on which we have already been engaged. +But, whether you do or do not, I shall give to you the result, not only of +my experiences, but of at least 5,872 years of talk--Lyell says many +more--since Adam gave names to chattering monkeys. + + + + +Chapter III. + +Talk. + + + +May I presume that all my young friends between this and Seattle have +read paper Number Two? First class in geography, where is Seattle? Eight. +Go up. Have you all read, and inwardly considered, the three rules, "Tell +the truth"; "Talk not of yourself"; and "Confess ignorance"? Have you all +practised them, in moonlight sleigh-ride by the Red River of the +North,--in moonlight stroll on the beach by St. Augustine,--in evening +party at Pottsville,--and at the parish sociable in Northfield? Then you +are sure of the benefits which will crown your lives if you obey these +three precepts; and you will, with unfaltering step, move quickly over +the kettle-de-benders of this broken essay, and from the thistle, danger, +will pluck the three more flowers which I have promised. I am to teach +you, fourth,-- + + + To Talk To The Person Who Is Talking To You. + +This rule is constantly violated by fools and snobs. Now you might as well +turn your head away when you shoot at a bird, or look over your shoulder +when you have opened a new book,--instead of looking at the bird, or +looking at the book,--as lapse into any of the habits of a man who +pretends to talk to one person while he is listening to another, or +watching another, or wondering about another. If you really want to hear +what Jo Gresham is saying to Alice Faulconbridge, when they are standing +next you in the dance, say so to Will Withers, who is trying to talk with +you. You can say pleasantly, "Mr. Withers, I want very much to overhear +what Mr. Gresham is saying, and if you will keep still a minute, I think I +can." Then Will Withers will know what to do. You will not be preoccupied, +and perhaps you may be able to hear something you were not meant to know. + +At this you are disgusted. You throw down the book at once, and say you +will not read any more. You cannot think why this hateful man supposes +that you would do anything so mean. + +Then why do you let Will Withers suppose so? All he can tell is what you +show him. If you will listen while he speaks, so as to answer +intelligently, and will then speak to him as if there were no other +persons in the room, he will know fast enough that you are talking to him. +But if you just say "yes," and "no," and "indeed," and "certainly," in +that flabby, languid way in which some boys and girls I know pretend to +talk sometimes, he will think that you are engaged in thinking of somebody +else, or something else,--unless, indeed, he supposes that you are not +thinking of anything, and that you hardly know what thinking is. + +It is just as bad, when you are talking to another girl, or another girl's +mother, if you take to watching her hair, or the way she trimmed her +frock, or anything else about her, instead of watching what she is saying +as if that were really what you and she are talking for. I could name to +you young women who seem to go into society for the purpose of studying +the milliner's business. It is a very good business, and a very proper +business to study in the right place. I know some very good girls who +would be much improved, and whose husbands would be a great deal happier, +if they would study it to more purpose than they do. But do not study it +while you are talking. No,--not if the Empress Eugénie herself should be +talking to you. [Footnote: This was written in 1869, and I leave it _in +memoriam._ Indeed, in this May of 1871, Eugénie's chances of receiving +Clare at Court again are as good as anybody's, and better than some.] +Suppose, when General Dix has presented you and mamma, the Empress should +see you in the crowd afterwards, and should send that stiff-looking old +gentleman in a court dress across the room, to ask you to come and talk to +her, and should say to you, "Mademoiselle, est-ce que l'on permet aux +jeunes filles Américaines se promener à cheval sans cavalier?" Do you look +her frankly in the face while she speaks, and when she stops, do you +answer her as you would answer Leslie Goldthwaite if you were coming home +from berrying. Don't you count those pearls that the Empress has tied +round her head, nor think how you can make a necktie like hers out of that +old bit of ribbon that you bought in Syracuse. Tell her, in as good French +or as good English as you can muster, what she asks; and if, after you +have answered her lead, she plays again, do you play again; and if she +plays again, do you play again,--till one or other of you takes the trick. +But do you think of nothing else, while the talk goes on, but the subject +she has started, and of her; do not think of yourself, but address +yourself to the single business of meeting her inquiry as well as you can. +Then, if it becomes proper for you to ask her a question, you may. But +remember that conversation is what you are there for,--not the study of +millinery, or fashion, or jewelry, or politics. + +Why, I have known men who, while they were smirking, and smiling, and +telling other lies to their partners, were keeping the calendar of the +whole room,--knew who was dancing with whom, and who was looking at +pictures, and that Brown had sent up to the lady of the house to tell her +that supper was served, and that she was just looking for her husband that +he might offer Mrs. Grant his arm and take her down stairs. But do you +think their partners liked to be treated so? Do you think their partners +were worms, who liked to be trampled upon? Do you think they were +pachydermatous coleoptera of the dor tribe, who had just fallen from +red-oak trees, and did not know that they were trampled upon? You are +wholly mistaken. Those partners were of flesh and blood, like you,--of the +same blood with you, cousins-german of yours on the Anglo-Saxon side,--and +they felt just as badly as you would feel if anybody talked to you while +he was thinking of the other side of the room. + +And I know a man who is, it is true, one of the most noble and unselfish +of men, but who had made troops of friends long before people had found +that out. Long before he had made his present fame, he had found these +troops of friends. When he was a green, uncouth, unlicked cub of a boy, +like you, Stephen, he had made them. And do you ask how? He had made them +by listening with all his might. Whoever sailed down on him at an evening +party and engaged him--though it were the most weary of odd old +ladies--was sure, while they were together, of her victim. He would look +her right in the eye, would take in her every shrug and half-whisper, +would enter into all her joys and terrors and hopes, would help her by his +sympathy to find out what the trouble was, and, when it was his turn to +answer, he would answer like her own son. Do you wonder that all the old +ladies loved him? And it was no special court to old ladies. He talked so +to school-boys, and to shy people who had just poked their heads out of +their shells, and to all the awkward people, and to all the gay and easy +people. And so he compelled them, by his magnetism, to talk so to him. +That was the way he made his first friends,--and that was the way, I +think, that he deserved them. + +Did you notice how badly I violated this rule when Dr. Ollapod talked to +me of the Gorges land-grants, at Mrs. Pollexfen's? I got very badly +punished, and I deserved what I got, for I had behaved very ill. I ought +not to have known what Edmeston said, or what Will Hackmatack said. I +ought to have been listening, and learning about the Lords sitting in +Equity. Only the next day Dr. Ollapod left town without calling on me, he +was so much displeased. And when, the next week, I was lecturing in +Naguadavick, and the mayor of the town asked me a very simple question +about the titles in the third range, I knew nothing about it and was +disgraced. So much for being rude, and not attending to the man who was +talking to me. + +Now do not tell me that you cannot attend to stupid people, or long-winded +people, or vulgar people. You can attend to anybody, if you will remember +who he is. How do you suppose that Horace Felltham attends to these old +ladies, and these shy boys? Why, he remembers that they are all of the +blood-royal. To speak very seriously, he remembers whose children they +are,--who is their Father. And that is worth remembering. It is not of +much consequence, when you think of that, who made their clothes, or what +sort of grammar they speak in. This rule of talk, indeed, leads to our +next rule, which, as I said of the others, is as essential in conversation +as it is in war, in business, in criticism, or in any other affairs of +men. It is based on the principle of rightly honoring all men. For talk, +it may be stated thus:-- + + Never Underrate Your Interlocutor. + +In the conceit of early life, talking to a man of thrice my age, and of +immense experience, I said, a little too flippantly, "Was it not the +King of Wurtemberg whose people declined a constitution when he had +offered it to them?" + +"Yes," said my friend, "the King told me the story himself." + +Observe what a rebuke this would have been to me, had I presumed to tell +him the fact which he knew ten times as accurately as I. I was just saved +from sinking into the earth by having couched my statement in the form of +a question. The truth is, that we are all dealing with angels unawares, +and we had best make up our minds to that, early in our interviews. One of +the first of preachers once laid down the law of preaching thus: "Preach +as if you were preaching to archangels." This means, "Say the very best +thing you know, and never condescend to your audience." And I once heard +Mr. William Hunt, who is one of the first artists, say to a class of +teachers, "I shall not try to adapt myself to your various lines of +teaching. I will tell you the best things I know, and you may make the +adaptations." If you will boldly try the experiment of entering, with +anybody you have to talk with, on the thing which at the moment interests +you most, you will find out that other people's hearts are much like your +heart, other people's experiences much like yours, and even, my dear +Justin, that some other people know as much as you know. In short, never +talk down to people; but talk to them from your best thought and your best +feeling, without trying for it on the one hand, but without rejecting it +on the other. + +You will be amazed, every time you try this experiment, to find how often +the man or the woman whom you first happen to speak to is the very person +who can tell you just what you want to know. My friend Ingham, who is a +working minister in a large town, says that when he comes from a house +where everything is in a tangle, and all wrong, he knows no way of +righting things but by telling the whole story, without the names, in the +next house he happens to call at in his afternoon walk. He says that if +the Windermeres are all in tears because little Polly lost their +grandmother's miniature when she was out picking blueberries, and if he +tells of their loss at the Ashteroths' where he calls next, it will be +sure that the daughter of the gardener of the Ashteroths will have found +the picture of the Windermeres. Remember what I have taught you,--that +conversation is the providential arrangement for the relief of ignorance. +Only, as in all medicine, the patient must admit that he is ill, or he can +never be cured. It is only in "Patronage,"--which I am so sorry you boys +and girls will not read,--and in other poorer novels, that the leech +cures, at a distance, patients who say they need no physician. Find out +your ignorance, first; admit it frankly, second; be ready to recognize +with true honor the next man you meet, third; and then, presto!--although +it were needed that the floor of the parlor should open, and a little +black-bearded Merlin be shot up like Jack in a box, as you saw in +Humpty-Dumpty,--the right person, who knows the right thing, will appear, +and your ignorance will be solved. + +What happened to me last week when I was trying to find the History of +Yankee Doodle? Did it come to me without my asking? Not a bit of it. +Nothing that was true came without my asking. Without my asking, there +came that stuff you saw in the newspapers, which said Yankee Doodle was a +Spanish air. That was not true. This was the way I found out what was +true. I confessed my ignorance; and, as Lewis at Bellombre said of that +ill-mannered Power, I had a great deal to confess. What I knew was, that +in "American Anecdotes" an anonymous writer said a friend of his had seen +the air among some Roundhead songs in the collection of a friend of his at +Cheltenham, and that this air was the basis of Yankee Doodle. What was +more, there was the old air printed. But then that story was good for +nothing till you could prove it. A Methodist minister came to Jeremiah +Mason, and said, "I have seen an angel from heaven who told me that your +client was innocent." "Yes," said Mr. Mason, "and did he tell you how to +prove it?" Unfortunately, in the dear old "American Anecdotes," there was +not the name of any person, from one cover to the other, who would be +responsible for one syllable of its charming stories. So there I was! And +I went through library after library looking for that Roundhead song, and +I could not find it. But when the time came that it was necessary I should +know, I confessed ignorance. Well, after that, the first man I spoke to +said, "No, I don't know anything about it. It is not in my line. But our +old friend Watson knew something about it, or said he did." "Who is +Watson?" said I. "O, he's dead ten years ago. But there's a letter by him +in the Historical Proceedings, which tells what he knew." So, indeed, +there was a letter by Watson. Oddly enough it left out all that was of +direct importance; but it left in this statement, that he, an authentic +person, wrote the dear old "American Anecdote" story. That was something. +So then I gratefully confessed ignorance again, and again, and again. And +I have many friends, so that there were many brave men, and many fair +women, who were extending the various tentacula of their feeling processes +into the different realms of the known and the unknown, to find that lost +scrap of a Roundhead song for me. And so, at last, it was a girl--as old, +say, as the youngest who will struggle as far as this page in the +Cleveland High School--who said, "Why, there is something about it in that +funny English book, 'Gleanings for the Curious,' I found in the Boston +Library." And sure enough, in an article perfectly worthless in itself, +there were the two words which named the printed collection of music which +the other people had forgotten to name. These three books were each +useless alone; but, when brought together, they established a fact. It +took three people in talk to bring the three books together. And if I had +been such a fool that I could not confess ignorance, or such another fool +as to have distrusted the people I met with, I should never have had the +pleasure of my discovery. + +Now I must not go into any more such stories as this, because you will say +I am violating the sixth great rule of talk, which is + + Be Short. + +And, besides, you must know that "they say" (whoever _they_ may be) that +"young folks" like you skip such explanations, and hurry on to the +stories. I do not believe a word of that, but I obey. + +I know one Saint. We will call her Agatha. I used to think she could be +painted for Mary Mother, her face is so passionless and pure and good. I +used to want to make her wrap a blue cloth round her head, as if she were +in a picture I have a print of, and then, if we could only find the +painter who was as pure and good as she, she should be painted as Mary +Mother. Well, this sweet Saint has done lovely things in life, and will do +more, till she dies. And the people she deals with do many more than she. +For her truth and gentleness and loveliness pass into them, and inspire +them, and then, with the light and life they gain from her, they can do +what, with her light and life, she cannot do. For she herself, like all of +us, has her limitations. And I suppose the one reason why, with such +serenity and energy and long-suffering and unselfishness as hers, she does +not succeed better in her own person is that she does not know how to "be +short." We cannot all be or do all things. First boy in Latin, you may +translate that sentence back into Latin, and see how much better it sounds +there than in English. Then send your version to the Letter-Box. + +For instance, it may be Agatha's duty to come and tell me that--what +shall we have it?--say that dinner is ready. Now really the best way but +one to say that is, "Dinner is ready, sir." The best way is, "Dinner, +sir"; for this age, observe, loves to omit the verb. Let it. But really if +St. Agatha, of whom I speak,--the second of that name, and of the +Protestant, not the Roman Canon,--had this to say, she would say: "I am so +glad to see you! I do not want to take your time, I am sure, you have so +many things to do, and you are so good to everybody, but I knew you would +let me tell you this. I was coming up stairs, and I saw your cook, +Florence, you know. I always knew her; she used to live at Mrs. Cradock's +before she started on her journey; and her sister lived with that friend +of mine that I visited the summer Willie was so sick with the mumps, and +she was so kind to him. She was a beautiful woman; her husband would be +away all the day, and, when he came home, she would have a piece of +mince-pie for him, and his slippers warmed and in front of the fire for +him; and, when he was in Cayenne, he died, and they brought his body home +in a ship Frederic Marsters was the captain of. It was there that I met +Florence's sister,--not so pretty as Florence, but I think a nice girl. +She is married now and lives at Ashland, and has two nice children, a boy +and a girl. They are all coming to see us at Thanksgiving. I was so glad +to see that Florence was with you, and I did not know it when I came in, +and when I met her in the entry I was very much surprised, and she saw I +was coming in here, and she said, 'Please, will you tell him that dinner +is ready?'" + +Now it is not simply, you see, that, while an announcement of that nature +goes on, the mutton grows cold, your wife grows tired, the children grow +cross, and that the subjugation of the world in general is set back, so +far as you are all concerned, a perceptible space of time on The Great +Dial. But the tale itself has a wearing and wearying perplexity about it. +At the end you doubt if it is your dinner that is ready, or Fred +Marsters's, or Florence's, or nobody's. Whether there is any real dinner, +you doubt. For want of a vigorous nominative case, firmly governing the +verb, whether that verb is seen or not, or because this firm nominative is +masked and disguised behind clouds of drapery and other rubbish, the best +of stories, thus told, loses all life, interest, and power. + +Leave out then, resolutely. First omit "Speaking of hides," or "That +reminds me of," or "What you say suggests," or "You make me think of," or +any such introductions. Of course you remember what you are saying. You +could not say it if you did not remember it. It is to be hoped, too, that +you are thinking of what you are saying. If you are not, you will not help +the matter by saying you are, no matter if the conversation do have firm +and sharp edges. Conversation is not an essay. It has a right to many +large letters, and many new paragraphs. That is what makes it so much more +interesting than long, close paragraphs like this, which the printers hate +as much as I do, and which they call "_solid matter_" as if to indicate +that, in proportion, such paragraphs are apt to lack the light, ethereal +spirit of all life. + +Second, in conversation, you need not give authorities, if it be only +clear that you are not pretending originality. Do not say, as dear +Pemberton used to, "I have a book at home, which I bought at the sale of +Byles's books, in which there is an account of Parry's first voyage, and +an explanation of the red snow, which shows that the red snow is," &c., +&c., &c. Instead of this say, "Red snow is," &c., &c., &c. Nobody will +think you are producing this as a discovery of your own. When the +authority is asked for, there will be a fit time for you to tell. + +Third, never explain, unless for extreme necessity, who people are. Let +them come in as they do at the play, when you have no play-bill. If what +you say is otherwise intelligible, the hearers will find out, _if it is +necessary_, as perhaps it may not be. Go back, if you please, to my +account of Agatha, and see how much sooner we should all have come to +dinner if she had not tried to explain about all these people. The truth +is, you cannot explain about them. You are led in farther and farther. +Frank wants to say, "George went to the Stereopticon yesterday." Instead +of that he says, "A fellow at our school named George, a brother of Tom +Tileston who goes to the Dwight, and is in Miss Somerby's room,--not the +Miss Somerby that has the class in the Sunday school,--she's at the +Brimmer School,--but her sister,"--and already poor Frank is far from +George, and far from the Stereopticon, and, as I observe, is wandering +farther and farther. He began with George, but, George having suggested +Tom and Miss Somerby, by the same law of thought each of them would have +suggested two others. Poor Frank, who was quite master of his one theme, +George, finds unawares that he is dealing with two, gets flurried, but +plunges on, only to find, in his remembering, that these two have doubled +into four, and then, conscious that in an instant they will be eight, and, +which is worse, eight themes or subjects on which he is not prepared to +speak at all, probably wishes he had never begun. It is certain that every +one else wishes it, whether he does or not. You need not explain. People +of sense understand something. + +Do you remember the illustration of repartee in Miss Edgeworth? It +is this:-- + +Mr. Pope, who was crooked and cross, was talking with a young officer. +The officer said he thought that in a certain sentence an +interrogation-mark was needed. + +"Do you know what an interrogation-mark is?" snarled out the crooked, +cross little man. + +"It is a crooked little thing that asks questions," said the young man. + +And he shut up Mr. Pope for that day. + +But you can see that he would not have shut up Mr. Pope at all if he had +had to introduce his answer and explain it from point to point. If he had +said, "Do you really suppose I do not know? Why, really, as long ago as +when I was at the Charter House School, old William Watrous, who was +master there then,--he had been at the school himself, when he and Ezekiel +Cheever were boys,--told me that a point of interrogation was a little +crooked thing that asks questions." + +The repartee would have lost a good deal of its force, if this unknown +young officer had not learned, 1, not to introduce his remarks; 2, not to +give authorities; and 3, not to explain who people are. These are, +perhaps, enough instances in detail, though they do not in the least +describe all the dangers that surround you. Speaking more generally, avoid +parentheses as you would poison; and more generally yet, as I said at +first, BE SHORT. + +These six rules must suffice for the present. Observe, I am only speaking +of methods. I take it for granted that you are not spiteful, hateful, or +wicked otherwise. I do not tell you, therefore, never to talk scandal, +because I hope you do not need to learn that. I do not tell you never to +be sly, or mean, in talk. If you need to be told that, you are beyond +such training as we can give here. Study well, and practise daily these +six rules, and then you will be prepared for our next instructions,--which +require attention to these rules, as all Life does,--when we shall +consider + +HOW TO WRITE. + + + + +Chapter IV. + +How To Write. + + + +It is supposed that you have learned your letters, and how to make them. +It is supposed that you have written the school copies, from + + _Apes and Amazons aim at Art_ + +down to + + _Zanies and Zodiacs are the zest of Zoroaster_ + +It is supposed that you can mind your p's and q's, and, as Harriet Byron +said of Charles Grandison, in the romance which your great-grandmother +knew by heart, "that you can spell well." Observe the advance of the +times, dear Stephen. That a gentleman should spell well was the only +literary requisition which the accomplished lady of his love made upon him +a hundred years ago. And you, if you go to Mrs. Vandermeyer's party +to-night, will be asked by the fair Marcia, what is your opinion as to the +origin of the Myth of Ceres! + +These things are supposed. It is also supposed that you have, at heart and +in practice, the essential rules which have been unfolded in Chapters II. +and III. As has been already said, these are as necessary in one duty of +life as in another,--in writing a President's message as in finding your +way by a spotted trail, from Albany to Tamworth. + +These things being supposed, we will now consider the special needs for +writing, as a gentleman writes, or a lady, in the English language, which +is, fortunately for us, the best language of them all. + +I will tell you, first, the first lesson I learned about it; for it was +the best, and was central. My first undertaking of importance in this line +was made when I was seven years old. There was a new theatre, and a prize +of a hundred dollars was offered for an ode to be recited at the +opening,--or perhaps it was only at the opening of the season. Our school +was hard by the theatre, and as we boys were generally short of +spending-money, we conceived the idea of competing for this prize. You can +see that a hundred dollars would have gone a good way in barley-candy and +blood-alleys,--which last are things unknown, perhaps, to Young America +to-day. So we resolutely addressed ourselves to writing for the ode. I was +soon snagged, and found the difficulties greater than I had thought. I +consulted one who has through life been Nestor and Mentor to me,--(Second +class in Greek,--Wilkins, who was Nestor?--Right; go up. Third class in +French,--Miss Clara, who was Mentor?--Right; sit down),--and he replied by +this remark, which I beg you to ponder inwardly, and always act upon:-- + +"Edward," said he, "whenever I am going to write anything, I find it best +to think first what I am going to say." + +In the instruction thus conveyed is a lesson which nine writers out of ten +have never learned. Even the people who write leading articles for the +newspapers do not, half the time, know what they are going to say when +they begin. And I have heard many a sermon which was evidently written by +a man who, when he began, only knew what his first "head" was to be. The +sermon was a sort of riddle to himself, when he started, and he was +curious as to how it would come out. I remember a very worthy gentleman +who sometimes spoke to the Sunday school when I was a boy. He would begin +without the slightest idea of what he was going to say, but he was sure +that the end of the first sentence would help him to the second. This is +an example. + +"My dear young friends, I do not know that I have anything to say to you, +but I am very much obliged to your teachers for asking me to address you +this beautiful morning.--The morning is so beautiful after the refreshment +of the night, that as I walked to church, and looked around and breathed +the fresh air, I felt more than ever what a privilege it is to live in so +wonderful a world.--For the world, dear children, has been all contrived +and set in order for us by a Power so much higher than our own, that we +might enjoy our own lives, and live for the happiness and good of our +brothers and our sisters.--Our brothers and our sisters they are indeed, +though some of them are in distant lands, and beneath other skies, and +parted from us by the broad oceans.--These oceans, indeed, do not so much +divide the world as they unite it. They make it one. The winds which blow +over them, and the currents which move their waters,--all are ruled by a +higher law, that they may contribute to commerce and to the good of +man.--And man, my dear children," &c., &c., &c. + +You see there is no end to it. It is a sort of capping verses with +yourself, where you take up the last word, or the last idea of one +sentence, and begin the next with it, quite indifferent where you come +out, if you only "occupy the time" that is appointed. It is very easy +for you, but, my dear friends, it is very hard for those who read and +who listen! + +The vice goes so far, indeed, that you may divide literature into two +great classes of books. The smaller class of the two consists of the books +written by people who had something to say. They had in life learned +something, or seen something, or done something, which they really wanted +and needed to tell to other people. They told it. And their writings make, +perhaps, a twentieth part of the printed literature of the world. It is +the part which contains all that is worth reading. The other +nineteen-twentieths make up the other class. The people have written just +as you wrote at school when Miss Winstanley told you to bring in your +compositions on "Duty Performed." You had very little to say about "Duty +Performed." But Miss Winstanley expected three pages. And she got +them,--such as they were. + +Our first rule is, then, + + Know What You Want To Say. + +The second rule is, + + Say It. + +That is, do not begin by saying something else, which you think will lead +up to what you want to say. I remember, when they tried to teach me to +sing, they told me to "think of eight and sing seven." That may be a very +good rule for singing, but it is not a good rule for talking, or writing, +or any of the other things that I have to do. I advise you to say the +thing you want to say. When I began to preach, another of my Nestors said +to me, "Edward, I give you one piece of advice. When you have written your +sermon, leave off the introduction and leave off the conclusion. The +introduction seems to me always written to show that the minister can +preach two sermons on one text. Leave that off, then, and it will do for +another Sunday. The conclusion is written to apply to the congregation the +doctrine of the sermon. But, if your hearers are such fools that they +cannot apply the doctrine to themselves, nothing you can say will help +them." In this advice was much wisdom. It consists, you see, in advising +to begin, at the beginning, and to stop when you have done. + +Thirdly, and always, + + Use Your Own Language. + +I mean the language you are accustomed to use in daily life. David did +much better with his sling than he would have done with Saul's sword and +spear. And Hatty Fielding told me, only last week, that she was very sorry +she wore her cousin's pretty brooch to an evening dance, though Fanny had +really forced it on her. Hatty said, like a sensible girl as she is, that +it made her nervous all the time. She felt as if she were sailing under +false colors. If your every-day language is not fit for a letter or for +print, it is not fit for talk. And if, by any series of joking or fun, at +school or at home, you have got into the habit of using slang in talk, +which is not fit for print, why, the sooner you get out of it the better. +Remember that the very highest compliment paid to anything printed is paid +when a person, hearing it read aloud, thinks it is the remark of the +reader made in conversation. Both writer and reader then receive the +highest possible praise. + +It is sad enough to see how often this rule is violated. There are +fashions of writing. Mr. Dickens, in his wonderful use of exaggerated +language, introduced one. And now you can hardly read the court report in +a village paper but you find that the ill-bred boy who makes up what he +calls its "locals" thinks it is funny to write in such a style as this:-- + +"An unfortunate individual who answered to the somewhat well-worn +sobriquet of Jones, and appeared to have been trying some experiments as +to the comparative density of his own skull and the materials of the +sidewalk, made an involuntary appearance before Mr. Justice Smith." + +Now the little fool who writes this does not think of imitating Dickens. +He is only imitating another fool, who was imitating another, who was +imitating another,--who, through a score of such imitations, got the idea +of this burlesque exaggeration from some of Mr. Dickens's earlier writings +of thirty years ago. It was very funny when Mr. Dickens originated it. And +almost always, when he used it, it was very funny. But it is not in the +least funny when these other people use it, to whom it is not natural, and +to whom it does not come easily. Just as this boy says "sobriquet," +without knowing at all what the word means, merely because he has read it +in another newspaper, everybody, in this vein, gets entrapped into using +words with the wrong senses, in the wrong places, and making himself +ridiculous. + +Now it happens, by good luck, that I have, on the table here, a pretty +file of eleven compositions, which Miss Winstanley has sent me, which the +girls in her first class wrote, on the subject I have already named. The +whole subject, as she gave it out, was, "Duty performed is a Rainbow in +the Soul." I think, myself, that the subject was a hard one, and that Miss +Winstanley would have done better had she given them a choice from two +familiar subjects, of which they had lately seen something or read +something. When young people have to do a thing, it always helps them to +give them a choice between two ways of doing it. However, Miss Winstanley +gave them this subject. It made a good deal of growling in the school, +but, when the time came, of course the girls buckled down to the work, +and, as I said before, the three pages wrote themselves, or were written +somehow or other. + +Now I am not going to inflict on you all these eleven compositions. But +there are three of them which, as it happens, illustrate quite distinctly +the three errors against which I have been warning you. I will copy a +little scrap from each of them. First, here is Pauline's. She wrote +without any idea, when she began, of what she was going to say. + + "_Duty performed is a Rainbow in the Soul_. + +"A great many people ask the question, 'What is duty?' and there has +been a great deal written upon the subject, and many opinions have been +expressed in a variety of ways. People have different ideas upon it, and +some of them think one thing and some another. And some have very strong +views, and very decided about it. But these are not always to be the +most admired, for often those who are so loud about a thing are not the +ones who know the most upon a subject. Yet it is all very important, and +many things should be done; and, when they are done, we are all +embowered in ecstasy." + +That is enough of poor Pauline's. And, to tell the truth, she was as much +ashamed when she had come out to this "ecstasy," in first writing what she +called "the plaguy thing," as she is now she reads it from the print. But +she began that sentence, just as she began the whole, with no idea how it +was to end. Then she got aground. She had said, "it is all very +important"; and she did not know that it was better to stop there, if she +had nothing else to say, so, after waiting a good while, knowing that they +must all go to bed at nine, she added, "and many things should be done." +Even then, she did not see that the best thing she could do was to put a +full stop to the sentence. She watched the other girls, who were going +well down their second pages, while she had not turned the leaf, and so, +in real agony, she added this absurd "when they are done, we are all +embowered in ecstasy." The next morning they had to copy the +"compositions." She knew what stuff this was, just as well as you and I +do, but it took up twenty good lines, and she could not afford, she +thought, to leave it out. Indeed, I am sorry to say, none of her +"composition" was any better. She did not know what she wanted to say, +when she had done, any better than when she began. + +Pauline is the same Pauline who wanted to draw in monochromatic drawing. + +Here is the beginning of Sybil's. She is the girl who refused the +sponge-cake when Dr. Throop offered it to her. She had an idea that an +introduction helped along,--and this is her introduction. + + "_Duty performed is a Rainbow in the Soul_. + +"I went out at sunset to consider this subject, and beheld how the +departing orb was scattering his beams over the mountains. Every blade of +grass was gathering in some rays of beauty, every tree was glittering in +the majesty of parting day. + +"I said, 'What is life?--What is duty?' I saw the world folding itself up +to rest. The little flowers, the tired sheep, were turning to their fold. +So the sun went down. He had done his duty, along with the rest." + +And so we got round to "Duty performed," and, the introduction well over, +like the tuning of an orchestra, the business of the piece began. That +little slip about the flowers going into their folds was one which Sybil +afterwards defended. She said it meant that they folded themselves up. But +it was an oversight when she wrote it; she forgot the flowers, and was +thinking of the sheep. + +Now I think you will all agree with me that the whole composition would +have been better without this introduction. + +Sarah Clavers had a genuine idea, which she had explained to the other +girls much in this way. "I know what Miss Winstanley means. She means +this. When you have had a real hard time to do what you know you ought to +do, when you have made a good deal of fuss about it,--as we all did the +day we had to go over to Mr. Ingham's and beg pardon for disturbing the +Sunday school,--you are so glad it is done, that everything seems nice and +quiet and peaceful, just as when a thunder-storm is really over, only just +a few drops falling, there comes a nice still minute or two with a rainbow +across the sky. That's what Miss Winstanley means, and that's what I am +going to say." + +Now really, if Sarah had said that, without making the sentence +breathlessly long, it would have been a very decent "composition" for such +a subject. But when poor Sarah got her paper before her, she made two +mistakes. First, she thought her school-girl talk was not good enough to +be written down. And, second, she knew that long words took up more room +than short; so, to fill up her three pages, she translated her little +words into the largest she could think of. It was just as Dr. +Schweigenthal, when he wanted to say "Jesus was going to Jerusalem," said, +"The Founder of our religion was proceeding to the metropolis of his +country." That took three times as much room and time, you see. So Sarah +translated her English into the language of the Talkee-talkees; +thus:-- + + "_Duty performed is a Rainbow in the Soul_. + +"It is frequently observed, that the complete discharge of the +obligations pressing upon us as moral agents is attended with conflict +and difficulty. Frequently, therefore, we address ourselves to the +discharge of these obligations with some measure of resistance, perhaps +with obstinacy, and I may add, indeed, with unwillingness. I wish I could +persuade myself that our teacher had forgotten" (Sarah looked on this as +a masterpiece,--a good line of print, which says, as you see, really +nothing) "the afternoon which was so mortifying to all who were +concerned, when her appeal to our better selves, and to our educated +consciousness of what was due to a clergyman, and to the institutions of +religion, made it necessary for several of the young ladies to cross to +the village," (Sarah wished she could have said metropolis,) "and obtain +an interview with the Rev. Mr. Ingham." + +And so the composition goes on. Four full pages there are; but you see how +they were gained,--by a vicious style, wholly false to a frank-spoken girl +like Sarah. She expanded into what fills sixteen lines on this page what, +as she expressed it in conversation, fills only five. + +I hope you all see how one of these faults brings on another. Such is the +way with all faults; they hunt in couples, or often, indeed, in larger +company. The moment you leave the simple wish to say upon paper the thing +you have thought, you are given over to all these temptations, to write +things which, if any one else wrote them, you would say were absurd, as +you say these school-girls' "compositions" are. Here is a good rule of the +real "Nestor" of our time. He is a great preacher; and one day he was +speaking of the advantage of sometimes preaching an old sermon a second +time. "You can change the arrangement," he said. "You can fill in any +point in the argument, where you see it is not as strong as you proposed. +You can add an illustration, if your statement is difficult to understand. +Above all, you can + + "Leave Out All The Fine Passages." + +I put that in small capitals, for one of our rules. For, in nineteen +cases out of twenty, the Fine Passage that you are so pleased with, when +you first write it, is better out of sight than in. Remember Whately's +great maxim, "Nobody knows what good things you leave out." + +Indeed, to the older of the young friends who favor me by reading these +pages I can give no better advice, by the way, than that they read +"Whately's Rhetoric." Read ten pages a day, then turn back, and read +them carefully again, before you put the book by. You will find it a +very pleasant book, and it will give you a great many hints for clear +and simple expression, which you are not so likely to find in any other +way I know. + +Most of you know the difference between Saxon words and Latin words in the +English language. You know there were once two languages in England,--the +Norman French, which William the Conqueror and his men brought in, and the +Saxon of the people who were conquered at that time. The Norman French was +largely composed of words of Latin origin. The English language has been +made up of the slow mixture of these two; but the real stock, out of which +this delicious soup is made, is the Saxon,--the Norman French should only +add the flavor. In some writing, it is often necessary to use the words of +Latin origin. Thus, in most scientific writing, the Latin words more +nicely express the details of the meaning needed. But, to use the Latin +word where you have a good Saxon one is still what it was in the times of +Wamba and of Cedric,--it is to pretend you are one of the conquering +nobility, when, in fact, you are one of the free people, who speak, and +should be proud to speak, not the French, but the English tongue. To those +of you who have even a slight knowledge of French or Latin it will be very +good fun, and a very good exercise, to translate, in some thoroughly bad +author, his Latin words into English. + +To younger writers, or to those who know only English, this may seem too +hard a task. It will be doing much the same thing, if they will try +translating from long words into short ones. + +Here is a piece of weak English. It is not bad in other regards, but +simply weak. + +"Entertaining unlimited confidence in your intelligent and patriotic +devotion to the public interest, and being conscious of no motives on my +part which are not inseparable from the honor and advancement of my +country, I hope it may be my privilege to deserve and secure, not only +your cordial co-operation in great public measures, but also those +relations of mutual confidence and regard which it is always so desirable +to cultivate between members of co-ordinate branches of the government." +[Footnote: From Mr. Franklin Pierce's first message to Congress as +President of the United States.] + +Take that for an exercise in translating into shorter words. Strike out +the unnecessary words, and see if it does not come out stronger. The same +passage will serve also as an exercise as to the use of Latin and Saxon +words. Dr. Johnson is generally quoted as the English author who uses most +Latin words. He uses, I think, ten in a hundred. But our Congressmen far +exceed him. This sentence uses Latin words at the rate of thirty-five in +a hundred. Try a good many experiments in translating from long to short, +and you will be sure that, when you have a fair choice between two words, + + A Short Word Is Better Than A Long One. + +For instance, I think this sentence would have been better if it had been +couched in thirty-six words instead of eighty-one. I think we should have +lost nothing of the author's meaning if he had said, "I have full trust in +you. I am sure that I seek only the honor and advance of the country. I +hope, therefore, that I may earn your respect and regard, while we +heartily work together." + +I am fond of telling the story of the words which a distinguished friend +of mine used in accepting a hard post of duty. He said:--"I do not think I +am fit for this place. But my friends say I am, and I trust them. I shall +take the place, and, when I am in it, I shall do as well as I can." + +It is a very grand sentence. Observe that it has not one word which is +more than one syllable. As it happens, also, every word is Saxon,--there +is not one spurt of Latin. Yet this was a learned man, who, if he chose, +could have said the whole in Latin. But he was one American gentleman +talking to another American gentleman, and therefore he chose to use the +tongue to which they both were born. + +We have not space to go into the theory of these rules, as far as I should +like to. But you see the force which a short word has, if you can use it, +instead of a long one. If you want to say "hush," "hush" is a much better +word than the French "_taisez-vous"_ If you want to say "halt," "halt" is +much better than the French "_arretez-vous"_ The French have, in fact, +borrowed "_halte"_ from us or from the German, for their tactics. For the +same reason, you want to prune out the unnecessary words from your +sentences, and even the classes of words which seem put in to fill up. If, +for instance, you can express your idea without an adjective, your +sentence is stronger and more manly. It is better to say "a saint" than +"a saintly man." It is better to say "This is the truth" than "This is the +truthful result." Of course an adjective may be absolutely necessary. But +you may often detect extempore speakers in piling in adjectives, because +they have not yet hit on the right noun. In writing, this is not to be +excused. "You have all the time there is," when you write, and you do +better to sink a minute in thinking for one right word, than to put in two +in its place,--because you can do so without loss of time. I hope every +school-girl knows, what I am sure every school-boy knows, Sheridan's +saying, that "Easy writing, is hard reading." In general, as I said +before, other things being equal, + + "The Fewer Words, The Better," + +"as it seems to me." "As it seems to me" is the quiet way in which Nestor +states things. Would we were all as careful! + +There is one adverb or adjective which it is almost always safe to leave +out in America. It is the word "very." I learned that from one of the +masters of English style. "Strike out your 'verys,'" said he to me, when I +was young. I wish I had done so oftener than I have. + +For myself, I like short sentences. This is, perhaps, because I have read +a good deal of modern French, and I think the French gain in clearness by +the shortness of their sentences. But there are great masters of +style,--great enough to handle long sentences well,--and these men would +not agree with me. But I will tell you this, that if you have a sentence +which you do not like, the best experiment to try on it is the experiment +Medea tried on the old goat, when she wanted to make him over:-- + + Cut It To Pieces. + +What shall I take for illustration? You will be more interested in one of +these school-girls' themes than in an old Congress speech I have here +marked for copying. Here is the first draft of Laura Walter's composition, +which happens to be tied up in the same red ribbon with the finished +exercises. I will copy a piece of that, and then you shall see, from the +corrected "composition," what came of it, when she cut it to pieces, and +applied the other rules which we have been studying. + + Laura's First Draft. + +"_Duty performed is a Rainbow in the Soul_. + +"I cannot conceive, and therefore I cannot attempt adequately to consider, +the full probable meaning of the metaphorical expression with which the +present 'subject' concludes,--nor do I suppose it is absolutely necessary +that I should do so, for expressing the various impressions which I have +formed on the subject taken as a whole, which have occurred to me in such +careful meditation as I have been able to give to it,--in natural +connection with an affecting little incident, which I will now, so far as +my limited space will permit, proceed, however inadequately, to describe. + +"My dear little brother Frankie--as sweet a little fellow as ever plagued +his sister's life out, or troubled the kindest of mothers in her daily +duties--was one day returning from school, when he met my father hurrying +from his office, and was directed by him to proceed as quickly as was +possible to the post-office, and make inquiry there for a letter of a good +deal of importance which he had reason to expect, or at the least to hope +for, by the New York mail." + +Laura had come as far as this early in the week, when bedtime came. The +next day she read it all, and saw it was sad stuff, and she frankly asked +herself why. The answer was, that she had really been trying to spin out +three pages. "Now," said Laura to herself, "that is not fair." And she +finished the piece in a very different way, as you shall see. Then she +went back over this introduction, and struck out the fine passages. Then +she struck out the long words, and put in short ones. Then she saw she +could do better yet,--and she cut that long introductory sentence to +pieces. Then she saw that none of it was strictly necessary, if she only +explained why she gave up the rainbow part. And, after all these +reductions, the first part of the essay which I have copied was cut down +and changed so that it read thus:-- + + "_Duty performed is a Rainbow in the Soul_. + +"I do not know what is meant by a Rainbow in the Soul." + +Then Laura went on thus:-- + +"I will try to tell a story of duty performed. My brother Frank was sent +to the post-office for a letter. When he came there, the poor child found +a big dog at the door of the office, and was afraid to go in. It was just +the dead part of the day in a country village, when even the shops are +locked up for an hour, and Frank, who is very shy, saw no one whom he +could call upon. He tried to make Miss Evarts, the post-office clerk, +hear; but she was in the back of the office. Frank was frightened, but he +meant to do his duty. So he crossed the bridge, walked up to the butcher's +shop in the other village,--which he knew was open,--spent two pennies for +a bit of meat, and carried it back to tempt his enemy. He waved it in the +air, called the dog, and threw it into the street. The dog was much more +willing to eat the meat than to eat Frankie. He left his post. Frank went +in and tapped on the glass, and Miss Evarts came and gave him the letter. +Frank came home in triumph, and papa said it was a finer piece of duty +performed than the celebrated sacrifice of Casabianca's would have been, +had it happened that Casabianca ever made it." + + +That is the shortest of these "compositions." It is much the best. Miss +Winstanley took the occasion to tell the girls, that, other things being +equal, a short "composition" is better than a long one. A short +"composition" which shows thought and care, is much better than a long one +which "writes itself." + +I dislike the word "composition," but I use it, because it is familiar. I +think "essay" or "piece" or even "theme" a better word. + +Will you go over Laura's story and see where it could be shortened, and +what Latin words could be changed for better Saxon ones? + +Will you take care, in writing yourself, never to say "commence" or +"presume"? + +In the next chapter we will ask each other + +HOW TO READ. + + + + +Chapter V. + +How To Read. + + + +I.--_The Choice of Books_. + + +You are not to expect any stories this time. There will be very few words +about Stephen, or Sybil, or Sarah. My business now is rather to answer, as +well as I can, such questions as young people ask who are beginning to +have their time at their own command, and can make their own selection of +the books they are to read. I have before me, as I write, a handful of +letters which have been written to the office of "The Young Folks," asking +such questions. And all my intelligent young friends are asking each other +such questions, and so ask them of me every day. I shall answer these +questions by laying down some general rules, just as I have done before +but I shall try to put you into the way of choosing your own books, rather +than choosing for you a long, defined list of them. + +I believe very thoroughly in courses of reading, because I believe in +having one book lead to another. But, after the beginning, these courses +for different persons will vary very much from each other. You all go out +to a great picnic, and meet together in some pleasant place in the woods, +and you put down the baskets there, and leave the pail with the ice in the +shadiest place you can find, and cover it up with the blanket. Then you +all set out in this great forest, which we call Literature. But it is only +a few of the party, who choose to start hand in hand along a gravel-path +there is, which leads straight to the Burgesses' well, and probably those +few enjoy less and gain less from the day's excursion than any of the +rest. The rest break up into different knots, and go some here and some +there, as their occasion and their genius call them. Some go after +flowers, some after berries, some after butterflies; some knock the rocks +to pieces, some get up where there is a fine view, some sit down and copy +the stumps, some go into water, some make a fire, some find a camp of +Indians and learn how to make baskets. Then they all come back to the +picnic in good spirits and with good appetites, each eager to tell the +others what he has seen and heard, each having satisfied his own taste and +genius, and each and all having made vastly more out of the day than if +they had all held to the gravel-path and walked in column to the +Burgesses' well and back again. + +This, you see, is a long parable for the purpose of making you remember +that there are but few books which it is necessary for every intelligent +boy and girl, man and woman, to have read. Of those few, I had as lief +give the list here. + +First is the Bible, of which not only is an intelligent knowledge +necessary for your healthy growth in religious life, but--which is of less +consequence, indeed--it is as necessary for your tolerable understanding +of the literature, or even science, of a world which for eighteen +centuries has been under the steady influence of the Bible. Around the +English version of it, as Mr. Marsh shows so well, the English language +of the last three centuries has revolved, as the earth revolves around the +sun. He means, that although the language of one time differs from that of +another, it is always at about the same distance from the language of King +James's Bible. + +[Footnote: Marsh's Lectures on the English Language: very +entertaining books.] + +Second, every one ought to be quite well informed as to the history of the +country in which he lives. All of you should know the general history of +the United States well. You should know the history of your own State in +more detail, and of your own town in the most detail of all. + +Third, an American needs to have a clear knowledge of the general features +of the history of England. + +Now it does not make so much difference how you compass this general +historical knowledge, if, in its main features, you do compass it. When +Mr. Lincoln went down to Norfolk to see the rebel commissioners, Mr. +Hunter, on their side, cited, as a precedent for the action which he +wanted the President to pursue, the negotiations between Charles the +First and his Parliament. Mr. Lincoln's eyes twinkled, and he said, "Upon +questions of history I must refer you to Mr. Seward, for he is posted upon +such things, and I do not profess to be. My only distinct recollection of +the matter is, that Charles lost his head." Now you see it is of no sort +of consequence how Mr. Lincoln got his thoroughly sound knowledge of the +history of England,--in which, by the way, he was entirely at home,--and +he had a perfect right to pay the compliment he did to Mr. Seward; but it +was of great importance to him that he should not be haunted with the fear +that the other man did know, really, of some important piece of +negotiation of which he was ignorant. It was important to him to know +that, so that he might be sure that his joke was--as it was--exactly the +fitting answer. + +Fourth, it is necessary that every intelligent American or Englishman +should have read carefully most of Shakespeare's plays. Most people would +have named them before the history, but I do not. I do not care, however, +how early you read them in life, and, as we shall see, they will be among +your best guides for the history of England. + +Lastly, it is a disgrace to read even the newspaper, without knowing +where the places are which are spoken of. You need, therefore, the very +best atlas you can provide yourself with. The atlas you had when you +studied geography at school is better than none. But if you can compass +any more precise and full, so much the better. Colton's American Atlas is +good. The large cheap maps, published two on one roller by Lloyd, are +good; if you can give but five dollars for your maps, perhaps this is the +best investment. Mr. Fay's beautiful atlas costs but three and a half +dollars. For the other hemisphere, Black's Atlas is good. Rogers's, +published in Edinburgh, is very complete in its American maps. Stieler's +is cheap and reliable. + +When people talk of the "books which no gentleman's library should be +without," the list may be boiled down, I think--if in any stress we should +be reduced to the bread-and-water diet--to such books as will cover these +five fundamental necessities. If you cannot buy the Bible, the agent of +the County Bible Society will give you one. You can buy the whole of +Shakespeare for fifty cents in Dicks's edition. And, within two miles of +the place where you live, there are books enough for all the historical +study I have prescribed. So, in what I now go on to say, I shall take it +for granted that we have all of us made thus much preparation, or can make +it. These are the central stores of the picnic, which we can fall back +upon, after our explorations in our various lines of literature. + +Now for our several courses of reading. How am I to know what are your +several tastes, or the several lines of your genius? Here are, as I learn +from Mr. Osgood, some seventy-six thousand five hundred and forty-three +Young Folks, be the same more or less, who are reading this paper. How am +I to tell what are their seventy-six thousand five hundred and forty-three +tastes, dispositions, or lines of genius? I cannot tell. Perhaps they +could not tell themselves, not being skilled in self-analysis; and it is +by no means necessary that they should be able to tell. Perhaps we can set +down on paper what will be much better, the rules or the system by which +each of them may read well in the line of his own genius, and so find out, +before he has done with this life, what the line of that genius is, as far +as there is any occasion. + + Do Not Try To Read Everything. + +That is the first rule. Do not think you must be a Universal Genius. Do +not "read all Reviews," as an old code I had bade young men do. And give +up, as early as you can, the passion, with which all young people +naturally begin, of "keeping up with the literature of the time." As for +the literature of the time, if one were to adopt any extreme rule, Mr. +Emerson's would be the better of the two possible extremes. He says it is +wise to read no book till it has been printed a year; that, before the +year is well over, many of those books drift out of sight, which just now +all the newspapers are telling you to read. But then, seriously, I do not +suppose he acts on that rule himself. Nor need you and I. Only, we will +not try to read them all. + +Here I must warn my young friend Jamie not to go on talking about +renouncing "nineteenth century trash." + +It will not do to use such words about a century in which have written +Goethe, Fichte, Cuvier, Schleiermacher, Martineau, Scott, Tennyson, +Thackeray, Browning, and Dickens, not to mention a hundred others whom +Jamie likes to read as much as I do. + +No. We will trust to conversation with the others, who have had their +different paths in this picnic party of ours, to learn from them just the +brightest and best things that they have seen and heard. And we will try +to be able to tell them, simply and truly, the best things we find on our +own paths. Now, for selecting the path, what shall we do,--since one +cannot in one little life attempt them all? + +You can select for yourself, if you will only keep a cool head, and have +your eyes open. First of all, remember that what you want from books is +the information in them, and the stimulus they give to you, and the +amusement for your recreation. You do not read for the poor pleasure of +saying you have read them. You are reading for the subject, much more than +for the particular book, and if you find that you have exhausted all the +book has on your subject, then you are to leave that book, whether you +have read it through or not. In some cases you read because the author's +own mind is worth knowing; and then the more you read the better you know +him. But these cases do not affect the rule. You read for what is in the +books, not that you may mark such a book off from a "course of reading," +or say at the next meeting of the "Philogabblian Society" that you "have +just been reading Kant" or "Godwin." What is the subject, then, which you +want to read upon? + +Half the boys and girls who read this have been so well trained that they +know. They know what they want to know. One is sure that she wants to know +more about Mary Queen of Scots; another, that he wants to know more about +fly-fishing; another, that she wants to know more about the Egyptian +hieroglyphics; another, that he wants to know more about propagating new +varieties of pansies; another, that she wants to know more about "The Ring +and the Book"; another, that he wants to know more about the "Tenure of +Office bill" Happy is this half. To know your ignorance is the great first +step to its relief. To confess it, as has been said before, is the second. +In a minute I will be ready to say what I can to this happy half; but one +minute first for the less happy half, who know they want to read something +because it is so nice to read a pleasant book, but who do not know what +that something is. They come to us, as their ancestors came to a relative +of mine who was librarian of a town library sixty years ago: "Please, sir, +mother wants a sermon book, and another book." + +To these undecided ones I simply say, now has the time come for decision. +Your school studies have undoubtedly opened up so many subjects to you +that you very naturally find it hard to select between them. Shall you +keep up your drawing, or your music, or your history, or your botany, or +your chemistry? Very well in the schools, my dear Alice, to have started +you in these things, but now you are coming to be a woman, it is for you +to decide which shall go forward; it is not for Miss Winstanley, far less +for me, who never saw your face, and know nothing of what you can or +cannot do. + +Now you can decide in this way. Tell me, or tell yourself, what is the +passage in your reading or in your life for the last week which rests on +your memory. Let us see if we thoroughly understand that passage. If we do +not, we will see if we cannot learn to. That will give us a "course of +reading" for the next twelve months, or if we choose, for the rest of our +lives. There is no end, you will see, to a true course of reading; and, on +the other hand, you may about as well begin at one place as another. +Remember that you have infinite lives before you, so you need not hurry in +the details for fear the work should be never done. + +Now I must show you how to go to work, by supposing you have been +interested in some particular passage. Let us take a passage from +Macaulay, which I marked in the Edinburgh Review for Sydney to speak, +twenty-nine years ago,--I think before I had ever heard Macaulay's name. A +great many of you boys have spoken it at school since then, and many of +you girls have heard scraps from it. It is a brilliant passage, rather too +ornate for daily food, but not amiss for a luxury, more than candied +orange is after a state dinner. He is speaking of the worldly wisdom and +skilful human policy of the method of organization of the Roman Catholic +Church. He says:-- + +"The history of that Church joins together the two great ages of human +civilization. No other institution is left standing which carries the mind +back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, when +camelopards and tigers bounded in the Flavian amphitheatre. The proudest +royal houses are but of yesterday, when compared with the line of the +Supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace back in an unbroken series, from the +Pope who crowned Napoleon in the nineteenth century, to the Pope who +crowned Pepin in the eighth; and far beyond the time of Pepin the august +dynasty extends, till it is lost in the twilight of fable. The Republic of +Venice came next in antiquity. But the Republic of Venice was modern when +compared to the Papacy; and the Republic of Venice is gone, and the Papacy +remains. The Papacy remains, not in decay, not a mere antique, but full of +life and youthful vigor. The Catholic Church is still sending forth to the +farthest ends of the world missionaries as zealous as those who landed in +Kent with Augustine; and still confronting hostile kings with the same +spirit with which she confronted Attila.... + +"She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, +before the Frank had passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still +flourished at Antioch, when idols were still worshipped in the temple of +Mecca. And she may still exist in undiminished vigor, when some traveller +from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand +on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's." + +I. We will not begin by considering the wisdom or the mistake of the +general opinion here laid down. We will begin by trying to make out what +is the real meaning of the leading words employed. Look carefully along +the sentence, and see if you are quite sure of what is meant by such terms +as "The Roman Catholic Church," "the Pantheon," "the Flavian +amphitheatre," "the Supreme Pontiffs," "the Pope who crowned Napoleon," +"the Pope who crowned Pepin," "the Republic of Venice," "the missionaries +who landed in Kent," "Augustine," "the Saxon had set foot in Britain," +"the Frank had passed the Rhine," "Grecian eloquence still flourished at +Antioch," "idols in Mecca," "New Zealand," "London Bridge," "St. Paul's." + +For really working up a subject--and this sentence now is to be our +subject--I advise a blank book, and, for my part, I like to write down the +key words or questions, in a vertical line, quite far apart from each +other, on the first pages. You will see why, if you will read on. + +II. Now go to work on this list. What do you really know about the +organization of the Roman Catholic Church? If you find you are vague about +it, that such knowledge as you have is only half knowledge, which is no +knowledge, read till you are clear. Much information is not necessary, but +good, as far as it goes, is necessary on any subject. This is a +controverted subject. You ought to try, therefore, to read some statement +by a Catholic author, and some statement by a Protestant. To find out what +to read on this or any subject, there are different clews. + +1. Any encyclopædia, good or bad, will set you on the trail. Most of you +have or can have an encyclopædia at command. There are one-volume +encyclopædias better than nothing, which are very cheap. You can pick up +an edition of the old Encyclopædia Americana, in twelve volumes, for ten +or twelve dollars. Or you can buy Appleton's, which is really quite good, +for sixty dollars a set. I do not mean to have you rest on any +encyclopædia, but you will find one at the start an excellent guide-post. +Suppose you have the old Encyclopædia Americana. You will find there that +the "Roman Catholic Church" is treated by two writers,--one a Protestant, +and one a Catholic. Read both, and note in your book such allusions as +interest you, which you want more light upon. Do not note everything which +you do not know, for then you cannot get forward. But note all that +specially interests you. For instance, it seems that the Roman Catholic +Church is not so called by that church itself. The officers of that church +might call it the Roman church, or the Catholic church, but would not call +it the Roman Catholic church. At the Congress of Vienna, Cardinal Consalvi +objected to the joint use of the words Roman Catholic church. Do you know +what the Congress of Vienna was? No? then make a memorandum, if you want +to know. We might put in another for Cardinal Consalvi. He was a man, who +had a father and mother, perhaps brothers and sisters. He will give us a +little human interest, if we stop to look him up. But do not stop for him +now. Work through "Roman Catholic Church," and keep these memoranda in +your book for another day. + +2. Quite different from the encyclopædia is another book of reference, +"Poole's Index." This is a general index to seventy-three magazines and +reviews, which were published between the years 1802 and 1852. Now a great +deal of the best work of this century has been put into such journals. A +reference, then, to "Poole's Index" is a reference to some of the best +separate papers on the subjects which for fifty years had most interest +for the world of reading men and women. Let us try "Poole's Index" on "The +Republic of Venice." There are references to articles on Venice in the New +England Magazine, in the Pamphleteer, in the Monthly Review, Edinburgh, +Quarterly, Westminster, and De Bow's Reviews. Copy all these references +carefully, if you have any chance at any time of access to any of these +journals. It is not, you know, at all necessary to have them in the +house. Probably there is some friend's collection or public library where +you can find one or more of them. If you live in or near Boston, or New +York, or Philadelphia, or Charleston, or New Orleans, or Cincinnati, or +Chicago, or St. Louis, or Ithaca, you can find every one. + +When you have carefully gone down this original list, and made your +memoranda for it, you are prepared to work out these memoranda. You begin +now to see how many there are. You must be guided, of course, in your +reading, by the time you have, and by the opportunity for getting the +books. But, aside from that, you may choose what you like best, for a +beginning. To make this simple by an illustration, I will suppose you have +been using the old Encyclopædia Americana, or Appleton's Cyclopædia and +Poole's Index only, for your first list. As I should draw it up, it would +look like this:-- + + CYCLOPÆDIA. POOLE'S INDEX. + + ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. + +See (for instance) Eclectic Rev., 4th S. 13, 485. +Council of Trent. Quart. Rev., 71, 108. +Chrysostom. For. Quart. Rev., 27, 184. +Congress of Vienna. Brownson's Rev., 2d S. 1, 413; 3, 309. +Cardinal Consalvi. N. Brit. Rev., 10, 21. + + THE PANTHEON. + +Built by Agrippa. Consecrated, + 607, to St. Mary ad Martyros. + Called Rotunda. + + THE FLAVIAN AMPHITHEATRE. + +The Coliseum, _b_. by T. Flavius + Vespasian. + + SUPREME PONTIFFS. + +Popes. The line begins with New-Englander, 7, 169. + St. Peter, A. D. 42. Ends N. Brit. Rev., 11, 135. + with Pius IX., 1846. + + POPE WHO CROWNED NAPOLEON. + +Pius VII., at Notre Dame, in For. Quart. Rev., 20, 54. + Paris, Dec. 2, 1804. + + POPE WHO CROWNED PEPIN. + +Probably Pepin le Bref is meant. + But he was not crowned by + a Pope. Crowned by Archbishop + Boniface of Mayence, + at the advice of Pope Zachary. + _b_. @ 715. _d_. 768. + + REPUBLIC OF VENICE. + +452 to 1815. St. Real's History. Quart. Rev. 31, 420. + Otway's Tragedy, Venice Preserved. Month. Rev., 90, 525. + Hazlitt's Hist, of Venice. West. Rev., 23, 38. + Ruskin's Stones of Venice. + + MISSIONARIES IN KENT. + + Dublin Univ. Mag., 21, 212. + + AUGUSTINE. + +There are two Augustines. This + is St. Austin, _b_. in 5th century, + _d_. 604-614. +Southey's Book of Church. +Sharon Turner's Anglo-Saxons. +Wm. of Malmesbury. +Bede's Ecc. History. + + SAXON IN BRITAIN. + +Turner as above. Edin. Rev., 89, 79. +Ang.-Saxon Chronicle. Quart. Rev., 7, 92. +Six old Eng. Chronicles. Eclect. Rev., 25, 669. + + FRANK PASSED THE RHINE. + +Well established on west side, For. Quart. Rev., 17, 139. + at the beginning of 5th century. + + GREEK ELOQUENCE AT ANTIOCH. + +Muller's Antiquitates Antiochianæ Greek Orators. Ed. Rev., 36, 62. + + IDOLS IN MECCA. + +Burckhardt's Travels. +Burton's Travels. + + NEW ZEALAND. + +3 islands, as large as Italy. N. Am. Rev., 18, 328. + Discovered, 1642; taken by Cook + for England, 1769. +Gov. sent out, 1838. West. Rev., 45, 133. +Thomson's story of N. Z. Edin. Rev., 91, 231; 56, 333. +Cook's Voyages. N. Brit. Rev., 16, 176. +Sir G. Gray's Poems, &c. of Living Age. + Maoris. + + LONDON BRIDGE. + +5 elliptical arches. "Presents + an aspect unequalled for interest + and animation." + + ST. PAUL'S. + +Built in thirty years between + 1675 and 1705, by Christ. + Wren. + + +Now I am by no means going to leave you to the reading of cyclopædias. +The vice of cyclopædias is that they are dull. What is done for this +passage of Macaulay in the lists above is only preliminary. It could be +easily done in three hours' time, if you went carefully to work. And when +you have done it, you have taught yourself a good deal about your own +knowledge and your own ignorance,--about what you should read and what +you should not attempt. So far it fits you for selecting your own course +of reading. + +I have arranged this only by way of illustration. I do not mean that I +think these a particularly interesting or particularly important series of +subjects. I do mean, however, to show you that the moment you will sift +any book or any series of subjects, you will be finding out where your +ignorance is, and what you want to know. + +Supposing you belong to the fortunate half of people who know what they +need, I should advise you to begin in just the same way. + +For instance, Walter, to whom I alluded above, wants to know about +_Fly-Fishing_. This is the way his list looks. + + + FLY-FISHING. + + CYCLOPEDIA. POOLE'S INDEX. + +(For instance) Quart. Rev., 69, 121; 37, 345. +W. Scott, Redgauntlet. Edin. Rev., 78, 46, or 87; 93, + 174, or 340. + +Dr. Davy's Researches, 1839. Am. Whig Rev., 6, 490. +Cuvier and Valenciennes, Hist. N. Brit. Rev., 11, 32, or 95; I, + Naturelle des Poissons, Vol. 326; 8, 160; or Liv. Age, 2, + XXI. 291; 17, I. + Blackwood, 51, 296. +Richardson's Fauna Bor. Amer. Quart. Rev., 67, 98, or 332; 69, + 226. + Blackwood, 10, 249; 49, 302; +De Kay, Zoölogy of N. Y. 21, 815; 24, 248; 35, 775; +Agassiz, Lake Superior. 38, 119; 63, 673; 5, 123; 5, + 281; 7, 137. + Fraser, 42, 136. + +See also, + + Izaak Walton, Compleat Angler. (Walton and Cotton first appeared, 1750.) + Humphrey Day's Salmonia, or The Days of Fly-Fishing, + Blakey, History of Angling Literature. + Oppianus, De Venatione, Piscatione et Aucupio. (Halieutica translated.) + Jones's English translation was published in Oxford, 1722. + Bronner, Fischergedichte und Erzahlungen (Fishermen's Songs and Stories). + Norris, T., American Angler's Book. + Zouch, Life of Iz. Walton. + Salmon Fisheries. Parliamentary Reports. Annual. + "Blackwood's Magazine, an important landmark in English angling + literature." See Noctes Ambrosianæ. + H. W. Beecher, N. Y. Independent, 1853. + In the New York edition of Walton and Cotton is a list of books on + Angling, which Blakey enlarges. His list contains four hundred and + fifty titles. + American Angler's Guide, 1849. + Storer, D. H., Fishes of Massachusetts. + Storer, D. H., Fishes of N. America. + Girard, Fresh-Water Fishes of N. America (Smithsonian + Contributions, Vol. III.). + Richard Penn, Maxims and Hints for an Angler, and Miseries of Fishing, + 1839. + James Wilson, The Rod and the Gun, 1840. + Herbert, Frank Forester's Fish of N. America. + Yarrel's British Fishes. + The same, on the Growth of Salmon. + Boy's Own Book. + +Please to observe, now, that nobody is obliged to read up all the +authorities that we have lighted on. What the lists mean is this;--that +you have made the inquiry for "a sermon book and another book," and you +are now thus far on your way toward an answer. These are the first answers +that come to hand. Work on and you will have more. I cannot pretend to +give that answer for any one of you,--far less for all those who would be +likely to be interested in all the subjects which are named here. But with +such clews as are given above, you will soon find your ways into the +different parts that interest you of our great picnic grove. + +Remember, however, that there are no royal roads. The difference between a +well-educated person and one not well educated is, that the first knows +how to find what he needs, and the other does not. It is not so much that +the first is better informed on details than the second, though he +probably is. But his power to collect the details at short notice is +vastly greater than is that of the uneducated or unlearned man. + +In different homes, the resources at command are so different that I must +not try to advise much as to your next step beyond the lists above. There +are many good catalogues of books, with indexes to subjects. In the +Congressional Library, my friend Mr. Vinton is preparing a magnificent +"Index of Subjects," which will be of great use to the whole nation. In +Harvard College Library they have a manuscript catalogue referring to the +subjects described in the books of that collection. The "Cross-References" +of the Astor Catalogue, and of the Boston Library Catalogue, are +invaluable to all readers, young or old. Your teacher at school can help +you in nothing more than in directing you to the books you need on any +subject. Do not go and say, "Miss Winstanley, or Miss Parsons, I want a +nice book"; but have sense enough to know what you want it to be about. +Be able to say,--"Miss Parsons, I should like to know about heraldry," or +"about butterflies," or "about water-color painting," or "about Robert +Browning," or "about the Mysteries of Udolpho." Miss Parsons will tell you +what to read. And she will be very glad to tell you. Or if you are not at +school, this very thing among others is what the minister is for. Do not +be frightened. He will be very glad to see you. Go round to his house, not +on Saturday, but at the time he receives guests, and say to him: "Mr. +Ingham, we girls have made quite a collection of old porcelain, and we +want to know more about it. Will you be kind enough to tell us where we +can find anything about porcelain. We have read Miss Edgeworth's 'Prussian +Vase' and we have read 'Palissy the Potter,' and we should like to know +more about Sêvres, and Dresden, and Palissy." Ingham will be delighted, +and in a fortnight, if you will go to work, you will know more about what +you ask for than any one person knows in America. + +And I do not mean that all your reading is to be digging or hard work. I +can show that I do not, by supposing that we carry out the plan of the +list above,--on any one of its details, and write down the books which +that detail suggests to us. Perhaps VENICE has seemed to you the most +interesting head of these which we have named. If we follow that up only +in the references given above, we shall find our book list for Venice, +just as it comes, in no order but that of accident, is:-- + + St. Real, Relation des Espagnols contre Venise. + Otway's Venice Preserved. + Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. + Howells's Venetian Life. + Blondus. De Origine Venetorum. + Muratori's Annals. + Ruskin's Stones of Venice. + D'Israeli's Contarini Fleming. + Contarina, Della Republica di Venetia. + Flagg, Venice from 1797 to 1849. + Crassus, De Republica Veneta. + Jarmot, De Republica Veneta. + Voltaire's General History. + Sismondi's History of Italy. + Lord Byron's Letters. + Sketches of Venetian History, Fam. Library, 26, 27. + Venetian History, Hazlitt. + Dandolo, G. La Caduta della Republica di Venezia (The Fall of the + Republic of Venice). + Ridolfi, C., Lives of the Venetian Painters. + Monagas, J. T., Late Events in Venice. + Delavigne, Marino Faliero, a Historical Drama. + Lord Byron, The same. + Smedley's Sketches from Venetian History. + Daru, Hist. de la Republique de Venise. + +So much for the way in which to choose your books. As to the choice, you +will make it, not I. If you are a goose, cackling a great deal, silly at +heart and wholly indifferent about to-morrow, you will choose just what +you call the interesting titles. If you are a girl of sense, or a boy of +sense, you will choose, when you have made your list, at least two books, +determined to master them. You will choose one on the side of information, +and one for the purpose of amusement, on the side of fancy. If you choose +in "_Venice_" the "Merchant of Venice," you will not add to it "Venice +Preserved," but you will add to it, say the Venetian chapters of +"Sismondi's Italy." You will read every day; and you will divide your +reading time into the two departments,--you will read for fact and you +will read for fancy. Roots must have leaves, you know, and leaves must +have roots. Bodies must have spirits, and, for this world at least, +spirits must have bodies. Fact must be lighted by fancy, and fancy must be +balanced by fact. Making this the principle of your selection, you may, +nay, you must, select for yourselves your books. And in my next chapter I +will do my best to teach you + +HOW TO READ THEM. + + + + +Chapter VI. + +How To Read. II. + + + +Liston tells a story of a nice old lady--I think the foster-sister of the +godmother of his brother-in-law's aunt--who came to make them a visit in +the country. The first day after she arrived proved to be much such a day +as this is,--much such a day as the first of a visit in the country is +apt to be,--a heavy pelting north-easter, when it is impossible to go +out, and every one is thrown on his own resources in-doors. The different +ladies under Mrs. Liston's hospitable roof gathered themselves to their +various occupations, and some one asked old Mrs. Dubbadoe if she would +not like to read. + +She said she should. + +"What shall I bring you from the library?" said Miss Ellen. "Do not +trouble yourself to go up stairs." + +"My dear Ellen, I should like the same book I had last year when I was +here, it was a very nice book, and I was very much interested in it." + +"Certainly," said Miss Ellen; "what was it? I will bring it at once." + +"I do not remember its name, my dear; your mother brought it to me; I +think she would know." + +But, unfortunately, Mrs. Liston, when applied to, had forgotten. + +"Was it a novel, Mrs. Dubbadoe?" + +"I can't remember that,--my memory is not as good as it was, my dear,--but +it was a very interesting book." + +"Do you remember whether it had plates? Was it one of the books of birds, +or of natural history?" + +"No, dear, I can't tell you about that. But, Ellen, you will find it, I +know. The color of the cover was the color of the top of the baluster!" + +So Ellen went. She has a good eye for color, and as she ran up stairs she +took the shade of the baluster in her eye, matched it perfectly as she ran +along the books in the library with the Russia half-binding of the +coveted volume, and brought that in triumph to Mrs. Dubbadoe. It proved to +be the right book. Mrs. Dubbadoe found in it the piece of corn-colored +worsted she had left for a mark the year before, so she was able to go on +where she had stopped then. + +Liston tells this story to trump one of mine about a schoolmate of ours, +who was explaining to me about his theological studies. I asked him what +he had been reading. + +"O, a capital book; King lent it to me; I will ask him to lend it to you." + +I said I would ask King for the book, if he would tell me who was +the author. + +"I do not remember his name. I had not known his name before. But that +made no difference. It is a capital book. King told me I should find it +so, and I did; I made a real study of it; copied a good deal from it +before I returned it." + +I asked whether it was a book of natural theology. + +"I don't know as you would call it natural theology. Perhaps it was. You +had better see it yourself. Tell King it was the book he lent me." + +I was a little persistent, and asked if it were a book of biography. + +"Well, I do not know as I should say it was a book of biography. Perhaps +you would say so. I do not remember that there was much biography in it. +But it was an excellent book. King had read it himself, and I found it all +he said it was." + +I asked if it was critical,--if it explained Scripture. + +"Perhaps it did. I should not like to say whether it did or not. You can +find that out yourself if you read it. But it is a very interesting book +and a very valuable book. King said so, and I found it was so. You had +better read it, and I know King can tell you what it is." + +Now in these two stories is a very good illustration of the way in which a +great many people read. The notion comes into people's lives that the mere +process of reading is itself virtuous. Because young men who read instead +of gamble are known to be "steadier" than the gamblers, and because +children who read on Sunday make less noise and general row than those who +will play tag in the neighbors' front-yards, there has grown up this +notion, that to read is in itself one of the virtuous acts. Some people, +if they told the truth, when counting up the seven virtues, would count +them as Purity, Temperance, Meekness, Frugality, Honesty, Courage, and +Reading. The consequence is that there are unnumbered people who read as +Mrs. Dubbadoe did or as Lysimachus did, without the slightest knowledge of +what the books have contained. + +My dear Dollie, Pollie, Sallie, Marthie, or any other of my young friends +whose names end in _ie_ who have favored me by reading thus far, the +chances are three out of four that I could take the last novel but three +that you read, change the scene from England to France, change the time +from now to the seventeenth century, make the men swear by St. Denis, +instead of talking modern slang, name the women Jacqueline and Marguerite, +instead of Maud and Blanche, and, if Harpers would print it, as I dare say +they would if the novel was good, you would read it through without one +suspicion that you had read the same book before. + +So you see that it is not certain that you know how to read, even if you +took the highest prize for reading in the Amplian class of Ingham +University at the last exhibition. You may pronounce all the words well, +and have all the rising inflections right, and none of the falling ones +wrong, and yet not know how to read so that your reading shall be of any +permanent use to you. + +For what is the use of reading if you forget it all the next day? + +"But, my dear Mr. Hale," says as good a girl as Laura, "how am I going to +help myself? What I remember I remember, and what I do not remember I do +not. I should be very glad to remember all the books I have read, and all +that is in them; but if I can't, I can't, and there is the end of it." + +No! my dear Laura, that is not the end of it. And that is the reason this +paper is written. A child of God can, before the end comes, do anything +she chooses to, with such help as he is willing to give her; and he has +been kind enough so to make and so to train you that you can train your +memory to remember and to recall the useful or the pleasant things you +meet in your reading. Do you know, Laura, that I have here a note you +wrote when you were eight years old? It is as badly written as any note I +ever saw. There are also twenty words in it spelled wrong. Suppose you had +said then, "If I can't, I can't, and there's an end of it." You never +would have written me in the lady-like, manly handwriting you write in +to-day, spelling rightly as a matter of mere feeling and of course, so +that you are annoyed now that I should say that every word is spelled +correctly. Will you think, dear Laura, what a tremendous strain on memory +is involved in all this? Will you remember that you and Miss Sears and +Miss Winstanley, and your mother, most of all, have trained your memory +till it can work these marvels? All you have to do now in your reading is +to carry such training forward, and you can bring about such a power of +classification and of retention that you shall be mistress of the books +you have read for most substantial purposes. To read with such results is +reading indeed. And when I say I want to give some hints how to read, it +is for reading with that view. + +When Harry and Lucy were on their journey to the sea-side, they fell to +discussing whether they had rather have the gift of remembering all they +read, or of once knowing everything, and then taking their chances for +recollecting it when they wanted it. Lucy, who had a quick memory, was +willing to take her chance. But Harry, who was more methodical, hated to +lose anything he had once learned, and he thought he had rather have the +good fairy give him the gift of recollecting all he had once learned. For +my part, I quite agree with Harry. There are a great many things that I +have no desire to know. I do not want to know in what words the King of +Ashantee says, "Cut off the heads of those women." I do not want to know +whether a centipede really has ninety-six legs or one hundred and four. I +never did know. I never shall. I have no occasion to know. And I am glad +not to have my mind lumbered up with the unnecessary information. On the +other hand, that which I have once learned or read does in some way or +other belong to my personal life. I am very glad if I can reproduce that +in any way, and I am much obliged to anybody who will help me. + +For reading, then, the first rules, I think, are: Do not read too much at +a time; stop when you are tired; and, in whatever way, make some review of +what you read, even as you go along. + +Capel Lofft says, in quite an interesting book, which plays about the +surface of things without going very deep, which he calls +_Self-Formation_, [Footnote: Self-Formation. Crosby and Nichols. Boston. +1845.] that his whole life was changed, and indeed saved, when he learned +that he must turn back at the end of each sentence, ask himself what it +meant, if he believed it or disbelieved it, and, so to speak, that he must +pack it away as part of his mental furniture before he took in another +sentence. That is just as a dentist jams one little bit of gold-foil home, +and then another, and then another. He does not put one large wad on the +hollow tooth, and then crowd it all in at once. Capel Lofft says that +this _reflection_--going forward as a serpent does, by a series of +backward bends over the line--will make a dull book entertaining, and will +make the reader master of every book he reads, through all time. For my +part, I think this is cutting it rather fine, this chopping the book up +into separate bits. I had rather read as one of my wisest counsellors did; +he read, say a page, or a paragraph of a page or two, more or less; then +he would look across at the wall, and consider the author's statement, and +fix it on his mind, and then read on. I do not do this, however. I read +half an hour or an hour, till I am ready, perhaps, to put the book by. +Then I examine myself. What has this amounted to? What does he say? What +does he prove? Does he prove it? What is there new in it? Where did he get +it? If it is necessary in such an examination you can go back over the +passage, correct your first impression, if it is wrong, find out the +meaning that the writer has carelessly concealed, and such a process makes +it certain that you yourself will remember his thought or his statement. + +I can remember, I think, everything I saw in Europe, which was worth +seeing, if I saw it twice. But there was many a wonder which I was taken +to see in the whirl of sight-seeing, of which I have no memory, and of +which I cannot force any recollection. I remember that at Malines--what we +call Mechlin--our train stopped nearly an hour. At the station a crowd of +guides were shouting that there was time to go and see Rubens's picture +of----, at the church of----. This seemed to us a droll contrast to the +cry at our stations, "Fifteen minutes for refreshments!" It offered such +aesthetic refreshment in place of carnal oysters, that purely for the +frolic we went to see. We were hurried across some sort of square into +the church, saw the picture, admired it, came away, and forgot it,--clear +and clean forgot it! My dear Laura, I do not know what it was about any +more than you do. But if I had gone to that church the next day, and had +seen it again, I should have fixed it forever on my memory. Moral: Renew +your acquaintance with whatever you want to remember. I think Ingham says +somewhere that it is the slight difference between the two stereoscopic +pictures which gives to them, when one overlies the other, their relief +and distinctness. If he does not say it, I will say it for him now. + +I think it makes no difference how you make this mental review of the +author, but I do think it essential that, as you pass from one division of +his work to another, you should make it somehow. + +Another good rule for memory is indispensable, I think,--namely, to read +with a pencil in hand. If the book is your own, you had better make what I +may call your own index to it on the hard white page which lines the cover +at the end. That is, you can write down there just a hint of the things +you will be apt to like to see again, noting the page on which they are. +If the book is not your own, do this on a little slip of paper, which you +may keep separately. These memoranda will be, of course, of all sorts of +things. Thus they will be facts which you want to know, or funny stories +which you think will amuse some one, or opinions which you may have a +doubt about. Suppose you had got hold of that very rare book, "Veragas's +History of the Pacific Ocean and its Shores"; here might be your private +index at the end of the first volume:-- + +Percentage of salt in water, 11: Gov. Revillagigedo, 19: Caciques and +potatoes, 23: Lime water for scurvy, 29. Enata, Kanaka, ἀνήρ ἀνά? 42: +Magelhaens _vs_. Wilkes, 57: Coral insects, 20: Gigantic ferns, 84, +&c., &c., &c. + +Very likely you may never need one of these references; but if you do, it +is certain that you will have no time to waste in hunting for them. Make +your memorandum, and you are sure. + +Bear in mind all along that each book will suggest other books which you +are to read sooner or later. In your memoranda note with care the authors +who are referred to of whom you know little or nothing, if you think you +should like to know more, or ought to know more. Do not neglect this last +condition, however. You do not make the memorandum to show it at the +Philogabblian; you make it for yourself; and it means that you yourself +need this additional information. + +Whether to copy much from books or not? That is a question,--and the +answer is,--"That depends." If you have but few books, and much time and +paper and ink; and if you are likely to have fewer books, why, nothing is +nicer and better than to make for use in later life good extract-books to +your own taste, and for your own purposes. But if you own your books, or +are likely to have them at command, time is short, and the time spent in +copying would probably be better spent in reading. There are some very +diffusive books, difficult because diffusive, of which it is well to write +close digests, if you are really studying them. When we read John Locke, +for instance, in college, we had to make abstracts, and we used to stint +ourselves to a line for one of his chatty sections. That was good practice +for writing, and we remember what was in the sections to this hour. If you +copy, make a first-rate index to your extracts. They sell books prepared +for the purpose, but you may just as well make your own. + +You see I am not contemplating any very rapid or slap-dash work. You may +put that on your novels, or books of amusement, if you choose, and I will +not be very cross about it; but for the books of improvement, I want you +to improve by reading them. Do not "gobble" them up so that five years +hence you shall not know whether you have read them or not. What I advise +seems slow to you, but if you will, any of you, make or find two hours a +day to read in this fashion, you will be one day accomplished men and +women. Very few professional men, known to me, get so much time as that +for careful and systematic reading. If any boy or girl wants really to +know what comes of such reading, I wish he would read the life of my +friend George Livermore, which our friend Charles Deane has just now +written for the Historical Society of Massachusetts. There was a young +man, who when he was a boy in a store began his systematic reading. He +never left active and laborious business; but when he died, he was one of +the accomplished historical scholars of America. He had no superior in his +special lines of study; he was a recognized authority and leader among +men who had given their lives to scholarship. + +I have not room to copy it here, but I wish any of you would turn to a +letter of Frederick Robertson's, near the end of the second volume of his +letters, where he speaks of this very matter. He says he read, when he was +at Oxford, but sixteen books with his tutors. But he read them so that +they became a part of himself, "as the iron enters a man's blood." And +they were books by sixteen of the men who have been leaders of the world. +No bad thing, dear Stephen, to have in your blood and brain and bone the +vitalizing element that was in the lives of such men. + +I need not ask you to look forward so far as to the end of a life as long +as Mr. George Livermore's, and as successful. Without asking that, I will +say again, what I have implied already, that any person who will take any +special subject of detail, and in a well-provided library will work +steadily on that little subject for a fortnight, will at the end of the +fortnight probably know more of that detail than anybody in the country +knows. If you will study by subjects for the truth, you have the +satisfaction of knowing that the ground is soon very nearly all your own. + +I do not pretend that books are everything. I may have occasion some day +to teach some of you "How to Observe," and then I shall say some very-hard +things about people who keep their books so close before their eyes that +they cannot see God's world, nor their fellow-men and women. But books +rightly used are society. Good books are the best society; better than is +possible without them, in any one place, or in any one time. To know how +to use them wisely and well is to know how to make Shakespeare and Milton +and Theodore Hook and Thomas Hood step out from the side of your room, at +your will, sit down at your fire, and talk with you for an hour. I have no +such society at hand, as I write these words, except by such magic. Have +you in your log-cabin in No. 7? + + + + +Chapter VII. + +How To Go Into Society. + + + +Some boys and girls are born so that they enjoy society, and all the forms +of society, from the beginning. The passion they have for it takes them +right through all the formalities and stiffness of morning calls, evening +parties, visits on strangers, and the like, and they have no difficulty +about the duties involved in these things. I do not write for them, and +there is no need, at all, of their reading this paper. + +There are other boys and girls who look with half horror and half disgust +at all such machinery of society. They have been well brought up, in +intelligent, civilized, happy homes. They have their own varied and +regular occupations, and it breaks these all up, when they have to go to +the birthday party at the Glascocks', or to spend the evening with the +young lady from Vincennes who is visiting Mrs. Vandermeyer. + +When they have grown older, it happens, very likely, that such boys and +girls have to leave home, and establish themselves at one or another new +home, where more is expected of them in a social way. Here is Stephen, who +has gone through the High School, and has now gone over to New Altona to +be the second teller in the Third National Bank there. Stephen's father +was in college with Mr. Brannan, who was quite a leading man in New +Altona. Madam Chenevard is a sister of Mrs. Schuyler, with whom Stephen's +mother worked five years on the Sanitary Commission. All the bank officers +are kind to Stephen, and ask him to come to their houses, and he, who is +one of these young folks whom I have been describing, who knows how to be +happy at home, but does not know if he is entertaining or in any way +agreeable in other people's homes, really finds that the greatest hardship +of his new life consists in the hospitalities with which all these kind +people welcome him. + +Here is a part of a letter from Stephen to me,--he writes pretty much +everything to me: "...Mrs. Judge Tolman has invited me to another of +her evening parties. Everybody says they are very pleasant, and I can see +that they are to people who are not sticks and oafs. But I am a stick and +an oaf. I do not like society, and I never did. So I shall decline Mrs. +Tolman's invitation; for I have determined to go to no more parties here, +but to devote my evenings to reading." + +Now this is not snobbery or goodyism on Stephen's part. He is not writing +a make-believe letter, to deceive me as to the way in which he is spending +his time. He really had rather occupy his evening in reading than in going +to Mrs. Tolman's party,--or to Mrs. Anybody's party,--and, at the present +moment, he really thinks he never shall go to any parties again. Just so +two little girls part from each other on the sidewalk, saying, "I never +will speak to you again as long as I live." Only Stephen is in no sort +angry with Mrs. Tolman or Mrs. Brannan or Mrs. Chenevard. He only thinks +that their way is one way, and his way is another. His determination is +the same as Tom's was, which I described in Chapter II. But where Tom +thought his failure was want of talking power, Steve really thinks that he +hates society. + +It is for boys and girls like Stephen, who think they are "sticks and +oafs," and that they cannot go into society, that this paper is written. + +You need not get up from your seats and come and stand in a line for me to +talk to you,--tallest at the right, shortest at the left, as if you were +at dancing-school, facing M. Labbassé. I can talk to you just as well +where you are sitting; and, as Obed Clapp said to me once, I know very +well what you are going to say, before you say it. Dear children, I have +had it said to me four-score and ten times by forty-six boys and forty-six +girls who were just as dull and just as bright as you are,--as like you, +indeed, as two pins. + +There is Dunster,--Horace Punster,--at this moment the favorite talker in +society in Washington, as indeed he is on the floor of the House of +Representatives. Ask, the next time you are at Washington, how many +dinner-parties are put off till a day can be found at which Dunster can +be present. Now I remember very well, how, a year or two after Dunster +graduated, he and Messer, who is now Lieutenant-Governor of Labrador, and +some one whom I will not name, were sitting on the shore of the +Cattaraugus Lake, rubbing themselves dry after their swim. And Dunster +said he was not going to any more parties. Mrs. Judge Park had asked him, +because she loved his sister, but she did not care for him a draw, and he +did not know the Cattaraugus people, and he was afraid of the girls, who +knew a great deal more than he did, and so he was "no good" to anybody, +and he would not go any longer. He would stay at home and read Plato in +the original. Messer wondered at all this; he enjoyed Mrs. Judge Park's +parties, and Mrs. Dr. Holland's teas, and he could not see why as bright a +fellow as Dunster should not enjoy them. "But I tell you," said Dunster, +"that I do not enjoy them; and, what is more, I tell you that these people +do not want me to come. They ask me because they like my sister, as I +said, or my father, or my mother." + +Then some one else, who was there, whom I do not name, who was at least +two years older than these young men, and so was qualified to advise them, +addressed them thus:-- + +"You talk like children. Listen. It is of no consequence whether you like +to go to these places or do not like to go. None of us were sent to +Cattaraugus to do what we like to do. We were sent here to do what we can +to make this place cheerful, spirited, and alive,--a part of the kingdom +of heaven. Now if everybody in Cattaraugus sulked off to read Plato, or to +read 'The Three Guardsmen,' Cattaraugus would go to the dogs very fast, in +its general sulkiness. There must be intimate social order, and this is +the method provided. Therefore, first, we must all of us go to these +parties, whether we want to or not; because we are in the world, not to do +what we like to do, but what the world needs. + +"Second," said this unknown some one, "nothing is more snobbish than this +talk about Mrs. Park's wanting us or not wanting us. It simply shows that +we are thinking of ourselves a good deal more than she is. What Mrs. Park +wants is as many men at her party as she has women. She has made her list +so as to balance them. As the result of that list, she has said she wanted +me. Therefore I am going. Perhaps she does want me. If she does, I shall +oblige her. Perhaps she does not want me. If she does not, I shall punish +her, if I go, for telling what is not true; and I shall go cheered and +buoyed up by that reflection. Anyway I go, not because I want to or do not +want to, but because I am asked; and in a world of mutual relationships it +is one of the things that I must do." + +No one replied to this address, but they all three put on their +dress-coats and went. Dunster went to every party in Cattaraugus that +winter, and, as I have said, has since shown himself a most brilliant and +successful leader of society. + +The truth is to be found in this little sermon. Take society as you find +it in the place where you live. Do not set yourself up, at seventeen years +old, as being so much more virtuous or grand or learned than the young +people round you, or the old people round you, that you cannot associate +with them on the accustomed terms of the place. Then you are free from the +first difficulty of young people who have trouble in society; for you will +not be "stuck up," to use a very happy phrase of your own age. When +anybody, in good faith, asks you to a party, and you have no +pre-engagement or other duty, do not ask whether these people are above +you or below you, whether they know more or know less than you do, least +of all ask why they invited you,--but simply go. It is not of much +importance whether, on that particular occasion, you have what you call a +good time or do not have it. But it is of importance that you shall not +think yourself a person of more consequence in the community than others, +and that you shall easily and kindly adapt yourself to the social life of +the people among whom you are. + +This is substantially what I have written to Stephen about what he is to +do at New Altona. + +Now, as for enjoying yourself when you have come to the party,--for I wish +you to understand that, though I have compelled you to go, I am not in +the least cross about it,--but I want you to have what you yourselves call +a very good time when you come there. O dear, I can remember perfectly the +first formal evening party at which I had "a good time." Before that I had +always hated to go to parties, and since that I have always liked to go. I +am sorry to say I cannot tell you at whose house it was. That is +ungrateful in me. But I could tell you just how the pillars looked between +which the sliding doors ran, for I was standing by one of them when my +eyes were opened, as the Orientals say, and I received great light. I had +been asked to this party, as I supposed and as I still suppose, by some +people who wanted my brother and sister to come, and thought it would not +be kind to ask them without asking me. I did not know five people in the +room. It was in a college town where there were five gentlemen for every +lady, so that I could get nobody to dance with me of the people I did +know. So it was that I stood sadly by this pillar, and said to myself, +"You were a fool to come here where nobody wants you, and where you did +not want to come; and you look like a fool standing by this pillar with +nobody to dance with and nobody to talk to." At this moment, and as if to +enlighten the cloud in which I was, the revelation flashed upon me, which +has ever since set me all right in such matters. Expressed in words, it +would be stated thus: "You are a much greater fool if you suppose that +anybody in this room knows or cares where you are standing or where you +are not standing. They are attending to their affairs and you had best +attend to yours, quite indifferent as to what they think of you." In this +reflection I took immense comfort, and it has carried me through every +form of social encounter from that day to this day. I don't remember in +the least what I did, whether I looked at the portfolios of +pictures,--which for some reason young people think a very poky thing to +do, but which I like to do,--whether I buttoned some fellow-student who +was less at ease than I, or whether I talked to some nice old lady who had +seen with her own eyes half the history of the world which is worth +knowing. I only know that, after I found out that nobody else at the party +was looking at me or was caring for me, I began to enjoy it as thoroughly +as I enjoyed staying at home. + +Not long after I read this in Sartor Resartus, which was a great comfort +to me: "What Act of Parliament was there that you should be happy? Make up +your mind that you deserve to be hanged, as is most likely, and you will +take it as a favor that you are hanged in silk, and not in hemp." Of which +the application in this particular case is this: that if Mrs. Park or Mrs. +Tolman are kind enough to open their beautiful houses for me, to fill them +with beautiful flowers, to provide a band of music, to have ready their +books of prints and their foreign photographs, to light up the walks in +the garden and the greenhouse, and to provide a delicious supper for my +entertainment, and then ask, I will say, only one person whom I want to +see, is it not very ungracious, very selfish, and very snobbish for me to +refuse to take what is, because of something which is not,--because Ellen +is not there or George is not? What Act of Parliament is there that I +should have everything in my own way? + +As it is with most things, then, the rule for going into society is not to +have any rule at all. Go unconsciously; or, as St. Paul puts it, "Do not +think of yourself more highly than you ought to think." Everything but +conceit can be forgiven to a young person in society. St. Paul, by the +way, high-toned gentleman as he was, is a very thorough guide in such +affairs, as he is in most others. If you will get the marrow out of those +little scraps at the end of his letters, you will not need any hand-books +of etiquette. + +As I read this over, to send it to the printer, I recollect that, in one +of the nicest sets of girls I ever knew, they called the thirteenth +chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians the "society chapter." +Read it over, and see how well it fits, the next time Maud has been +disagreeable, or you have been provoked yourself in the "German." + +"The gentleman is quiet," says Mr. Emerson, whose essay on society you +will read with profit, "the lady is serene." Bearing this in mind, you +will not really expect, when you go to the dance at Mrs. Pollexfen's, +that while you are standing in the library explaining to Mr. Sumner what +he does not understand about the Alabama Claims, watching at the same +time with jealous eye the fair form of Sybil as she is waltzing in that +hated Clifford's arms,--you will not, I say, really expect that her light +dress will be wafted into the gas-light over her head, she be surrounded +with a lambent flame, Clifford basely abandon her, while she cries, "O +Ferdinand, Ferdinand!"--nor that you, leaving Mr. Sumner, seizing Mrs. +General Grant's camel's hair shawl, rushing down the ball-room, will wrap +it around Sybil's uninjured form, and receive then and there the thanks +of her father and mother, and their pressing request for your immediate +union in marriage. Such things do not happen outside the Saturday +newspapers, and it is a great deal better that they do not. "The +gentleman is quiet and the lady is serene." In my own private judgment, +the best thing you can do at any party is the particular thing which your +host or hostess expected you to do when she made the party. If it is a +whist party, you had better play whist, if you can. If it is a dancing +party, you had better dance, if you can. If it is a music party, you had +better play or sing, if you can. If it is a croquet party, join in the +croquet, if you can. When at Mrs. Thorndike's grand party, Mrs. Colonel +Goffe, at seventy-seven, told old Rufus Putnam, who was five years her +senior, that her dancing days were over, he said to her, "Well, it seems +to be the amusement provided for the occasion." I think there is a good +deal in that. At all events, do not separate yourself from the rest as if +you were too old or too young, too wise or too foolish, or had not been +enough introduced, or were in any sort of different clay from the rest of +the pottery. + +And now I will not undertake any specific directions for behavior. You +know I hate them all. I will only repeat to you the advice which my +father, who was my best friend, gave me after the first evening call I +ever made. The call was on a gentleman whom both I and my father greatly +loved. I knew he would be pleased to hear that I had made the visit, and, +with some pride, I told him, being, as I calculate, thirteen years five +months and nineteen days old. He was pleased, very much pleased, and he +said so. "I am glad you made the call, it was a proper attention to Mr. +Palfrey, who is one of your true friends and mine. And now that you begin +to make calls, let me give you one piece of advice. Make them short. The +people who see you may be very glad to see you. But it is certain they +were occupied with something when you came, and it is certain, therefore, +that you have interrupted them." + +I was a little dashed in the enthusiasm with which I had told of my first +visit. But the advice has been worth I cannot tell how much to me,--years +of life, and hundreds of friends. + +Pelham's rule for a visit is, "Stay till you have made an agreeable +impression, and then leave immediately." A plausible rule, but dangerous. +What if one should not make an agreeable impression after all? Did not +Belch stay till near three in the morning? And when he went, because I +had dropped asleep, did I not think him more disagreeable than ever? + +For all I can say, or anybody else can say, it will be the manner of some +people to give up meeting other people socially. I am very sorry for them, +but I cannot help it. All I can say is that they will be sorry before they +are done. I wish they would read Aesop's fable about the old man and his +sons and the bundle of rods. I wish they would find out definitely why God +gave them tongues and lips and ears. I wish they would take to heart the +folly of this constant struggle in which they live, against the whole law +of the being of a gregarious animal like man. What is it that Westerly +writes me, whose note comes to me from the mail just as I finish this +paper? "I do not look for much advance in the world until we can get +people out of their own self." And what do you hear me quoting to you all +the time,--which you can never deny,--but that "the human race is the +individual of which men and women are so many different members "? You +may kick against this law, but it is true. + +It is the truth around which, like a crystal round its nucleus, all modern +civilization has taken order. + + + + +Chapter VIII. + +How To Travel. + + + +First, as to manner. You may travel on foot, on horseback, in a carriage +with horses, in a carriage with steam, or in a steamboat or ship, and also +in many other ways. + +Of these, so far as mere outside circumstance goes, it is probable that +the travelling with horses in a canal-boat is the pleasantest of all, +granting that there is no crowd of passengers, and that the weather is +agreeable. But there are so few parts of the world where this is now +practicable, that we need not say much of it. The school-girls of this +generation may well long for those old halcyon days of Miss Portia +Lesley's School. In that ideal establishment the girls went to Washington +to study political economy in the winter. They went to Saratoga in July +and August to study the analytical processes of chemistry. There was also +a course there on the history of the Revolution. They went to Newport +alternate years in the same months, to study the Norse literature and +swimming. They went to the White Sulphur Springs and to Bath, to study the +history of chivalry as illustrated in the annual tournaments. They went to +Paris to study French, to Rome to study Latin, to Athens to study Greek. +In all parts of the world where they could travel by canals they did so. +While on the journeys they studied their arithmetic and other useful +matters, which had been passed by at the capitals. And while they were on +the canals they washed and ironed their clothes, so as to be ready for the +next stopping-place. You can do anything you choose on a canal. + +Next to canal travelling, a journey on horseback is the pleasantest. It is +feasible for girls as well as boys, if they have proper escort and +superintendence. You see the country; you know every leaf and twig; you +are tired enough, and not too tired, when the day is done. When you are at +the end of each day's journey you find you have, all the way along, been +laying up a store of pleasant memories. You have a good appetite for +supper, and you sleep in one nap for the nine hours between nine at night +and six in the morning. + +You might try this, Phillis,--you and Robert. I do not think your little +pony would do, but your uncle will lend you Throg for a fortnight. There +is nothing your uncle will not do for you, if you ask him the right way. +When Robert's next vacation comes, after he has been at home a week, he +will be glad enough to start. You had better go now and see your Aunt +Fanny about it. She is always up to anything. She and your Uncle John will +be only too glad of the excuse to do this thing again. They have not done +it since they and I and P. came down through the Dixville Notch all four +on a hand gallop, with the rain running in sheets off our waterproofs. Get +them to say they will go, and then hold them up to it. + +For dress, you, Phillis, will want a regular bloomer to use when you are +scrambling over the mountains on foot. Indeed, on the White Mountains now, +the ladies best equipped ride up those steep pulls on men's saddles. For +that work this is much the safest. Have a simple skirt to button round +your waist while you are riding. It should be of waterproof,--the English +is the best. Besides this, have a short waterproof sack with a hood, which +you can put on easily if a shower comes. Be careful that it has a hood. +Any crevice between the head cover and the back cover which admits air or +wet to the neck is misery, if not fatal, in such showers as you are going +to ride through. + +You want another skirt for the evening, and this and your tooth-brush and +linen must be put up tight and snug in two little bags. The old-fashioned +saddle-bags will do nicely, if you can find a pair in the garret. The +waterproof sack must be in another roll outside. + +As for Robert, I shall tell him nothing about his dress. "A true gentleman +is always so dressed that he can mount and ride for his life." That was +the rule three hundred years ago, and I think it holds true now. + +Do not try to ride too much in one day. At the start, in particular, take +care that you do not tire your horses or yourselves. For yourselves, very +likely ten miles will be enough for the first day. It is not distance you +are after, it is the enjoyment of every blade of grass, of every flying +bird, of every whiff of air, of every cloud that hangs upon the blue. + +Walking is next best. The difficulty is about baggage and sleeping-places; +and then there has been this absurd theory, that girls cannot walk. But +they can. School-boys--trying to make immense distances--blister their +feet, strain their muscles, get disgusted, borrow money and ride home in +the stage. But this is all nonsense. Distance is not the object. Five +miles is as good as fifty. On the other hand, while the riding party +cannot well be larger than four, the more the merrier on the walking +party. It is true, that the fare is sometimes better where there are but +few. Any number of boys and girls, if they can coax some older persons to +go with them, who can supply sense and direction to the high spirits of +the juniors, may undertake such a journey. There are but few rules; +beyond them, each party may make its own. + +First, never walk before breakfast. If you like, you may make two +breakfasts and take a mile or two between. But be sure to eat something +before you are on the road. + +Second, do not walk much in the middle of the day. It is dusty and hot +then; and the landscape has lost its special glory. By ten o'clock you +ought to have found some camping-ground for the day; a nice brook running +through a grove,--a place to draw or paint or tell stories or read them or +write them; a place to make waterfalls and dams,--to sail chips or build +boats,--a place to make a fire and a cup of tea for the oldsters. Stay +here till four in the afternoon, and then push on in the two or three +hours which are left to the sleeping-place agreed upon. Four or five hours +on the road is all you want in each day. Even resolute idlers, as it is to +be hoped you all are on such occasions, can get eight miles a day out of +that,--and that is enough for a true walking party. Remember all along, +that you are not running a race with the railway train. If you were, you +would be beaten certainly; and the less you think you are the better. You +are travelling in a method of which the merit is that it is not fast, and +that you see every separate detail of the glory of the world. What a fool +you are, then, if you tire yourself to death, merely that you may say that +you did in ten hours what the locomotive would gladly have finished in +one, if by that effort you have lost exactly the enjoyment of nature and +society that you started for. + +The perfection of undertakings in this line was Mrs. Merriam's famous +walking party in the Green Mountains, with the Wadsworth girls. Wadsworth +was not their name,--it was the name of her school. She chose eight of the +girls when vacation came, and told them they might get leave, if they +could, to join her in Brattleborough for this tramp. And she sent her own +invitation to the mothers and to as many brothers. Six of the girls came. +Clara Ingham was one of them, and she told me all about it. Margaret Tyler +and Etta were there. There were six brothers also, and Archie Muldair and +his wife, Fanny Muldair's mother. They two "tended out" in a buggy, but +did not do much walking. Mr. Merriam was with them, and, quite as a +surprise, they had Thurlessen, a nice old Swede, who had served in the +army, and had ever since been attached to that school as chore-man. He +blacked the girls' shoes, waited for them at concert, and sometimes, for a +slight bribe, bought almond candy for them in school hours, when they +could not possibly live till afternoon without a supply. The girls said +that the reason the war lasted so long was that Old Thurlessen was in the +army, and that nothing ever went quick when he was in it. I believe there +was something in this. Well, Old Thurlessen had a canvas-top wagon, in +which he carried five tents, five or six trunks, one or two pieces of +kitchen gear, his own self and Will Corcoran. + +The girls and boys did not so much as know that Thurlessen was in the +party. That had all been kept a solemn secret. They did not know how +their trunks were going on, but started on foot in the morning from the +hotel, passed up that beautiful village street in Brattleborough, came +out through West Dummerston, and so along that lovely West River. It was +very easy to find a camp there, and when the sun came to be a little hot, +and they had all blown off a little of the steam of the morning, I think +they were all glad to come upon Mr. Muldair, sitting in the wagon waiting +for them. He explained to them that, if they would cross the fence and go +down to the river, they would find his wife had planted herself; and +there, sure enough, in a lovely little nook, round which the river swept, +with rocks and trees for shade, with shawls to lounge upon, and the water +to play with, they spent the day. Of course they made long excursions into +the woods and up and down the stream, but here was head-quarters. +Hard-boiled eggs from the haversacks, with bread and butter, furnished +forth the meal, and Mr. Muldair insisted on toasting some salt-pork over +the fire, and teaching the girls to like it sandwiched between crackers. +Well, at four o'clock everybody was ready to start again, and was willing +to walk briskly. And at six, what should they see but the American flag +flying, and Thurlessen's pretty little encampment of his five tents, +pitched in a horseshoe form, with his wagon, as a sort of commissary's +tent, just outside. Two tents were for the girls, two tents for the boys, +and the head-quarters tent for Mr. and Mrs. Merriam. And that night they +all learned the luxury and sweetness of sleeping upon beds of hemlock +branches. Thurlessen had supper all ready as soon as they were washed and +ready for it. And after supper they sat round the fire a little while +singing. But before nine o'clock every one of them was asleep. + +So they fared up and down through those lovely valleys of the Green +Mountains, sending Thurlessen on about ten miles every day, to be ready +for them when night came. If it rained, of course they could put in to +some of those hospitable Vermont farmers' homes, or one of the inns in the +villages. But, on the whole, they had good weather, and boys and girls +always hoped that they might sleep out-doors. + +These are, however, but the variations and amusements of travel. You and +I would find it hard to walk to Liverpool, if that happened to be the +expedition in hand or on foot. And in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred +you and I will have to adapt ourselves to the methods of travel which the +majority have agreed upon. + +But for pleasure travel, in whatever form, much of what has been said +already applies. The best party is two, the next best four, the next best +one, and the worst three. Beyond four, except in walking parties, all are +impossible, unless they be members of one family under the command of a +father or mother. Command is essential when you pass four. All the members +of the party should have or should make a community of interests. If one +draws, all had best draw. If one likes to climb mountains, all had best +climb mountains. If one rises early, all had best rise early; and so on. +Do not tell me you cannot draw. It is quite time you did. You are your own +best teacher. And there is no time or place so fit for learning as when +you are sitting under the shade of a high rock on the side of White Face, +or looking off into the village street from the piazza of a hotel. + +The party once determined on and the route, remember that the old +conditions of travel and the new conditions of most travel of to-day are +precisely opposite. For in old travel, as on horseback or on foot now, you +saw the country while you travelled. Many of your stopping-places were for +rest, or because night had fallen, and you could see nothing at night. +Under the old system, therefore, an intelligent traveller might keep in +motion from day to day, slowly, indeed, but seeing something all the time, +and learning what the country was through which he passed by talk with the +people. But in the new system, popularly called the improved system, he is +shut up with his party and a good many other parties in a tight box with +glass windows, and whirled on through dust if it be dusty, or rain if it +be rainy, under arrangements which make it impossible to converse with the +people of the country, and almost impossible to see what that country is. +There is a little conversation with the natives. But it relates mostly to +the price of pond-lilies or of crullers or of native diamonds. I once put +my head out of a window in Ashland, and, addressing a crowd of boys +promiscuously, called "John, John." John stepped forward, as I had felt +sure he would, though I had not before had the pleasure of his +acquaintance. I asked how his mother was, and how the other children were, +and he said they were very well. But he did not say anything else, and as +the train started at that moment I was not able to continue the +conversation, which was at the best, you see, conducted under +difficulties. All this makes it necessary that, in our modern travelling, +you select with particular care your places to rest, and, when you have +selected them, that you stay in them, at the least one day, that you may +rest, and that you may know something of the country you are passing. A +man or a strong woman may go from Boston to Chicago in a little more than +twenty-five hours. If he be going because he has to, it is best for him to +go in that way, because he is out of his misery the sooner. Just so it is +better to be beheaded than to be starved to death. But a party going from +Boston to Chicago purely on an expedition of pleasure, ought not to +advance more than a hundred miles a day, and might well spend twenty hours +out of every twenty-four at well-chosen stopping-places on the way. They +would avoid all large cities, which are for a short stay exactly alike and +equally uncomfortable; they would choose pleasant places for rest, and +thus when they arrived at Chicago they would have a real fund of happy, +pleasant memories. + +Applying the same principle to travel in Europe, I am eager to correct a +mistake which many of you will be apt to make at the beginning,-- +hot-blooded young Americans as you are, eager to "put through" +what you are at, even though it be the most exquisite of enjoyments, and +ignorant as you all are, till you are taught, of the possibilities of +happy life before you, if you will only let the luscious pulp of your +various bananas lie on your tongue and take all the good of it, instead of +bolting it as if it were nauseous medicine. Because you have but little +time in Europe, you will be anxious to see all you can. That is quite +right. Remember, then, that true wisdom is to stay three days in one +place, rather than to spend but one day in each of three. If you insist on +one day in Oxford, one in Birmingham, one in Bristol, why then there are +three inns or hotels to be hunted up, three packings and unpackings, three +sets of letters to be presented, three sets of streets to learn, and, +after it is all over, your memories of those three places will be merely +of the outside misery of travel. Give up two of them altogether, then. +Make yourself at home for the three days in whichever place of the three +best pleases you. Sleep till your nine hours are up every night. Breakfast +all together. Avail yourselves of your letters of introduction. See things +which are to be seen, or persons who are to be known, at the right times. +Above all, see twice whatever is worth seeing. Do not forget this +rule;--we remember what we see twice. It is that stereoscopic memory of +which I told you once before. We do not remember with anything like the +same reality or precision what we have only seen once. It is in some +slight appreciation of this great fundamental rule, that you stay three +days in any place which you really mean to be acquainted with, that Miss +Ferrier lays down her bright rule for a visit, that a visit ought "to +consist of three days,--the rest day, the drest day, and the pressed day." + +And, lastly, dear friends,--for the most entertaining of discourses on the +most fascinating of themes must have a "lastly,"--lastly, be sure that you +know what you travel for. "Why, we travel to have a good time," says that +incorrigible Pauline Ingham, who will talk none but the Yankee language. +Dear Pauline, if you go about the world expecting to find that same "good +time" of yours ready-made, inspected, branded, stamped, jobbed by the +jobbers, retailed by the retailers, and ready for you to buy with your +spending-money, you will be sadly mistaken, though you have for +spending-money all that united health, high spirits, good-nature, and kind +heart of yours, and all papa's lessons of forgetting yesterday, leaving +to-morrow alone, and living with all your might to-day. It will never do, +Pauline, to have to walk up to the inn-keeper and say, "Please, we have +come for a good time, and where shall we find it?" Take care that you have +in reserve one object, I do not care much what it is. Be ready to press +plants, or be ready to collect minerals. Or be ready to wash in +water-colors, I do not care how poor they are. Or, in Europe, be ready to +inquire about the libraries, or the baby-nurseries, or the +art-collections, or the botanical gardens. Understand in your own mind +that there is something you can inquire for and be interested in, though +you be dumped out of a car at New Smithville. It may, perhaps, happen that +you do not for weeks or months revert to this reserved object of yours. +Then happiness may come; for, as you have found out already, I think, +_happiness_ is something which _happens_, and is not contrived. On this +theme you will find an excellent discourse in the beginning of Mr. Freeman +Clarke's "Eleven Weeks in Europe." + +For directions for the detail of travel, there are none better than those +in the beginning of "Rollo in Europe." There is much wisdom in the +general directions to travellers in the prefaces to the old editions of +Murray. A young American will of course eliminate the purely English +necessities from both sides of those equations. There is a good article by +Dr. Bellows on the matter in the North American Review. And you yourself, +after you have been forty-eight hours in Europe, will feel certain that +you can write better directions than all the rest of us can, put together. + +And so, my dear young friends, the first half of this book comes to an +end. The programme of the beginning is finished, and I am to say "Good +by." If I have not answered all the nice, intelligent letters which one +and another of you have sent me since we began together, it has only been +because I thought I could better answer the multitude of such unknown +friends in print, than a few in shorter notes of reply. It has been to me +a charming thing that so many of you have been tempted to break through +the magic circle of the printed pages, and come to closer terms with one +who has certainly tried to speak as a friend to all of you. Do we all +understand that in talking, in reading, in writing, in going into society, +in choosing our books, or in travelling, there is no arbitrary set of +rules? The commandments are not carved in stone. We shall do these things +rightly if we do them simply and unconsciously, if we are not selfish, if +we are willing to profit by other people's experience, and if, as we do +them, we can manage to remember that right and wrong depend much more on +the spirit than on the manner in which the thing is done. We shall not +make many blunders if we live by the four rules they painted on the four +walls of the Detroit Clubhouse. + +Do not you know what those were? + + 1. Look up, and not down. + + 2. Look forward, and not backward. + + 3. Look out, and not in, + + 4. Lend a hand. + +The next half of the book will be the application of these rules to life +in school, in vacation, life together, life alone, and some other details +not yet touched upon. + + + + +Chapter IX. + +Life At School. + + + +I do not mean life at a boarding-school. If I speak of that, it is to be +at another time. No, I mean life at a regular every-day school, in town +or in the country, where you go in the morning and come away at eleven +or at noon, and go again in the afternoon, and come away after two or +three hours. Some young people hate this life, and some like it +tolerably well. I propose to give some information which shall make it +more agreeable all round. + +And I beg it may be understood that I do not appear as counsel for either +party, in the instruction and advice I give. That means that, as the +lawyers say, I am not retained by the teachers, formerly called +schoolmistresses and schoolmasters, or by the pupils, formerly called boys +and girls. I have been a schoolmaster myself, and I enjoyed the life very +much, and made among my boys some of the best of the friends of my life. +I have also been a school-boy,--and I roughed through my school life with +comparative comfort and ease. As master and as boy I learned some things +which I think can be explained to boys and girls now, so as to make life +at school easier and really more agreeable. + +My first rule is, that you + + Accept The Situation. + +Perhaps you do not know what that means. It means that, as you are at +school, whether you really like going or not, you determine to make the +very best you can of it, and that you do not make yourself and everybody +else wretched by sulking and grumbling about it, and wishing school was +done, and wondering why your father sends you there, and asking leave to +look at the clock in the other room, and so on. + +When Dr. Kane or Captain McGlure was lying on a skin on a field of ice, in +a blanket bag buttoned over his head, with three men one side of him and +three the other, and a blanket over them all,--with the temperature +seventy-eight degrees below zero, and daylight a month and a half away, +the position was by no means comfortable. But a brave man does not growl +or sulk in such a position. He "accepts the situation." That is, he takes +that as a thing for granted, about which there is to be no further +question. Then he is in condition to make the best of it, whatever that +best may be. He can sing "We won't go home till morning," or he can tell +the men the story of William Fitzpatrick and the Belgian coffee-grinder, +or he can say "good-night" and imagine himself among the Kentish +hop-fields,--till before he knows it the hop-sticks begin walking round +and round, and the haycocks to make faces at him,--and--and--and--he--he +--he is fast asleep. That comfort comes of "accepting the situation." + +Now here you are at school, I will say, for three hours. Accept the +situation, like a man or a woman, and do not sulk like a fool. As Mr. +Abbot says, in his admirable rule, in Rollo or Jonas, "When you grant, +grant cheerfully." You have come here to school without a fight, I +suppose. When your father told you to come, you did not insult him, as +people do in very poor plays and very cheap novels. You did not say to +him, "Miscreant and villain, I renounce thee, I defy thee to the teeth; I +am none of thine, and henceforth I leave thee in thy low estate." You did +not leap in the middle of the night from a three-story window, with your +best clothes in a handkerchief, and go and assume the charge of a pirate +clipper, which was lying hidden in a creek in the Back Bay. On the +contrary, you went to school when the time came. As you have done so, +determine, first of all, to make the very best of it. The best can be made +first-rate. But a great deal depends on you in making it so. + +To make the whole thing thoroughly attractive, to make the time pass +quickly, and to have school life a natural part of your other life, my +second rule is, + + Do What You Do With All Your Might. + +It is a good rule in anything; in sleeping, in playing, or in whatever +you have in hand. But nothing tends to make school time pass quicker; and +the great point, as I will acknowledge, is to get through with the school +hours as quickly as we fairly can. + +Now if in written arithmetic, for instance, you will start instantly on +the sums as soon as they are given out; if you will bear on hard on the +pencil, so as to make clear white marks, instead of greasy, flabby, pale +ones on the slate; if you will rule the columns for the answers as +carefully as if it were a bank ledger you were ruling, or if you will wash +the slate so completely that no vestige of old work is there, you will +find that the mere exercise of energy of manner infuses spirit and +correctness into the thing done. + +I remember my drawing-teacher once snapped the top of my pencil with his +forefinger, gently, and it flew across the room. He laughed and said, "How +can you expect to draw a firm line with a pencil held like that?" It was a +good lesson, and it illustrates this rule,--"Do with all your might the +work that is to be done." + +When I was at school at the old Latin School in Boston,--opposite where +Ben Franklin went to school and where his statue is now,--in the same spot +in space where you eat your lunch if you go into the ladies' eating-room +at Parker's Hotel,--when I was at school there, I say, things were in that +semi-barbarous state, that with a school attendance of four hours in the +morning, and three in the afternoon, we had but five minutes' recess in +the morning and five in the afternoon. We went "out" in divisions of eight +or ten each; and the worst of all was that the play-ground (now called so) +was a sort of platform, of which one half was under cover,--all of which +was, I suppose, sixteen feet long by six wide, with high walls, and stairs +leading to it. + +Of course we could have sulked away all our recess there, complaining that +we had no better place. Instead of which, we accepted the situation, we +made the best of it, and with all our might entered on the one amusement +possible in such quarters. + +We provided a stout rope, well knotted. As soon as recess began, we +divided into equal parties, one under cover and the other out, grasping +the rope, and endeavoring each to drew the other party across the dividing +line. "Greeks and Trojans" you will see the game called in English books. +Little we knew of either; but we hardened our hands, toughened our +muscles, and exercised our chests, arms, and legs much better than could +have been expected, all by accepting the situation and doing with all our +might what our hands found to do. Lessons are set for average boys at +school,--boys of the average laziness. If you really go to work with all +your might then, you get a good deal of loose time, which, in general, you +can apply to that standing nuisance, the "evening lesson." Sometimes, I +know, for what reason I do not know, this study of the evening lesson in +school is prohibited. When it is, the good boys and quick boys have to +learn how to waste their extra time, which seems to be a pity. But with a +sensible master, it is a thing understood, that it is better for boys or +girls to study hard while they study, and never to learn to dawdle. +Taking it for granted that you are in the hands of such masters or +mistresses, I will take it for granted that, when you have learned the +school lesson, there will be no objection to your next learning the other +lesson, which lazier boys will have to carry home. + +Lastly, you will find you gain a great deal by giving to the school lesson +all the color and light which every-day affairs can lend to it. Do not let +it be a ghastly skeleton in a closet, but let it come as far as it will +into daily life. When you read in Colburn's Oral Arithmetic, "that a man +bought mutton at six cents a pound, and beef at seven," ask your mother +what she pays a pound now, and do the sum with the figures changed. When +the boys come back after vacation, find out where they have been, and look +out Springfield, and the Notch, and Dead River, and Moosehead Lake, on the +map,--and know where they are. When you get a chance at the "Republican," +before the others have come down to breakfast, read the Vermont news, +under the separate head of that State, and find out how many of those +Vermont towns are on your "Mitchell." When it is your turn to speak, do +not be satisfied with a piece from the "Speaker," that all the boys have +heard a hundred times; but get something out of the "Tribune," or the +"Companion," or "Young Folks," or from the new "Tennyson" at home. + +I once went to examine a high school, on a lonely hillside in a lonely +country town. The first class was in botany, and they rattled off from the +book very fast. They said "cotyledon," and "syngenesious," and +"coniferous," and such words, remarkably well, considering they did not +care two straws about them. Well, when it was my turn to "make a few +remarks," I said,-- + +"HUCKLEBERRY." + +I do not remember another word I said, but I do remember the sense of +amazement that a minister should have spoken such a wicked word in a +school-room. What was worse, I sent a child out to bring in some unripe +huckleberries from the roadside, and we went to work on our botany to +some purpose. + +My dear children, I see hundreds of boys who can tell me what is thirteen +seventeenths of two elevenths of five times one half of a bushel of wheat, +stated in pecks, quarts, and pints; and yet if I showed them a grain of +wheat, and a grain of unhulled rice, and a grain of barley, they would not +know which was which. Try not to let your school life sweep you wholly +away from the home life of every day. + + + + +Chapter X. + +Life In Vacation. + + + +How well I remember my last vacation! I knew it was my last, and I did not +lose one instant of it. Six weeks of unalloyed! + +True, after school days are over, people have what are called vacations. +Your father takes his at the store, and Uncle William has the "long +vacation," when the Court does not sit. But a man's vacation, or a +woman's, is as nothing when it is compared with a child's or a young man's +or a young woman's home from school. For papa and Uncle William are +carrying about a set of cares with them all the time. They cannot help it, +and they carry them bravely, but they carry them all the same. So you see +a vacation for men and women is generally a vacation with its weight of +responsibility. But your vacations, while you are at school, though they +have their responsibilities, indeed, have none under which you ought not +to walk off as cheerfully as Gretchen, there, walks down the road with +that pail of milk upon her head. I hope you will learn to do that some +day, my dear Fanchon. + +Hear, then, the essential laws of vacation:-- + +First of all, + + Do Not Get Into Other People's Way. + +Horace and Enoch would not have made such a mess of it last summer, and +got so utterly into disgrace, if they could only have kept this rule in +mind. But, from mere thoughtlessness, they were making people wish they +were at the North Pole all the time, and it ended in their wishing that +they were there themselves. + +Thus, the very first morning after they had come home from Leicester +Academy,--and, indeed, they had been welcomed with all the honors only the +night before,--when Margaret, the servant, came down into the kitchen, she +found her fire lighted, indeed, but there were no thanks to Master Enoch +for that. The boys were going out gunning that morning, and they had taken +it into their heads that the two old fowling-pieces needed to be +thoroughly washed out, and with hot water. So they had got up, really at +half past four; had made the kitchen fire themselves; had put on ten times +as much water as they wanted, so it took an age to boil; had got tired +waiting, and raked out some coals and put on some more water in a skillet; +had upset this over the hearth, and tried to wipe it up with the cloth +that lay over Margaret's bread-cakes as they were rising; had meanwhile +taken the guns to pieces, and laid the pieces on the kitchen table; had +piled up their oily cloths on the settle and on the chairs; had spilled +oil from the lamp-filler, in trying to drop some into one of the ramrod +sockets, and thus, by the time Margaret did come down, her kitchen and her +breakfast both were in a very bad way. + +Horace said, when he was arraigned, that he had thought they should be all +through before half past five; that then they would have "cleared up," and +have been well across the pasture, out of Margaret's way. Horace did not +know that watched pots are "mighty unsartin" in their times of boiling. + +Now all this row, leading to great unpopularity of the boys in regions +where they wanted to be conciliatory, would have been avoided if Horace +and Enoch had merely kept out of the way. There were the Kendal-house in +the back-yard, or the wood-shed, where they could have cleaned the guns, +and then nobody would have minded if they had spilled ten quarts of water. + +This seems like a minor rule. But I have put it first, because a good deal +of comfort or discomfort hangs on it. + +Scientifically, the first rule would be, + + Save Time. + +This can only be done by system. A vacation is gold, you see, if properly +used; it is distilled gold,--if there could be such,--to be correct, it is +burnished, double-refined gold, or gold purified. It cannot be lengthened. +There is sure to be too little of it. So you must make sure of all there +is; and this requires system. + +It requires, therefore, that, first of all,--even before the term time is +over,--you all determine very solemnly what the great central business of +the vacation shall be. Shall it be an archery club? Or will we build the +Falcon's Nest in the buttonwood over on the Strail? Or shall it be some +other sport or entertainment? + +Let this be decided with great care; and, once decided, hang to this +determination, doing something determined about it every living day. In +truth, I recommend application to that business with a good deal of +firmness, on every day, rain or shine, even at certain fixed hours; +unless, of course, there is some general engagement of the family, or of +the neighborhood, which interferes. If you are all going on a lily party, +why, that will take precedence. + +Then I recommend, that, quite distinct from this, you make up your own +personal and separate mind as to what is the thing which you yourself have +most hungered and thirsted for in the last term, but have not been able to +do to your mind, because the school work interfered so badly. Some such +thing, I have no doubt, there is. You wanted to make some electrotype +medals, as good as that first-rate one that Muldair copied when he lived +in Paxton. Or you want to make some plaster casts. Or you want to read +some particular book or books. Or you want to use John's tool-box for some +very definite and attractive purpose. Very well; take this up also, for +your individual or special business. The other is the business of the +crowd; this is your avocation when you are away from the crowd. I say +away; I mean it is something you can do without having to hunt them up, +and coax them to go on with you. + +Besides these, of course there is all the home life. You have the garden +to work in. You can help your mother wash the tea things. You can make +cake, if you keep on the blind side of old Rosamond; and so on. + +Thus are you triply armed. Indeed, I know no life which gets on +well, unless it has these three sides, whether life with the others, +life by yourself, or such life as may come without any plan or +effort of your own. + +No; I do not know which of these things you will choose,--perhaps you will +choose none of them. But it is easy enough to see how fast a day of +vacation will go by if you, Stephen, or you, Clara, have these several +resources or determinations. + +Here is the ground-plan of it, as I might steal it from Fanchon's +journals:-- + +"TUESDAY.--Second day of vacation. Fair. Wind west. Thermometer +sixty-three degrees, before breakfast. + +"Down stairs in time." [_Mem._ 1. Be careful about this. It makes much +more disturbance in the household than you think for, if you are late to +breakfast, and it sets back the day terribly.] + +"Wiped while Sarah washed. Herbert read us the new number of 'Tig and +Tag,' while we did this, and made us scream, by acting it with Silas, +behind the sofa and on the chairs. At nine, all was done, and we went up +the pasture to Mont Blanc. Worked all the morning on the drawbridge. We +have got the two large logs into place, and have dug out part of the +trench. Home at one, quite tired." + +[_Mem._ 2. Mont Blanc is a great boulder,--part of a park of boulders, in +the edge of the wood-lot. Other similar rocks are named the "Jung-frau," +because unclimbable, the "_Aiguilles_" &c. This about the drawbridge and +logs, readers will understand as well as I do.] + +"Had just time to dress for dinner. Mr. Links, or Lynch, was here; a _very +interesting_ man, who has descended an extinct volcano. He is going to +give me some Pele's hair. I think I shall make a museum. After dinner we +all sat on the piazza some time, till he went away. Then I came up here, +and fixed my drawers. I have moved my bed to the other side of the +chamber. This gives me a _great deal more room_. Then I got out my +palette, and washed it, and my colors. I am going to paint a cluster of +grape-leaves for mamma's birthday. It is _a great secret_. I had only got +the things well out, when the Fosdicks came, and proposed we should all +ride over with them to Worcester, where Houdin, the juggler, was. Such a +splendid time as we have had! How he does some of the things I do not +know. I brought home a flag and three great peppermints for Pet. We did +not get home _till nearly eleven._" + +[_Mem._ 3. This is pretty late for young people of your age; but, as +Madame Roland said, a good deal has to be pardoned to the spirit of +liberty; and, so far as I have observed, in this time, generally is.] + +Now if you will analyze that bit of journal, you will see, first, that the +day is full of what Mr. Clough calls + + "The joy of eventful living." + +That girl never will give anybody cause to say she is tired of her +vacations, if she can spend them in that fashion. You will see, next, that +it is all in system, and, as it happens, just on the system I proposed. +For you will observe that there is the great plan, with others, of the +fortress, the drawbridge, and all that; there is the separate plan for +Fanchon's self, of the water-color picture; and, lastly, there is the +unplanned surrender to the accident of the Fosdicks coming round to +propose Houdin. + +Will you observe, lastly, that Fanchon is not selfish in these matters, +but lends a hand where she finds an opportunity? + + + + +Chapter XI. + +Life Alone. + + + +When I was a very young man, I had occasion to travel two hundred miles +down the valley of the Connecticut River. I had just finished a delightful +summer excursion in the service of the State of New Hampshire as a +geologist,--and I left the other geological surveyors at Haverhill. + +I remembered John Ledyard. Do you, dear Young America? John Ledyard, +having determined to leave Dartmouth College, built himself a boat, or +digged for himself a canoe, and sailed down on the stream reading the +Greek Testament, or "Plutarch's Lives," I forget which, on the way. + +Here was I, about to go down the same river. I had ten dollars in my +pocket, be the same more or less. Could not I buy a boat for seven, my +provant for a week for three more, and so arrive in Springfield in ten +days' time, go up to the Hardings' and spend the night, and go down to +Boston, on a free pass I had, the next day? + +Had I been as young as I am now, I should have done that thing. I wanted +to do it then, but there were difficulties. + +First, whatever was to be done must be done at once. For, if I were +delayed only a day at Haverhill, I should have, when I had paid my bill, +but eight dollars and a half left. Then how buy the provant for three +dollars, and the boat for six? + +So I went at once to the seaport or maritime district of that flourishing +town, to find, to my dismay, that there was no boat, canoe, dug-out, or +_batteau_,--there was nothing. As I remember things now, there was not any +sort of coffin that would ride the waves in any sort of way. + +There were, however, many _pundits_, or learned men. They are a class of +people I have always found in places or occasions where something besides +learning was needed. They tried, as is the fashion of their craft, to make +good the lack of boats by advice. + +First, they proved that it would have been of no use had there been any +boats. Second, they proved that no one ever had gone down from Haverhill +in a boat at that season of the year,--_ergo_, that no one ought to think +of going. Third, they proved, what I knew very well before, that I could +go down much quicker in the stage. Fourth, with astonishing unanimity +they agreed, that, if I would only go down as far as Hanover, there would +be plenty of boats; the river would have more water in it; I should be +past this fall and that fall, this rapid and that rapid; and, in short, +that, before the worlds were, it seemed predestined that I should start +from Hanover. + +All this they said in that seductive way in which a dry-goods clerk tells +you that he has no checked gingham, and makes you think you are a fool +that you asked for checked gingham; that you never should have asked, +least of all, should have asked him. + +So I left the beach at Haverhill, disconcerted, disgraced, conscious of +my own littleness and folly, and, as I was bid, took passage in the +Telegraph coach for Hanover, giving orders that I should be called in +the morning. + +I was called in the morning. I mounted the stage-coach, and I think we +came to Hanover about half past ten,--my first and last visit at that +shrine of learning. Pretty hot it was on the top of the coach, and I was +pretty tired, and a good deal chafed as I saw from that eyry the lovely, +cool river all the way at my side. I took some courage when I saw White's +dam and Brown's dam, or Smith's dam and Jones's dam, or whatever the dams +were, and persuaded myself that it would have been hard work hauling +round them. + +Nathless, I was worn and weary when I arrived at Hanover, and was told +there would be an hour before the Telegraph went forward. Again I hurried +to the strand. + +This time I found a boat. A poor craft it was, but probably as good as +Ledyard's. Leaky, but could be caulked. Destitute of row-locks, but they +could be made. + +I found the owner. Yes, he would sell her to me. Nay, he was not +particular about price. Perhaps he knew that she was not worth +anything. But, with that loyalty to truth, not to say pride of opinion, +which is a part of the true New-Englander's life, this sturdy man said, +frankly, that he did not want to sell her, because he did not think I +ought to go that way. + +Vain for me to represent that that was my affair, and not his. + +Clearly he thought it was his. Did he think I was a boy who had escaped +from parental care? + +Perhaps. For at that age I had not this mustache or these whiskers. + +Had he, in the Laccadives Islands, some worthless son who had escaped from +home to go a whaling? Did he wish in his heart that some other shipmaster +had hindered him, as he now was hindering me? Alas, I know not! Only this +I know, that he advised me, argued with me, nay, begged me not to go that +way. I should get aground. I should be upset. The boat would be swamped. +Much better go by the Telegraph. + +Dear reader, I was young in life, and I accepted the reiterated advice, +and took the Telegraph. It was one of about four prudent things which I +have done in my life, which I can remember now, all of which I regret at +this moment. + +Now, why did I give up a plan, at the solicitation of an utter stranger, +which I had formed intelligently, and had looked forward to with pleasure? +Was I afraid of being drowned? Not I. Hard to drown in the upper +Connecticut the boy who had, for weeks, been swimming three times a day in +that river and in every lake or stream in upper or central New Hampshire. +Was I afraid of wetting my clothes? Not I. Hard to hurt with water the +clothes in which I had slept on the top of Mt. Washington, swam the +Ammonoosuc, or sat out a thunder-shower on Mt. Jefferson. + +Dear boys and girls, I was, by this time, afraid of myself. I was afraid +of being alone. + +This is a pretty long text. But it is the text for this paper. You see I +had had this four or five hours' pull down on the hot stage-coach. I had +been conversing with myself all the time, and I had not found it the best +of company. I was quite sure that the voyage would cost a week. Maybe it +would cost more. And I was afraid that I should be very tired of it and of +myself before the thing was done. So I meekly returned to the Telegraph, +faintly tried the same experiment at Windsor, for the last time, and then +took the Telegraph for the night, and brought up next day at Greenfield. + +"Can I, perhaps, give some hints to you, boys and girls, which will save +you from such a mistake as I made then?" + +I do not pretend that you should court solitude. That is all nonsense, +though there is a good deal of it in the books, as there is of other +nonsense. You are made for society, for converse, sympathy, and communion. +Tongues are made to talk, and ears are made to listen. So are eyes made to +see. Yet night falls sometimes, when you cannot see. And, as you ought not +be afraid of night, you ought not be afraid of solitude, when you cannot +talk or listen. + +What is there, then, that we can do when we are alone? + +Many things. Of which now it will be enough to speak a little in detail +of five. We can think, we can read, we can write, we can draw, we can +sing. Of these we will speak separately. Of the rest I will say a word, +and hardly more. + +First, we can think. And there are some places where we can do nothing +else. In a railway carriage, for instance, on a rainy or a frosty day, you +cannot see the country. If you are without companions, you cannot +talk,--ought not, indeed, talk much, if you had them. You ought not read, +because reading in the train puts your eyes out, sooner or later. You +cannot write. And in most trains the usages are such that you cannot sing. +Or, when they sing in trains, the whole company generally sings, so that +rules for solitude no longer apply. + +What can you do then? You can think. Learn to think carefully, regularly, +so as to think with pleasure. + +I know some young people who had two or three separate imaginary lives, +which they took up on such occasions. One was a supposed life in the +Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. Robert used to plan the whole house and +grounds; just what horses he would keep, what hounds, what cows, and other +stock. He planned all the neighbors' houses, and who should live in them. +There were the Fairfaxes, very nice, but rather secesh; and the Sydneys, +who had been loyal through and through. There was that plucky Frank +Fairfax, and that pretty Blanche Sydney. Then there were riding parties, +archery parties, picnics on the river, expeditions to the Natural Bridge, +and once a year a regular "meet" for a fox-hunt. + +"Springfield, twenty-five minutes for refreshments," says the conductor, +and Robert is left to take up his history some other time. + +It is a very good plan to have not simply stories on hand, as he had, but +to be ready to take up the way to plan your garden, the arrangement of +your books, the order of next year's Reading Club, or any other truly good +subjects which have been laid by for systematic thinking, the first time +you are alone. Bear this in mind as you read. If you had been General +Sullivan, at the battle of Brandywine, you are not quite certain whether +you would have done as he did. No. Well, then, keep that for a nut to +crack the first time you have to be alone. What would you have done? + +This matter of being prepared to think is really a pretty important +matter, if you find some night that you have to watch with a sick friend. +You must not read, write, or talk there. But you must keep awake. Unless +you mean to have the time pass dismally slow, you must have your regular +topics to think over, carefully and squarely. + +An imaginary conversation, such as Madame de Genlis describes, is an +excellent resource at such a time. + +Many and many a time, as I have been grinding along at night on some +railway in the Middle States, when it was too early to sleep, and too late +to look at the scenery, have I called into imaginary council a circle of +the nicest people in the world. + +"Let me suppose," I would say to myself, "that we were all at Mrs. +Tileston's in the front parlor, where the light falls so beautifully, on +the laughing face and shoulder of that Bacchante. Let me suppose that +besides Mrs. Tileston, Edith was there, and Emily and Carrie and +Haliburton and Fred. Suppose just then the door-bell rang, and Mr. +Charles Sumner came up stairs fresh from Washington. What should we all +say and do? + +"Why, of course we should be glad to see him, and we should ask him about +Washington and the Session,--what sort of a person Lady Bruce was,--and +whether it was really true that General Butler said that bright thing +about the Governor of Arkansas. + +"And Mr. Sumner would say that General Butler said a much better thing +than that. He said that m-m-m-m-m-- + +"Then Mrs. Tileston would say, 'O, I thought that s-s-s-s-s--' + +"Then I should say, 'O no! I am sure that u-u-u-u--, &c.' + +"Then Edith would laugh and say, 'Why, no, Mr. Hale. I am sure that, &c., +&c., &c., &c.'" + +You will find that the carrying out an imaginary conversation, where you +really fill these blanks, and make the remarks of the different people in +character, is a very good entertainment,--what we called very good fun +when you and I were at school,--and helps along the hours of your watching +or of your travel greatly. + +Second, as I said, there is reading. Now I have already gone into some +detail in this matter. But under the head of solitude, this is to be +added, that one is often alone, when he can read. And books, of course, +are such a luxury. But do you know that if you expect to be alone, you +had better take with you only books enough, and not too many? It is an +"embarrassment of riches," sometimes, to find yourself with too many +books. You are tempted to lay down one and take up another; you are +tempted to skip and skim too much, so that you really get the good of +none of them. + +There is no time so good as the forced stopping-places of travel for +reading up the hard, heavy reading which must be done, but which nobody +wants to do. Here, for two years, I have been trying to make you read +Gibbon, and you would not touch it at home. But if I had you in the +mission-house at Mackinaw, waiting for days for a steamboat, and you had +finished "Blood and Thunder," and "Sighs and Tears," and then found a copy +of Gibbon in the house, I think you would go through half of it, at least, +before the steamer came. + +Walter Savage Landor used to keep five books, and only five, by him, I +have heard it said. When he had finished one of these, and finished it +completely, he gave it away, and bought another. I do not recommend that, +but I do recommend the principle of thorough reading on which it is +founded. Do not be fiddling over too many books at one time. + +Third, "But, my dear Mr. Hale, I get so tired, sometimes, of reading." Of +course you do. Who does not? I never knew anybody who did not tire of +reading sooner or later. But you are alone, as we suppose. Then be all +ready to write. Take care that your inkstand is filled as regularly as +the wash-pitcher on your washstand. Take care that there are pens and +blotting-paper, and everything that you need. These should be looked to +every day, with the same care with which every other arrangement of your +room is made. When I come to make you that long-promised visit, and say to +you, before my trunk is open, "I want to write a note, Blanche," be all +ready at the instant. Do not have to put a little water into the inkstand, +and to run down to papa's office for some blotting-paper, and get the key +to mamma's desk for some paper. Be ready to write for your life, at any +moment, as Walter, there, is ready to ride for his. + +"Dear me! Mr. Hale, I hate to write. What shall I say?" + +Do not say what Mr. Hale has told you, whatever else you do. Say what you +yourself may want to see hereafter. The chances are very small that +anybody else, save some dear friend, will want to see what you write. + +But, of course, your journal, and especially your letters, are matters +always new, for which the day itself gives plenty of subjects, and these +two are an admirable regular resort when you are alone. + +As to drawing, no one can have a better drawing-teacher than himself. +Remember that. And whoever can learn to write can learn to draw. Of all +the boys who have ever entered at the Worcester Technical School, it has +proved that all could draw, and I think the same is true at West Point. +Keep your drawings, not to show to other people, but to show yourself +whether you are improving. And thank me, ten years hence, that I advised +you to do so. + +You do not expect me to go into detail as to the method in which you can +teach yourself. This is, however, sure. If you will determine to learn to +see things truly, you will begin to draw them truly. It is, for instance, +almost never that the wheel of a carriage really is round to your eye. It +is round to your thought. But unless your eye is exactly opposite the hub +of the wheel in the line of the axle, the wheel does not make a circle on +the retina of your eye, and ought not to be represented by a circle in +your drawing. To draw well, the first resolution and the first duty is to +see well. Second, do not suppose that mere technical method has much to do +with real success. Soft pencil rather than hard; sepia rather than India +ink. It is pure truth that tells in drawing, and that is what you can +gain. Take perfectly simple objects, at a little distance, to begin with. +Yes, the gate-posts at the garden gate are as good as anything. Draw the +outline as accurately as you can, but remember there is no outline in +nature, and that the outline in drawing is simply conventional; +represent--which means present again, or re-present--the shadows as well +as you can. Notice is the shadow under the cap of the post deeper than +that of the side. Then let it be re-presented so on your paper. Do this +honestly, as well as you can. Keep it to compare with what you do next +week or next month. And if you have a chance to see a good draughtsman +work, quietly watch him, and remember. Do not hurry, nor try hard things +at the beginning. Above all, do not begin with large landscapes. + +As for singing, there is nothing that so lights up a whole house as the +strain, through the open windows, of some one who is singing alone. We +feel sure, then, that there is at least one person in that house who is +well and is happy. + + + + +Chapter XII. + +Habits In Church. + + + +Perhaps I can fill a gap, if I say something to young people about their +habits in church-going, and in spending the hour of the church service. + +When I was a boy, we went to school on weekdays for four hours in the +morning and three in the afternoon. We went to church on Sunday at about +half past ten, and church "let out" at twelve. We went again in the +afternoon, and the service was a little shorter. I knew and know precisely +how much shorter, for I sat in sight of the clock, and bestowed a great +deal too much attention on it. But I do not propose to tell you that. + +Till I was taught some of the things which I now propose to teach you, +this hour and a half in church seemed to me to correspond precisely to the +four hours in school,--I mean it seemed just as long. The hour and twenty +minutes of the afternoon seemed to me to correspond precisely with the +three hours of afternoon school. After I learned some of these things, +church-going seemed to me very natural and simple, and the time I spent +there was very short and very pleasant to me. + +I should say, then, that there are a great many reasonably good boys and +girls, reasonably thoughtful, also, who find the confinement of a pew +oppressive, merely because they do not know the best way to get the +advantage of a service, which is really of profit to children as it is to +grown-up people,--and which never has its full value as it does when +children and grown people join together in it. + +Now to any young people who are reading this paper, and are thinking about +their own habits in church, I should say very much what I should about +swimming, or drawing, or gardening; that, if the thing to be done is worth +doing at all, you want to do it with your very best power. You want to +give yourself up to it, and get the very utmost from it. + +You go to church, I will suppose, twice a day on Sunday. Is it not +clearly best, then, to carry out to the very best the purpose with which +you are there? You are there to worship God. Steadily and simply determine +that you will worship him, and you will not let such trifles distract you +as often do distract people from this purpose. + +What if the door does creak? what if a dog does bark near by? what if the +horses outside do neigh or stamp? You do not mean to confess that you, a +child of God, are going to submit to dogs, or horses, or creaking doors! + +If you will give yourself to the service with all your heart and +soul,--with all your might, as a boy does to his batting or his catching +at base-ball; if, when the congregation is at prayer, you determine that +you will not be hindered in your prayer; or, when the time comes for +singing, that you will not be hindered from joining in the singing with +voice or with heart,--why, you can do so. I never heard of a good fielder +in base-ball missing a fly because a dog barked, or a horse neighed, on +the outside of the ball-ground. + +If I kept a high school, I would call together the school once a month, +to train all hands in the habits requisite for listeners in public +assemblies. They should be taught that just as rowers in a boat-race row +and do nothing else,--as soldiers at dress parade present arms, shoulder +arms, and the rest, and do nothing else, no matter what happens, during +that half-hour,--that so, when people meet to listen to an address or to a +concert they should listen, and do nothing else. + +It is perfectly easy for people to get control and keep control of this +habit of attention. If I had the exercise I speak of, in a high school, +the scholars should be brought together, as I say, and carried through a +series of discipline in presence of mind. + +Books, resembling hymn-books in weight and size, should be dropped from +galleries behind them, till they were perfectly firm under such scattering +fire, and did not look round; squeaking dolls, of the size of large +children, should be led squeaking down the passages of the school-room, +and other strange objects should be introduced, until the scholars were +all proof, and did not turn towards them once. Every one of those scholars +would thank me afterwards. + +Think of it. You give a dollar, that you may hear one of Thomas's +concerts. How little of your money's worth you get, if twenty times, as +the concert goes on, you must turn round to see if it was Mrs. Grundy who +sneezed, or Mr. Bundy; or if it was Mr. Golightly or Mrs. Heavyside who +came in too late at the door. And this attention to what is before you is +a matter of habit and discipline. You should determine that you will only +do in church what you go to church for, and adhere to your determination +until the habit is formed. + +If you find, as a great many boys and girls do, that the sermon in church +comes in as a stumbling-block in the way of this resolution, that you +cannot fix your attention steadily upon it, I recommend that you try +taking notes of it. I have never known this to fail. + +It is not necessary to do this in short-hand, though that is a very +charming accomplishment. Any one of you can teach himself how to write +short-hand, and there is no better practice than you can make for yourself +at church in taking notes of sermons. + +But supposing you cannot write short-hand. Take a little book with stiff +covers, such as you can put in your pocket. The reporters use books of +ruled paper, of the length of a school writing-book, but only two or three +inches wide, and opening at the end. That is a very good shape. Then you +want a pencil or two cut sharp before you go to church. You will learn +more easily what you want to write than I can teach you. You cannot write +the whole, even of the shortest sentence, without losing part of the next. +But you can write the leading ideas, perhaps the leading words. + +When you go home you will find you have a "skeleton," as it is called, of +the whole sermon. And, if you want to profit by the exercise, you may very +well spend an hour of the afternoon in writing out in neat and finished +form a sketch of some one division of it. + +But, even if you do nothing with the notes after you come home, you will +find that they have made the sermon very short for you; that you have +been saved from sleepiness, and that you afterwards remember what the +preacher said, with unusual distinctness. You will also gradually gain a +habit of listening, with a view to remembering; noticing specially the +course and train of the argument or of the statement of any speaker. + +Of course I need not say that in church you must be reverent in manner, +must not disturb others, and must not occupy yourself intentionally with +other people's dress or demeanor. If you really meant or wanted to do +these things, you would not be reading this paper. + +But it may be worth while to say that even children and other young people +may remember to advantage that they form a very important part of the +congregation. If, therefore, the custom of worship where you are arranges +for responses to be read by the people, you, who are among the people, are +to respond. If it provides for congregational singing, and you can sing +the tune, you are to sing. It is certain that it requires the people all +to be in their places when the service begins. That you can do as well as +the oldest of them. + +When the service is ended, do not hurry away. Do not enter into a wild and +useless competition with the other boys as to which shall leap off the +front steps the soonest upon the grass of the churchyard. You can arrange +much better races elsewhere. + +When the benediction is over, wait a minute in your seat; do not look for +your hat and gloves till it is over, and then quietly and without jostling +leave the church, as you might pass from one room of your father's house +into another, when a large number of his friends were at a great party. +That is precisely the condition of things in which you are all together. + +Observe, dear children, I am speaking only of habits of outside behavior +at church. I intentionally turn aside from speaking of the communion with +God, to which the church will help you, and the help from your Saviour +which the church will make real. These are very great blessings, as I +hope you will know. Do not run the risk of losing them by neglecting the +little habits of concentrated thought and of devout and simple behavior +which may make the hour in church one of the shortest and happiest hours +of the week. + + + + +Chapter XIII. + +Life With Children. + + + +There is a good deal of the life of boys and girls which passes when they +are with other boys and girls, and involves some difficulties with a great +many pleasures, all its own. It is generally taken for granted that if the +children are by themselves, all will go well. And if you boys and girls +did but know it, many very complimentary things are said about you in this +very matter. "Children do understand each other so well." "Children get +along so well with each other." "I feel quite relieved when the children +find some companions." This sort of thing is said behind the children's +backs at the very moment when the same children, quite strangers to each +other, are wishing that they were at home themselves, or at least that +these sudden new companions were. + +There is a well-studied picture of this mixed-up life of boys and girls +with other boys and girls who are quite strangers to them in the end of +Miss Edgeworth's "Sequel to Frank,"--a book which I cannot get the young +people to read as much as I wish they would. And I do not at this moment +remember any other sketch of it in fiction quite so well managed, with so +little overstatement, and with so much real good sense which children may +remember to advantage. + +Of course, in the first place, you are to do as you would be done by. But, +when you have said this, a question is still involved, for you do not know +for a moment how you would be done by; or if you do know, you know simply +that you would like to be let off from the company of these new-found +friends. "If I did as I would be done by," said Clara, "I should turn +round and walk to the other end of the piazza, and I should leave the +whole party of these strange girls alone. I was having a very good time +without them, and I dare say they would have a better time without me. But +papa brought me to them, and said their father was in college with him, +and that he wanted that we should know each other. So I could not do, in +that case, exactly as I would be done by without displeasing papa, and +that would not be doing to him at all as I would be done by." + +The English of all this is, my dear Clara, that in that particular +exigency on the piazza at Newbury you had a nice book, and you would have +been glad to be left alone; nay, at the bottom of your heart, you would be +glad to be left alone a good deal of your life. But you do not want to be +left alone all your life. And if your father had taken you to Old Point +Comfort for a month, instead of Newbury, and you were as much a stranger +to the ways there as this shy Lucy Percival is to our Northern ways at +Newbury, you would be very much obliged to any nice Virginian girl who +swallowed down her dislike of Yankees in general, and came and welcomed +you as prettily as, in fact, you did the Percivals when your father +brought you to them. The doing as you would be done by requires a study of +all the conditions, not of the mere outside accident of the moment. + +The direction familiarly given is that we should meet strangers half-way. +But I do not find that this wholly answers. These strangers may be +represented by globules of quicksilver, or, indeed, of water, on a marble +table. Suppose you pour out two little globules of quicksilver at each of +two points /. ./ like these two. Suppose you make the globules just so +large that they meet half-way, thus, /OO/. At the points where they +touch they only touch. It even seems as if there were a little repulsion, +so that they shrink away from each other. But, if you will enlarge one of +the drops never so little, so that it shall meet the other a very little +beyond half-way, why, the two will gladly run together into one, and will +even forget that they ever have been parted. That is the true rule for +meeting strangers. Meet them a little bit more than half-way. You will +find in life that the people who do this are the cheerful people, and +happy, who get the most out of society, and, indeed, are everywhere prized +and loved. All this is worth saying in a book published in Boston, because +New-Englanders inherit a great deal of the English shyness,--which the +French call "mauvaise honte," or "bad shame,"--and they need to be +cautious particularly to meet strangers a little more than half-way. +Boston people, in particular, are said to suffer from the habits of +"distance" or "reserve." + +"But I am sure I do not know what to say to them," says Robert, who with a +good deal of difficulty has been made to read this paper thus far. My dear +Bob, have I said that you must talk to them? I knew you pretended that you +could not talk to people, though yesterday, when I was trying to get my +nap in the hammock, I certainly heard a great deal of rattle from somebody +who was fixing his boat with Clem Waters in the woodhouse. But I have +never supposed that you were to sit in agreeable conversation about the +weather, or the opera, with these strange boys and girls. Nobody but prigs +would do that, and I am glad to say you are not a prig. But if you were +turned in on two or three boys as Clara was on the Percival girls, a good +thing to say would be, "Would you like to go in swimming?" or "How would +you like to see us clean our fish?" or "I am going up to set snares for +rabbits; how would you like to go?" Give them a piece of yourself. That is +what I mean by meeting more than half-way. Frankly, honorably, without +unfair reserve,--which is to say, like a gentleman,--share with these +strangers some part of your own life which makes you happy. Clara, there, +will do the same thing. She will take these girls to ride, or she will +teach them how to play "copack," or she will tell them about her play of +the "Sleeping Beauty," and enlist some of them to take parts. This is what +I mean by meeting people more than half-way. + +It may be that some of the chances of life pitchfork in upon you and your +associates a bevy of little children smaller than yourselves, whom you +are expected to keep an eye upon. This is a much severer trial of your +kindness, and of your good sense also, than the mere introduction to +strange boys and girls of your own age. Little children seem very +exacting. They are not so to a person who understands how to manage +them. But very likely you do not understand, and, whether you do or do +not, they require a constant eye. You will find a good deal to the point +in Jonas's directions to Rollo, and in Beechnut's directions to those +children in Vermont; and perhaps in what Jonas and Beechnut did with the +boys and girls who were hovering round them all the time you will find +more light than in their directions. Children, particularly little +children, are very glad to be directed, and to be kept even at work, if +they are in the company of older persons, and think they are working with +them. Jonas states it thus: "Boys will do any amount of work if there is +somebody to plan for them, and they will like to do it." If there is any +undertaking of an afternoon, and you find that there is a body of the +younger children who want to be with you who are older, do not make them +and yourselves unhappy by rebuking them for "tagging after" you. Of +course they tag after you. At their age you were glad of such improving +company as yours is. It has made you what you are. Instead of scolding +them, then, just avail yourselves of their presence, and make the +occasion comfortable to them, by giving them some occupation for their +hands. See how cleverly Fanny is managing down on the beach with those +four little imps. Fanny really wants to draw, and she has her +water-colors, and Edward Holiday has his and is teaching her. And these +four children from the hotel have "tagged" down after her. You would say +that was too bad, and you would send them home, I am afraid. Fanny has +not said any such thing. She has "accepted the position," and made +herself queen of it, as she is apt to do. She showed Reginald, first of +all, how to make a rainbow of pebbles,--violet pebbles, indigo pebbles, +blue pebbles, and so on to red ones. She explained that it had to be +quite large so as to give the good effect. In a minute Ellen had the idea +and started another, and then little Jo began to help Ellen, and Phil to +help Rex. And there those four children have been tramping back and forth +over the beach for an hour, bringing and sorting and arranging colored +pebbles, while Edward and Fanny have gone on quietly with their drawing. + +In short, the great thing with children, as with grown people, is to give +them something to do. You can take a child of two years on your knee, +while there is reading aloud, so that the company hopes for silence. Well, +if you only tell that child to be still, he will be wretched in one +minute, and in two will be on the floor and rushing wildly all round the +room. But if you will take his little plump hand and "pat a cake" it on +yours, or make his little fat fingers into steeples or letters or rabbits, +you can keep him quiet without saying a single word for half an hour. At +the end of the most tiresome railway journey, when everybody in the car is +used up, the children most of all, you can cheer up these poor tired +little things who have been riding day and night for six days from +Pontchatrain, if you will take out a pair of scissors and cut out cats and +dogs and dancing-girls from the newspaper or from the back of a letter, +and will teach them how to parade them along on the velvet of the car. +Indeed, I am not quite sure but you will entertain yourself as much as +any of them. + +In any acting of charades, any arrangement of _tableaux vivans_, or +similar amusements, you will always find that the little children are well +pleased, and, indeed, are fully satisfied, if they also can be pressed +into the service as "slaves" or "soldiers," or, as the procession-makers +say, "citizens generally," or what the stage-managers call +super-numeraries. They need not be intrusted with "speaking parts"; it is +enough for them to know that they are recognized as a part of the company. + +I do not think that I enjoy anything more than I do watching a birthday +party of children who have known each other at a good Kinder-Garten school +like dear Mrs. Heard's. Instead of sitting wearily around the sides of the +room, with only such variations as can be rendered by a party of rude boys +playing tag up and down the stairs and in the hall, these children, as +soon as four of them arrive, begin to play some of the games they have +been used to playing at school, or branch off into other games which +neither school nor recess has all the appliances for. This is because +these children are trained together to associate with each other. The +misfortune of most schools is that, to preserve the discipline, the +children are trained to have nothing to do with each other, and it is only +at recess, or in going and coming, that they get the society which is the +great charm and only value of school life. In college, or in any good +academy, things are so managed that young men study together when they +choose; and there is no better training. In any way you manage it, bring +that about. If the master will let you and Rachel sit on the garden steps +while you study the Telemachus,--or if you, Robert and Horace, can go up +into the belfry and work out the Algebra together, it will be better for +the Telemachus, better for the Algebra, and much better for you. + + + + +Chapter XIV. + +Life With Your Elders. + + + +Have you ever read Amyas Leigh? Amyas Leigh is an historical novel, +written by Charles Kingsley, an English author. His object, or one of his +objects, was to extol the old system of education, the system which +trained such men as Walter Raleigh and Philip Sidney. + +The system was this. When a boy had grown up to be fourteen or fifteen +years old, he was sent away from home by his father to some old friend of +his father, who took him into his train or company for whatever service or +help he could render. And so, of a sudden, the boy found himself +constantly in the company of men, to learn, as he could, what they were +doing, and to become a man himself under their contagion and sympathy. + +We have abandoned this system. We teach boys and girls as much from books +as we can, and we give them all the fewer chances to learn from people or +from life. + +None the less do the boys and girls meet men and women. And I think it is +well worth our while, in these papers, to see how much good and how much +pleasure they can get from the companionship. + +I reminded you, in the last chapter, of Jonas and Beechnut's wise advice +about little children. Do you remember what Jonas told Rollo, when Rollo +was annoyed because his father would not take him to ride? That +instruction belongs to our present subject. Rollo was very fond of riding +with his father and mother, but he thought he did not often get invited, +and that, when he invited himself, he was often refused. He confided in +Jonas on the subject. Jonas told him substantially two things: First, that +his father would not ask him any the more often because he teased him for +an invitation. The teazing was in itself wrong, and did not present him in +an agreeable light to his father and mother, who wanted a pleasant +companion, if they wanted any. This was the first thing. The second was +that Rollo did not make himself agreeable when he did ride. He soon wanted +water to drink. Or he wondered when they should get home. Or he complained +because the sun shone in his eyes. He made what the inn-keeper called "a +great row generally," and so when his father and mother took their next +ride, if they wanted rest and quiet, they were very apt not to invite him. +Rollo took the hint. The next time he had an invitation to ride, he +remembered that he was the invited party, and bore himself accordingly. He +did not "pitch in" in the conversation. He did not obtrude his own +affairs. He answered when he was spoken to, listened when he was not +spoken to, and found that he was well rewarded by attending to the things +which interested his father and mother, and to the matters he was +discussing with her. And so it came about that Rollo, by not offering +himself again as captain of the party, became a frequent and a favorite +companion. + +Now in that experience of Rollo's there is involved a good deal of the +philosophy of the intercourse between young people and their elders. Yes, +I know what you are saying, Theodora and George, just as well as if I +heard you. You are saying that you are sure you do not want to go among +the old folks,--certainly you shall not go if you are not wanted. But I +wish you to observe that sometimes you must go among them, whether you +want to or not; and if you must, there are two things to be brought +about,--first, that you get the utmost possible out of the occasion; and, +second, that the older people do. So, if you please, we will not go into a +huff about it, but look the matter in the face, and see if there is not +some simple system which governs the whole. + +Do you remember perhaps, George, the first time you found out what good +reading there was in men's books,--that day when you had sprained your +ankle, and found Mayne Reid palled a little bit,--when I brought you +Lossing's Field-Book of the Revolution, as you sat in the wheel-chair, and +you read away upon that for hours? Do you remember how, when you were +getting well, you used to limp into my room, and I let you hook down +books with the handle of your crutch, so that you read the English Parrys +and Captain Back, and then got hold of my great Schoolcraft and Catlin, +and finally improved your French a good deal, before you were well, on the +thirty-nine volumes of Garnier's "Imaginary Voyages "? You remember that? +So do I. That was your first experience in grown-up people's books,--books +that are not written down to the supposed comprehension of children. Now +there is an experience just like that open to each of you, Theodora and +George, whenever you will choose to avail yourselves of it in the society +of grown-up people, if you will only take that society simply and +modestly, and behave like the sensible boy and girl that you really are. + +Do not be tempted to talk among people who are your elders. Those horrible +scrapes that Frank used to get into, such as Harry once got into, arose, +like most scrapes in this world, from their want of ability to hold their +tongues. Speak when you are spoken to, not till then, and then get off +with as little talk as you can. After the second French revolution, my +young friend Walter used to wish that there might be a third, so that he +might fortunately be in the gallery of the revolutionary convention just +when everything came to a dead lock; and he used to explain to us, as we +sat on the parallel bars together at recess, how he would just spring over +the front of the gallery, swing himself across to the canopy above the +Speaker's seat, and slide down a column to the Tribune, there "where the +orators speak, you know," and how he would take advantage of the surprise +to address them in their own language; how he would say "_Français_,--_mes +frères_" (which means, Frenchmen,--brothers); and how, in such strains of +burning eloquence, he would set all right so instantaneously that he would +be proclaimed Dictator, placed in a carriage instantly, and drawn by an +adoring and grateful people to the Palace of the Tuileries, to live there +for the rest of his natural life. It was natural for Walter to think he +could do all that if he got the chance. But I remember, in planning it +out, he never got much beyond "_Français,_--_mes frères_" and in forty +years this summer, in which time four revolutions have taken place in +France, Walter has never found the opportunity. It is seldom, very seldom, +that in a mixed company it is necessary for a boy of sixteen, or a girl of +fifteen, to get the others out of a difficulty. You may burn to interrupt, +and to cry out "_Français,_--_mes frères_" but you had better bite your +tongue, and sit still. Do not explain that Rio Janeiro is the capital of +Brazil. In a few minutes it will appear that they all knew it, though they +did not mention it, and, by your waiting, you will save yourself horrible +mortification. + +Meanwhile you are learning things in the nicest way in the world. Do not +you think that Amyas Leigh enjoyed what he learned of Guiana and the +Orinoco River much more than you enjoy all you have ever learned of it? +Yes. He learned it all by going there in the company of Walter Raleigh and +sundry other such men. Suppose, George, that you could get the engineers, +Mr. Burnell and Mr. Philipson, to take you with them when they run the +new railroad line, this summer, through the passes of the Adirondack +Mountains. Do you not think you shall enjoy that more even than reading +Mr. Murray's book, far more than studying levelling and surveying in the +first class at the High School. Get a chance to carry chain for them, if +you can. No matter if you lose at school two medals, three diplomas, and +four double promotions by your absence. Come round to me some afternoon, +and I will tell you in an hour all the school-boys learned while you were +away in the mountains; all, I mean, that you cannot make up in a well-used +month after your return. + +And please to remember this, all of you, though it seems impossible. +Remember it as a fact, even if you cannot account for it, that though we +all seem so old to you, just as if we were dropping into our graves, we do +not, in practice, feel any older than we did when we were sixteen. True, +we have seen the folly of a good many things which you want to see the +folly of. We do not, therefore, in practice, sit on the rocks in the spray +quite so near to the water as you do; and we go to bed a little earlier, +even on moonlight nights. This is the reason that, when the whole merry +party meet at breakfast, we are a little more apt to be in our places +than--some young people I know. But, for all that, we do not feel any +older than we did when we were sixteen. We enjoy building with blocks as +well, and we can do it a great deal better; we like the "Arabian Nights" +just as well as we ever did; and we can laugh at a good charade quite as +loud as any of you can. So you need not take it on yourselves to suppose +that because you are among "old people,"--by which you mean married +people,--all is lost, and that the hours are to be stupid and forlorn. The +best series of parties, lasting year in and out, that I have ever known, +were in Worcester, Massachusetts, where old and young people associated +together more commonly and frequently than in any other town I ever +happened to live in, and where, for that very reason, society was on the +best footing. I have seen a boy of twelve take a charming lady, three +times his age, down Pearl Street on his sled. And I have ridden in a +riding party to Paradise with twenty other horsemen and with twenty-one +horsewomen, of whom the youngest, Theodora, was younger than you are, and +quite as pretty, and the oldest very likely was a judge on the Supreme +Bench. I will not say that she did not like to have one of the judges ride +up and talk with her quite as well as if she had been left to Ferdinand +Fitz-Mortimer. I will say that some of the Fitz-Mortimer tribe did not +ride as well as they did ten years after. + +Above all, dear children, work out in life the problem or the method by +which you shall be a great deal with your father and your mother. There is +no joy in life like the joy you can have with them. Fun or learning, +sorrow or jollity, you can share it with them as with nobody beside. You +are just like your father, Theodora, and you, George, I see your mother's +face in you as you stand behind the bank counter, and I wonder what you +have done with your curls. I say you are just like. I am tempted to say +you are the same. And you can and you will draw in from them notions and +knowledges, lights on life, and impulses and directions which no books +will ever teach you, and which it is a shame to work out from long +experience, when you can--as you can--have them as your birthright. + + + + +Chapter XV. + +Habits of Reading. + + + +I have devoted two chapters of this book to the matter of Reading, +speaking of the selection of books and of the way to read them. But since +those papers were first printed, I have had I know not how many nice notes +from young people, in all parts of this land, asking all sorts of +additional directions. Where the matter has seemed to me private or local, +I have answered them in private correspondence. But I believe I can bring +together, under the head of "Habits of Heading," some additional notes, +which will at least reinforce what has been said already, and will perhaps +give clearness and detail. + +All young people read a good deal, but I do not see that a great deal +comes of it. They think they have to read a good many newspapers and a +good many magazines. These are entertaining,--they are very entertaining. +But it is not always certain that the reader gets from them just what he +needs. On the other hand, it is certain that people who only read the +current newspapers and magazines get very little good from each other's +society, because they are all fed with just the same intellectual food. +You hear them repeat to each other the things they have all read in the +"Daily Trumpet," or the "Saturday Woodpecker." In these things, of +course, there can be but little variety, all the Saturday Woodpeckers of +the same date being very much like each other. When, therefore, the people +in the same circle meet each other, their conversation cannot be called +very entertaining or very improving, if this is all they have to draw +upon. It reminds one of the pictures in people's houses in the days of +"Art Unions." An Art Union gave you, once a year, a very cheap engraving. +But it gave the same engraving to everybody. So, in every house you went +to, for one year, you saw the same men dancing on a flat-boat. Then, a +year after, you saw Queen Mary signing Lady Jane Grey's death-warrant. She +kept signing it all the time. You might make seventeen visits in an +afternoon. Everywhere you saw her signing away on that death-warrant. You +came to be very tired of the death-warrant and of Queen Mary. Well, that +is much the same way in which seventeen people improve each other, who +have all been reading the "Daily Trumpet" and the "Saturday Woodpecker," +and have read nothing beside. + +I see no objection, however, to light reading, desultory reading, the +reading of newspapers, or the reading of fiction, if you take enough +ballast with it, so that these light kites, as the sailors call them, may +not carry your ship over in some sudden gale. The principle of sound +habits of reading, if reduced to a precise rule, comes out thus: That for +each hour of light reading, of what we read for amusement, we ought to +take another hour of reading for instruction. Nor have I any objection to +stating the same rule backward; for that is a poor rule that will not +work both ways. It is, I think, true, that for every hour we give to +grave reading, it is well to give a corresponding hour to what is light +and amusing. + +Now a great deal more is possible under this rule than you boys and girls +think at first. Some of the best students in the world, who have advanced +its affairs farthest in their particular lines, have not in practice +studied more than two hours a day. Walter Scott, except when he was goaded +to death, did not work more. Dr. Bowditch translated the great _Mécanique +Céleste_ in less than two hours' daily labor. I have told you already of +George Livermore. But then this work was regular as the movement of the +planets which Dr. Bowditch and La Place described. It did not stop for +whim or by accident, more than Jupiter stops in his orbit because a +holiday comes round. + +"But what in the world do you suppose Mr. Hale means by 'grave reading,' +or 'improving reading'? Does he mean only those stupid books that 'no +gentleman's library should be without'? I suppose somebody reads them at +some time, or they would not be printed; but I am sure I do not know when +or where or how to begin." This is what Theodora says to Florence, when +they have read thus far. + +Let us see. In the first place, you are not, all of you, to attempt +everything. Do one thing well, and read one subject well; that is much +better than reading ten subjects shabbily and carelessly. What is your +subject? It is not hard to find that out. Here you are, living perhaps on +the very road on which the English troops marched to Lexington and +Concord. In one of the beams of the barn there is a hole made by a +musket-ball, which was fired as they retreated. How much do you know of +that march of theirs? How much have you read of the accounts that were +written of it the next day? Have you ever read Bancroft's account of it? +or Botta's? or Frothingham's? There is a large book, which you can get at +without much difficulty, called the "American Archives." The Congress of +this country ordered its preparation, at immense expense, that you and +people like you might be able to study, in detail, the early history in +the original documents, which are reprinted there. In that book you will +find the original accounts of the battle as they were published in the +next issues of the Massachusetts newspapers. You will find the official +reports written home by the English officers. You will find the accounts +published by order of the Provincial Congress. When you have read these, +you begin to know something about the battle of Lexington. + +Then there are such books as General Heath's Memoirs, written by people +who were in the battle, giving their account of what passed, and how it +was done. If you really want to know about a piece of history which +transpired in part under the windows of your house, you will find you can +very soon bring together the improving and very agreeable solid reading +which my rule demands. + +Perhaps you do not live by the road that leads to Lexington. Everybody +does not. Still you live somewhere, and you live next to something. As Dr. +Thaddeus Harris said to me (Yes, Harry, the same who made your +insect-book), "If you have nothing else to study, you can study the mosses +and lichens hanging on the logs on the woodpile in the woodhouse." Try +that winter botany. Observe for yourself, and bring together the books +that will teach you the laws of growth of those wonderful plants. At the +end of a winter of such careful study I believe you could have more +knowledge of God's work in that realm of nature than any man in America +now has, if I except perhaps some five or six of the most distinguished +naturalists. + +I have told you about making your own index to any important book you +read. I ought to have advised you somewhere not to buy many books. If you +are reading in books from a library, never, as you are a decently +well-behaved boy or girl, never make any sort of mark upon a page which is +not your own. All you need, then, for your index, is a little page of +paper, folded in where you can use it for a book-mark, on which you will +make the same memorandum which you would have made on the fly-leaf, were +the book your own. In this case you will keep these memorandum pages +together in your scrap-book, so that you can easily find them. And if, as +is very likely, you have to refer to the book afterward, in another +edition, you will be glad if your first reference has been so precise that +you can easily find the place, although the paging is changed. John +Locke's rule is this: Refer to the page, with another reference to the +number of pages in the volume. At the same time tell how many volumes +there are in the set you use. You would enter Charles II.'s escape from +England, as described in the Pictorial History of England, thus:-- + +"Charles II. escapes after battle of Worcester. + +"Pictorial Hist. Eng. 391/855, Vol 3/4." + +You will have but little difficulty in finding your place in any +edition of the Pictorial History, if you have made as careful a +reference as this is. + +My own pupils, if I may so call the young friends who read with me, will +laugh when they see the direction that you go to the original authorities +whenever you can do so. For I send them on very hard-working tramps, that +they may find the original authorities, and perhaps they think that I am a +little particular about it. Of course, it depends a good deal on what your +circumstances are, whether you can go to the originals. But if you are +near a large library, the sooner you can cultivate the habit of looking in +the original writers, the more will you enjoy the study of history, of +biography, of geography, or of any other subject. It is stupid enough to +learn at school, that the Bay of God's Mercy is in N. Latitude 73°, W. +Longitude 117°. But read Captain McClure's account of the way the Resolute +ran into the Bay of God's Mercy, and what good reason he had for naming it +so, and I think you will never again forget where it is, or look on the +words as only the answer to a stupid "map question." + +I was saying very much what I have been writing, last Thursday, to Ella, +with whom I had a nice day's sail; and she, who is only too eager about +her reading and study, said she did not know where to begin. She felt her +ignorance so terribly about every separate thing that she wanted to take +hold everywhere. She had been reading Lothair, and found she knew nothing +about Garibaldi and the battle of Aspramonte. Then she had been talking +about the long Arctic days with a traveller, and she found she knew +nothing about the Arctic regions. She was ashamed to go to a concert, and +not know the difference between the lives of Mozart and of Mendelssohn. I +had to tell Ella, what I have said to you, that we cannot all of us do all +things. Far less can we do them all at once. I reminded her of the rule +for European travelling,--which you may be sure is good,--that it is +better to spend three days in one place than one day each in three places. +And I told Ella that she must apply the same rule to subjects. Take these +very instances. If she really gets well acquainted with Mendelssohn's +life,--feels that she knows him, his habit of writing, and what made him +what he was,--she will enjoy every piece of his music she ever hears with +ten times the interest it had for her before. But if she looks him out in +a cyclopædia and forgets him, and looks out Mercadante and forgets him, +and finally mixes up Mozart and Mercadante and Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer, +because all four of these names begin with M, why, she will be where a +great many very nice boys and girls are who go to concerts, but where as +sensible a girl as Ella does not want to be, and where I hope none of you +want to be for whom I am writing. + +But perhaps this is more than need be said after what is in Chapters V. +and VI. Now you may put down this book and read for recreation. Shall it +be the "Bloody Dagger," or shall it be the "Injured Grandmother"? + + + + +Chapter XVI. + +Getting Ready. + + + +When I have written a quarter part of this paper the horse and wagon will +be brought round, and I shall call for Ferguson and Putnam to go with me +for a swim. When I stop at Ferguson's house, he will himself come to the +door with his bag of towels,--I shall not even leave the wagon,--Ferguson +will jump in, and then we shall drive to Putnam's. When we come to +Putnam's house, Ferguson will jump out and ring the bell. A girl will come +to the door, and Ferguson will ask her to tell Horace that we have come +for him. She will look a little confused, as if she did not know where he +was, but she will go and find him. Ferguson and I will wait in the wagon +three or four minutes and then Horace will come. Ferguson will ask him if +he has his towels, and he will say, "O no, I laid them down when I was +packing my lunch," and he will run and get them. Just as we start, he +will ask me to excuse him just a moment, and he will run back for a letter +his father wants him to post as we come home. Then we shall go and have a +good swim together. [Footnote: P. S.--We have been and returned, and all +has happened substantially as I said.] + +Now, in the regular line of literature made and provided for young people, +I should go on and make out that Ferguson, simply by his habit of +promptness and by being in the right place when he is needed, would rise +rapidly to the highest posts of honor and command, becoming indeed Khan of +Tartary, or President of the United States, as the exigencies and costume +of the story might require. But Horace, merely from not being ready on +occasion, would miserably decline, and come to a wretched felon's end; +owing it, indeed, only to the accident of his early acquaintance with +Ferguson, that, when the sheriff is about to hang him, a pardon arrives +just in time from him (the President). But I shall not carry out for you +any such horrible picture of these two good fellows' fates. In my +judgment, one of these results is almost as horrible as is the other. I +will tell you, however, that the habit of being ready is going to make for +Ferguson a great deal of comfort in this world, and bring him in a great +deal of enjoyment. And, on the other hand, Horace the Unready, as they +would have called him in French history, will work through a great deal of +discomfort and mortification before he rids himself of the habit which I +have illustrated for you. It is true that he has a certain rapidity, which +somebody calls "shiftiness," of resolution and of performance, which gets +him out of his scrapes as rapidly as he gets in. But there is a good deal +of vital power lost in getting in and getting out, which might be spent to +better purpose,--for pure enjoyment, or for helping other people to pure +enjoyment. + +The art of getting ready, then, shall be the closing subject of this +little series of papers. Of course, in the wider sense, all education +might be called the art of getting ready, as, in the broadest sense of +all, I hope all you children remember every day that the whole of this +life is the getting ready for life beyond this. Bear that in mind, and you +will not say that this is a trivial accomplishment of Ferguson's, which +makes him always a welcome companion, often and often gives him the power +of rendering a favor to somebody who has forgotten something, and, in +short, in the twenty-four hours of every day, gives to him "all the time +there is." It is also one of those accomplishments, as I believe, which +can readily be learned or gained, not depending materially on temperament +or native constitution. It comes almost of course to a person who has his +various powers well in hand,--who knows what he can do, and what he cannot +do, and does not attempt more than he can perform. On the other hand, it +is an accomplishment very difficult of acquirement to a boy who has not +yet found what he is good for, who has forty irons in the fire, and is +changing from one to another as rapidly as the circus-rider changes, or +seems to change, from Mr, Pickwick to Sam Weller. + +Form the habit, then, of looking at to-morrow as if you were the master +of to-morrow, and not its slave. "There's no such word as fail!" That is +what Richelieu says to the boy, and in the real conviction that you can +control such circumstances as made Horace late for our ride, you have the +power that will master them. As Mrs. Henry said to her husband, about +leaping over the high bar,--"Throw your heart over, John, and your heels +will go over." That is a very fine remark, and it covers a great many +problems in life besides those of circus-riding. You are, thus far, master +of to-morrow. It has not outflanked you, nor circumvented you at any +point. You do not propose that it shall. What, then, is the first thing to +be sought by way of "getting ready," of preparation? + +It is vivid imagination of to-morrow. Ask in advance, What time does the +train start? _Answer_, "Seven minutes of eight." What time is breakfast? +_Answer_, "For the family, half past seven." Then I will now, lest it be +forgotten, ask Mary to give me a cup of coffee at seven fifteen; and, lest +she should forget it, I will write it on this card, and she may tuck the +card in her kitchen-clock case. What have I to take in the train? +_Answer_, "Father's foreign letters, to save the English mail, my own +'Young Folks' to be bound, and Fanny's breast-pin for a new pin." Then I +hang my hand-bag now on the peg under my hat, put into it the "Young +Folks" and the breast-pin box, and ask father to put into it the English +letters when they are done. Do you not see that the more exact the work of +the imagination on Tuesday, the less petty strain will there be on memory +when Wednesday comes? If you have made that preparation, you may lie in +bed Wednesday morning till the very moment which shall leave you time +enough for washing and dressing; then you may take your breakfast +comfortably, may strike your train accurately, and attend to your +commissions easily. Whereas Horace, on his method of life, would have to +get up early to be sure that his things were brought together, in the +confusion of the morning would not be able to find No. 11 of the "Young +Folks," in looking for that would lose his breakfast, and afterwards would +lose the train, and, looking back on his day, would find that he rose +early, came to town late, and did not get to the bookbinder's, after all. +The relief from such blunders and annoyance comes, I say, in a lively +habit of imagination, forecasting the thing that is to be done. Once +forecast in its detail, it is very easy to get ready for it. + +Do you not remember, in "Swiss Family Robinson," that when they came to a +very hard pinch for want of twine or scissors or nails, the mother, +Elizabeth, always had it in her "wonderful bag"? I was young enough when I +first read "Swiss Family" to be really taken in by this, and to think it +magic. Indeed, I supposed the bag to be a lady's work-bag of beads or +melon-seeds, such as were then in fashion, and to have such quantities of +things come out of it was in no wise short of magic. It was not for many, +many years that I observed that Francis sat on this bag in his tub, as +they sailed to the shore. In those later years, however, I also noticed a +sneer of Ernest's which I had overlooked before. He says, "I do not see +anything very wonderful in taking out of a bag the same thing you have +put into it." But his wise father says that it is the presence of mind +which in the midst of shipwreck put the right things into the bag which +makes the wonder. Now, in daily life, what we need for the comfort and +readiness of the next day is such forecast and presence of mind, with a +vivid imagination of the various exigencies it will bring us to. + +Jo Matthew was the most prompt and ready person, with one exception, whom +I have ever had to deal with. I hope Jo will read this. If he does, will +he not write to me? I said to Jo once when we were at work together in the +barn, that I wished I had his knack of laying down a tool so carefully +that he knew just where to find it. "Ah," said he, laughing, "we learned +that in the cotton-mill. When you are running four looms, if something +gives way, it will not do to be going round asking where this or where +that is." Now Jo's answer really fits all life very well. The tide will +not wait, dear Pauline, while you are asking, "Where is my blue bow?" Nor +will the train wait, dear George, while you are asking, "Where is my +Walton's Arithmetic?" + +We are all in a great mill, and we can master it, or it will master us, +just as we choose to be ready or not ready for the opening and shutting of +its opportunities. + +I remember that when Haliburton was visiting General Hooker's +head-quarters, he arrived just as the General, with a brilliant staff, was +about to ride out to make an interesting examination of the position. He +asked Haliburton if he would join them, and, when Haliburton accepted the +invitation gladly, he bade an aid mount him. The aid asked Haliburton what +sort of horse he would have, and Haliburton said he would--and he knew he +could--"ride anything." He is a thorough horseman. You see what a pleasure +it was to him that he was perfectly ready for that contingency, wholly +unexpected as it was. I like to hear him tell the story, and I often +repeat it to young people, who wonder why some persons get forward so much +more easily than others. Warburton, at the same moment, would have had to +apologize, and say he would stay in camp writing letters, though he would +have had nothing to say. For Warburton had never ridden horses to water or +to the blacksmith's, and could not have mounted on the stupidest beast in +the head-quarters encampment. The difference between the two men is simply +that the one is ready and the other is not. + +Nothing comes amiss in the great business of preparation, if it has been +thoroughly well learned. And the strangest things come of use, too, at the +strangest times. A sailor teaches you to tie a knot when you are on a +fishing party, and you tie that knot the next time when you are patching +up the Emperor of Russia's carriage for him, in a valley in the Ural +Mountains. But "getting ready" does not mean the piling in of a heap of +accidental accomplishments. It means sedulously examining the coming duty +or pleasure, imagining it even in its details, decreeing the utmost +punctuality so far as you are concerned, and thus entering upon them as a +knight armed from head to foot. This is the man whom Wordsworth +describes,-- + + "Who, if he be called upon to face + Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined + Great issues, good or bad for human kind, + Is happy as a Lover; and attired + With sudden brightness, like a man inspired; + And through the heat of conflict keeps the law + In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw; + Or if an unexpected call succeed, + Come when it will, is equal to the need." + + + +The End. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of How To Do It, by Edward Everett Hale + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO DO IT *** + +This file should be named 8hdit10.txt or 8hdit10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8hdit11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8hdit10a.txt + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our Web sites at: +http://gutenberg.net or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03 + +Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text +files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ +We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): + +eBooks Year Month + + 1 1971 July + 10 1991 January + 100 1994 January + 1000 1997 August + 1500 1998 October + 2000 1999 December + 2500 2000 December + 3000 2001 November + 4000 2001 October/November + 6000 2002 December* + 9000 2003 November* +10000 2004 January* + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, +Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, +Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, +Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, +Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South +Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West +Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +Donations by check or money order may be sent to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information online at: + +http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the eBook (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only +when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by +Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be +used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be +they hardware or software or any other related product without +express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + |