I 
 
 WfiRfim 
 
 ■'-■■■ 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 Chap. ' Copyright No. 
 
 Shelf2ll57l 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
V 
 
 6 /y 
 
THE WORKS OF 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 3Lfbrar£ B&ftton 
 
 Volume VII. 
 
 HOW TO DO IT 
 HOW TO LIVE 
 
///////■/ ////// - ~fan 
 
PREFACE 
 
 SINCE I have been able to think of such things, 
 I have been surprised that there are so few 
 books on what may be called " Practical Ethics." I 
 could take down from my own shelves three hun- 
 dred books which discuss the origin of the moral 
 sense, — why there are duties and why we should 
 try to discharge them. But in the same collection 
 of books I should, find it hard to select twenty on 
 the details of the practical business of life. I have 
 a few books, very few, which tell how to skate, 
 how to swim, and how to ride on horseback. 
 These certainly belong to what I should call 
 " Practical Ethics." But when you ascend a little 
 from that grade of duties, the books of practical 
 advice are fewer and fewer. 
 
 When I entered college, for instance, no one 
 told me, by word of mouth or in writing, any- 
 thing of the practical management of the fifteen 
 hours a day which were given into my care. I 
 knew, in general, that I ought to be regular in my 
 recitations, and that I ought to know my lesson 
 when I arrived there. But nobody told me whether 
 it were better to study between nine and ten 
 
vi Preface 
 
 o'clock in the evening or between six and seven 
 in the morning. 
 
 A distinguished clergyman, always an invalid 
 when I knew him, a little before me in college, 
 told me, when near the end of his life, that his 
 broken health was due to his absolute neglect of 
 physical exercise during the first three and a half 
 years that he was at Cambridge. He was pro- 
 foundly interested in his studies, and was en- 
 grossed in them. Nobody ever told him that 
 physical exercise had anything to do with health. 
 He told me that week after week would pass in 
 which he did not leave the College Yard. In our 
 day things were a little better, but not much better. 
 
 When we were seniors, we were made to hear 
 Dr. John Ware deliver a course of lectures on the 
 preserving of health, and very good lectures they 
 were. Our joke about them was, that we heard 
 them after our constitutions were entirely broken. 
 But as to any practical lessons in mental, moral, or 
 spiritual hygiene, with the exception of a hint you 
 sometimes got in a sermon, nobody seemed to care. 
 
 In the volume in the reader's hands, he will find 
 one of Dr. Lieber's rules for Girard College : " No 
 mathematical exercise is to be attempted for two 
 hours after a hearty meal." When I read this, in 
 1842, it was to recollect that in my freshman year 
 we were ordered daily from the dining-room to 
 the room opposite for the hour's difficult exercise 
 in geometry or trigonometry. 
 
 The volume in the reader's hands consists of 
 
Preface 
 
 vn 
 
 different essays of mine, selected from a much 
 larger number, written to meet, as well as I knew 
 how, these difficulties. " How to Do It " was a sep- 
 arate book, made up from eight articles originally 
 published in the magazine called " Our Young 
 Folks," and eight others, written in some sort as a 
 sequel to these, for the weekly newspaper called 
 "The Youth's Companion." I have been pleased 
 to know that it has been introduced as a text-book 
 in some of the high schools at the West, where 
 perhaps they are* not so much afraid of heresy or 
 other indiscretion as we are at the East. 
 
 When Mr. Lowell asked me to deliver a course 
 of Lowell lectures in Boston in the year 1869, I 
 gladly consented, on the condition that I might 
 lecture on the Divine Method in Human Life. 
 The lectures were an attempt to give practical in- 
 struction in the duties of sleep, of the regulation 
 of appetite, and exercise ; these three for the 
 body. Again, for the training of the mind in the 
 processes of memory, logic, and the imagination; 
 and again there were three more on the enlarge- 
 ment of life in the three eternities, Faith, Hope, 
 and Love. 
 
 In the year 1886, at Dr. Vincent's request, I en- 
 larged and printed these lectures, as the ethical 
 lessons of the year in the great Chautauqua 
 Course. In this form, under the general title 
 " How to Live," those papers are included in this 
 volume. A few other essays in similar lines, all 
 that the volume gives room for, are added. 
 
viii Preface 
 
 I may as well say here in a few words, what is 
 implied in a dozen places in the book, that edu- 
 cation in morals is the prime object for which 
 schools should be maintained. Instruction in 
 facts, to which so much time is generally given, is 
 not the prime object in education. 
 
 EDWARD E. HALE. 
 
 39 Highland St., Roxbury, Mass., 
 Jan. 26, 1900. 
 
How to Do It 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED 
 
 How to Live 
 
 BY 
 
 s 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 BOSTON 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 
 1900 
 
TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 
 
 library of Congrnit 
 °«lce of tk% 
 
 WAP9- 1900 
 
 Kegl.t.r of C.p, f | ghu 
 
 56162 .V 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, 
 
 By James R. Osgood and Company, 
 
 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886, 
 
 By Theodore L. Flood, 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 Copyright, 1900, 
 By Little, Brown, and Company. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 ScC J,\D uOr»Y, 
 
 
 Santorsita peas 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 HOW TO DO IT 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 I. Introductory. — How we Met . . i 
 
 II. How to Talk 19 
 
 III. Talk 34 
 
 IV. How to Write 50 
 
 V. How to Read. 1 71 
 
 VI. How to Read. II 93 
 
 VII. How to go into Society 105 
 
 VIII. How to Travel 118 
 
 IX. Life at School 132 
 
 X. Life in Vacation 139 
 
 XI. Life Alone 145 
 
 XII. Habits in Church 157 
 
 XIII. Life with Children 163 
 
 XIV. Life with your Elders 171 
 
 XV. Habits of Reading ' 179 
 
 XVI. Getting Ready 186 
 
Contents 
 
 HOW TO LIVE 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 I. Introduction 197 
 
 II. How to Choose one's Calling .... 204 
 
 III. How to Sleep 211 
 
 IV. How to Exercise 225 
 
 V. Appetite 237 
 
 VI. How to Think 254 
 
 VII. How to Study 269 
 
 VIII. How to Know God 284 
 
 IX. How to Bear your Brother's Burdens . 298 
 
 X. How to Regulate Expense 312 
 
 XI. How to Dress 326 
 
 XII. How to Deal with one's Children . . 342 
 
 XIII. How to Remain Young 358 
 
 XIV. Duty to the Church 373 
 
 XV. Duty to the State 384 
 
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, 
 
 Jane Smith, 
 
 Jo Gresham, 
 
 Justin, 
 
 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. 
 
2 How to do It 
 
 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 col- 
 lected, in the magazine Our Young Folks, and in 
 that admirable weekly paper The Youth's Com- 
 panion, 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 Throck- 
 morton, the governess, does not believe Arch- 
 bishop Whately is infallible. I have once and 
 
Introductory 3 
 
 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 persona 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 keep- 
 ing 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 with 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 
 
4 How to do It 
 
 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 yes- 
 terday 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 Bos- 
 ton Latin School, — the oldest institution of learn- 
 ing, 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 gravjty of 
 
Introductory 5 
 
 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 An- 
 dover, — the ladies' dining-room looking on what 
 was then Cooke's Court, and is now Chapman 
 Place. Cooke was Elisha Cooke, who went to 
 England for the charter. So Mr. Saltonstall re- 
 minds me. What we call " Province Street " was 
 then " Governor's Alley." For in Province Court, 
 the building now Sargent's Hotel was for a cen- 
 tury, 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 oppor- 
 tunity, however, was upstairs, in Mr. Dixwell's 
 
6 How to do It 
 
 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 
 Robins, 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 Hal- 
 dimand 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 quar- 
 rel, and he told the boys that their coast should 
 
Introductory 7 
 
 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. Robins told 
 me nothing, and as Haldimand was a Russian offi- 
 cer 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 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 Wash- 
 ington 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 
 
8 How to do It 
 
 of my boyhood, and here, as I say, my man- 
 hood'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 take this book for their own 
 boys, they will find some of their boy-stories here. 
 Then there was Mrs. Merriam's 1 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 va- 
 cation 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 
 
 1 For " Mrs. Merriam," see " Mrs. Merriam's Scholars." Her 
 pupils remember her as Miss Hannah Stearns. 
 
Introductory 9 
 
 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 meet- 
 ing 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 with- 
 out 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, 
 
i o How to do It 
 
 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 minis- 
 ter, 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 " Mar- 
 garet 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, won- 
 der 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. 
 
Introductory 1 1 
 
 "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 
 Sonnambula 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 Ar- 
 cadia ; 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. 
 
 Oh 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 
 
1 2 How to do It 
 
 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 partic- 
 ular 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 Moun- 
 tains" 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 
 
Introductory 1 3 
 
 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 Jack- 
 son. It means living front to front, lip to lip, 
 with Nature at her loveliest, Echo at her most mys- 
 terious, 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 noth- 
 ing till we had stood on Mount Washington him- 
 self. 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 Hack- 
 matack, who was with us, had a blister on his 
 foot, so he went with the riding party. He said 
 
14 How to do It 
 
 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 hun- 
 gry, 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 
 
Introductory 1 5 
 
 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 Tuckerman 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 stretch- 
 ing 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 recog- 
 nized 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 
 
1 6 How to do It 
 
 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 shel- 
 tered, 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 im- 
 mensely excited for half an hour or less, when Hall 
 appeared with a very wet woman, all but sense- 
 less, on his shoulder, with her hair hanging down 
 
Introductory 1 7 
 
 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 
 
1 8 How to do It 
 
 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 ex- 
 plained 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 recog- 
 nize 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 Mans- 
 field 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 Mans- 
 field 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. 
 
How to Talk 19 
 
 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 talk- 
 ing 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 
 
 HOW TO TALK 
 
 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 neck- 
 lace, 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, 
 
20 How to do It 
 
 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 thir- 
 teen to seventeen, and boys say from fourteen to 
 nineteen. I explained that girls and boys of this 
 age never read the Atlantic, Oh, no, not by any 
 means ! And I supposed that they never read the 
 Young Folks, Oh, no, not by any means ! I ex- 
 plained 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 con- 
 versation to such of my young friends as chose to 
 hear. On which the Sheik was so good as to pro- 
 pose to provide for me, as it were, a special oppor- 
 tunity, which I now use. We jointly explain to 
 
How to Talk 21 
 
 the older boys and girls, who rate between the ages 
 of thirteen and nineteen, that these essays are ex- 
 clusively 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 
 
22 How to do It 
 
 was mortified, and thinks he was disgraced, be- 
 cause 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 in- 
 dulgence 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. 
 
How to Talk 23 
 
 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 there- 
 fore you both propose hermitages for yourselves 
 because you cannot do as she does. Dear chil- 
 dren, 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], V I can't do any- 
 thing 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 ob- 
 stinate, V would only let me try the ' monochro- 
 matic 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 
 
24 How to do It 
 
 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 read- 
 ing 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 sen- 
 tences 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 
 
How to Talk 25 
 
 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 intro- 
 duced 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." 
 
 "Oh, 'twas 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 sym- 
 pathy with him in an indifference to the opera 
 threw him off the track which he never should 
 have been on, and brought his untimely conversa- 
 tion to an end. 
 
 Now, as it happened, Laura's next partner 
 brought her to the very same place, or rather she 
 
26 How to do It 
 
 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. 
 
 " 1 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 were all writ- 
 ten 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 
 
How to Talk 27 
 
 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 sim- 
 ply, 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 distinc- 
 tion 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 thor- 
 oughly interests you requires only one qualifica- 
 tion. 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 
 
28 How to do It 
 
 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 differ- 
 ent 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 was 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 her- 
 self. 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 
 
How to Talk 29 
 
 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 be- 
 fore 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 connec- 
 tion with what interested them, excepting so far 
 as their personal interest in her gave it, she vio- 
 lated 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 under- 
 stand that you fell over from the steamer as you 
 came from Portland, and had to swim half an hour 
 before the boat 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 a choice of the subject. He asks for all 
 the detail. It is to gratify him that you go into 
 
30 How to do It 
 
 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 provok- 
 ing 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 vol- 
 unteers 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 be- 
 lieve 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 gen- 
 eral desire for learning rather than teaching. No 
 
How to Talk 31 
 
 good talker is obtrusive, thrusting forward his ob- 
 servation on men and things. He is rather recep- 
 tive, 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 say- 
 ing 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 na- 
 ture 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 
 11 American Board," overheard their talk, got some 
 sponge-cake, and pleasantly and civilly offered it 
 to them as he might have done to his grand- 
 children. But poor Sybil, who was nervous and 
 anxious, said, "No, thank you," and so Sarah 
 
32 How to do It 
 
 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 hap- 
 pens 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 remem- 
 bered, "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 cut- 
 ting 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, M Did you think of the resemblance between 
 
How to Talk 33 
 
 the winding up and ' Redgauntlet ' ? " " Oh, 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, con- 
 versation 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. 
 
34 How to do It 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 TALK 
 
 MAY I presume that all my young friends be- 
 tween this and Seattle have read paper Num- 
 ber Two? First class in geography, where is 
 Seattle? Right. Go up. Have you all read, 
 and inwardly considered, the three rules, "Tell 
 the truth; " "Talk not of yourself; " and " Con- 
 fess 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 
 
Talk 35 
 
 who pretends to talk to one person while he is 
 listening to another, or watching another, or won- 
 dering about another. If you really want to hear 
 what Jo Gresham is saying to Alice Faulcon- 
 bridge, when they are standing next to 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 was 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 sup- 
 poses 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 
 
36 How to do It 
 
 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 busi- 
 ness 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 Eugenie herself should be 
 talking to you. 1 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 Ton permet aux jeunes filles Americaines se 
 promener'a 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 
 l This was written in 1869, and I leave it in memoriam. 
 
Talk 37 
 
 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 your- 
 self 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 remem- 
 ber 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 look- 
 ing for her husband that he might offer Mrs. 
 Grant his arm and take her downstairs. 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 
 
38 How to do It 
 
 side, — and they felt just as badly as you would 
 feel if anybody talked to you while he was think- 
 ing 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 
 
Talk 39 
 
 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 be- 
 haved 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 ques- 
 tion 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 seri- 
 ously, he remembers whose children they are, — 
 who is their Father. And that is worth remem- 
 bering. 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, in- 
 deed, 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 
 
40 How to do It 
 
 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 
 Wiirtemberg 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 1 once laid down the law of preaching 
 thus: " Preach as if you were preaching to arch- 
 angels." This means, " Say the very best thing 
 you know, and never condescend to your audi- 
 ence." 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 
 
 1 John Weiss. 
 
Talk 41 
 
 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 ex- 
 periment, 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 min- 
 ister 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 provi- 
 dential 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 
 
42 How to do It 
 
 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 try- 
 ing 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 ask- 
 ing. 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 Bel- 
 lombre 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 
 
Talk 43 
 
 your client was innocent." " Yes," said Mr. Mason, 
 " and did he tell you how to prove it? " Unfortu- 
 nately, 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 some- 
 thing about it, or said he did." " Who is Watson? " 
 said I. " Oh, he 's dead ten years ago. But 
 there 's a letter by him in the 4 Historical Proceed- 
 ings,' 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 igno- 
 rance 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, 
 
44 How to do It 
 
 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 
 
Talk 45 
 
 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 Eng- 
 lish. 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 Can- 
 on, — 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. Cra- 
 
46 How to do It 
 
 dock'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 com- 
 ing 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 con- 
 cerned, a perceptible space of time on The Great 
 Dial. But the tale itself has a wearing and weary- 
 ing perplexity about it. At the end you doubt if 
 it is your dinner that is ready, or Fred Marster's, 
 or Florence's, or nobody's. Whether there is any 
 real dinner, you doubt. For want of a vigorous 
 
Talk 47 
 
 nominative case, firmly governing the verb, whether 
 that verb is seen or not, or because this firm nomi- 
 native 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 " Speak- 
 ing 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 remem- 
 ber 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 say- 
 ing 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 y 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 pre- 
 tending originality. Do not say, as dear Pember- 
 ton 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 expla- 
 nation 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 
 
48 How to do It 
 
 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 neces- 
 sity, 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 y 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 
 
Talk 49 
 
 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 talk- 
 ing with a young officer. The officer said he 
 thought that in a certain sentence an interroga- 
 tion-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 (i) not to introduce his remarks ; (2) not to 
 give authorities ; and (3) not to explain who people 
 
So How to do It 
 
 are. These are, perhaps, enough instances in de- 
 tail, though they do not in the least describe all the 
 dangers that surround you. Speaking more gen- 
 erally, 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 instruc- 
 tions, — 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 
 
 <JZ&# ana iJ&ma&cMA aim a/ <J&iJ. 
 
 down to 
 
 Aame* ana Acaiact ate me Aetf c/ Acicad&i. 
 
How to Write 51 
 
 It is supposed that you can mind your p's and 
 q's, and, as Harriet Byron said of Charles Grandi- 
 son, in the romance which your great-grand- 
 mother 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. 1 
 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 essen- 
 tial 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 con- 
 sider 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, — 
 
 1 It was a hundred then. We have changed all that. 1899. 
 
52 How to do It 
 
 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 reso- 
 lutely 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 Nes- 
 tor? — 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 rind 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 re- 
 member a very worthy gentleman who sometimes 
 
How to Write 53 
 
 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 dis- 
 tant 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 
 
54 How to do It 
 
 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 di- 
 vide 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 twen- 
 tieth 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 Per- 
 formed." 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, 
 
How to Write 55 
 
 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 an- 
 other Sunday. The conclusion is written to apply 
 to the congregation the doctrine of the sermon. 
 But, if your hearers are such fools that they can- 
 not 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 
 
56 How to do It 
 
 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 lan- 
 guage, 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 ap- 
 peared 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 exaggera- 
 tion 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 
 
How to Write 57 
 
 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 news- 
 paper, 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 bad 
 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 
 
58 How to do It 
 
 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 
 
How to Write 59 
 
 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 "com- 
 position " 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 intro- 
 duction helped along, — and this is her introduc- 
 tion. 
 
 " Duty performed is a Rainbow in the Soul. 
 
 " 1 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 gather- 
 ing 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." 
 
60 How to do It 
 
 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 Sun- 
 day-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 
 
How to Write 61 
 
 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 dis- 
 charge of the obligations pressing upon us as moral 
 agents is attended with conflict and difficulty. Fre- 
 quently, 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 mas- 
 terpiece, — 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 bet- 
 ter selves, and to our educated consciousness of what 
 was due to a clergyman, and to the institutions of re- 
 ligion, 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." 
 
62 How to do It 
 
 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 here what, as she 
 expressed it in conversation, fills only seven. 
 
 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. 1 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 illus- 
 tration, 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. Re- 
 
 1 Dr. James Walker. 
 
How to Write 63 
 
 member 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 Eng- 
 land, — 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 deli- 
 cious soup is made, is the Saxon, — the Norman 
 French should only add the flavor. In some writ- 
 ing, 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 mean- 
 ing 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 pre- 
 tend you are one of the conquering nobility, when, 
 
64 How to do It 
 
 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 in- 
 telligent and patriotic devotion to the public in- 
 terest, 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 meas- 
 ures, but also those relations of mutual confidence 
 and regard which it is always so desirable to cul- 
 tivate between members of co-ordinate branches 
 of the government." 1 
 
 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 
 
 1 From Mr. Franklin Pierce's first message to Congress as Presi- 
 dent of the United States. 
 
How to Write 65 
 
 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 ex- 
 periments 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 to- 
 gether." 
 
 I am fond of telling the story of the words 
 which a distinguished friend of mine 1 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 
 
 1 Rev. Dr. Hosmer, when he accepted the presidency of Antioch 
 College. 
 
 5 
 
66 How to do It 
 
 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 there- 
 fore 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-vousT 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 neces- 
 sary. But you may often detect extempore speak- 
 ers 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 
 
How to Write 67 
 
 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' 
 
68 How to do It 
 
 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 impres- 
 sions which I have formed on the subject, taken as a 
 whole, which have occurred to me in such careful med- 
 itation 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 hur- 
 rying 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." 
 
How to Write 69 
 
 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 introduc- 
 tion, 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 ne- 
 cessary, 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 fright- 
 
yo How to do It 
 
 ened, but he meant to do his duty. So he crossed the 
 bridge, walked up to the butcher's shop in the other vil- 
 lage, — 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. 
 
How to Read 71 
 
 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 intel- 
 ligent 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 an- 
 other. 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 
 
J2 How to do It 
 
 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 Litera- 
 ture. 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 Bur- 
 gesses' 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 intel- 
 ligent knowledge necessary for your healthy growth 
 
How to Read 73 
 
 in religious life, but, — which is of less conse- 
 quence, indeed — it is as necessary for your toler- 
 able understanding of the literature, or even sci- 
 ence, 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 1 
 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. 
 
 Second, every one ought to be quite well in- 
 formed 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. Lin- 
 
 1 Marsh's Lectures on the English Language ; very entertain- 
 ing books. 
 
74 How to do It 
 
 coin's eyes twinkled, and he said: "Upon ques- 
 tions 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. Lin- 
 coln 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. Sew- 
 ard. 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 care- 
 fully 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 news- 
 paper 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 
 
How to Read j$ 
 
 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 gen- 
 tleman'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 pre- 
 scribed. 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 
 
y6 How to do It 
 
 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 Re- 
 views," 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 
 
How to Read yj 
 
 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 men- 
 tion a hundred others whom Jamie likes to read 
 as much as I do. 1 
 
 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 
 
 1 Written, observe, in 1869. 
 
yS How to do It 
 
 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 a librarian of a town library 1 sixty years ago : 
 
 1 In Dorchester, Mass. 
 
How to Read 79 
 
 "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 noth- 
 ing 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 read- 
 ing; 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 par- 
 
80 How to do It 
 
 ticular 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 organi- 
 zation 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 
 
How to Read 81 
 
 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 con- 
 fronted 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 wor- 
 shipped in the temple of Mecca. And she may 
 still exist in undiminished vigor when some trav- 
 eller 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 Pon- 
 tiffs," " 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 
 
 6 
 
82 How to do It 
 
 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 Prot- 
 estant. To find out what to read on this or any 
 subject, there are different clews. 
 
 I. Any encyclopaedia, good or bad, will set you 
 on the trail. Most of you have or can have an 
 encyclopaedia at command. There are one-volume 
 encyclopaedias, better than nothing, which are very 
 cheap. You can pick up an edition of the old 
 "Encyclopaedia 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 encyclo- 
 paedia, but you will find one at the start an ex- 
 cellent guide-post. Suppose you have the old 
 
How to Read 83 
 
 " Encyclopaedia 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 interest 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 broth- 
 ers 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 encyclopaedia 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 " 
 
84 How to do It 
 
 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 Charles- 
 ton, or New Orleans, or Cincinnati, or Chicago, or 
 St. Louis, or Ithaca, you can find every one. 1 
 
 When you have carefully gone down this origi- 
 nal 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 " Encyclopaedia Americana," 
 or " Appleton's Cyclopaedia" and " Poole's Index" 
 only, for your first list. As I should draw it up, it 
 would look like this : — 
 
 1 These were the names in 187 1. 
 
How to Read 
 
 85 
 
 CYCLOPEDIA. POOLE S INDEX. 
 
 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 See (for instance) 
 Council of Trent. 
 Chrysostom. 
 Congress of Vienna. 
 
 Cardinal Consalvi. 
 
 Eclectic Rev., 4th S. 13, 485. 
 Quart. Rev., 71, 108. 
 For. Quart. Rev., 27,184. 
 Brownson's Rev., 2d S. 1, 413 
 
 3> 309- 
 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 I 
 
 Vespasian. 
 
 SUPREME PONTIFFS. 
 
 Popes. The line begins with 
 St. Peter, a. d. 42. Ends with 
 Pius IX., 1846. 
 
 New Englander, 7, 169. 
 N. Brit. Rev., 11, 13. 
 
 POPE WHO CROWNED NAPOLEON. 
 
 Pius VII., at Notre Dame, in I 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 Arch- 
 bishop Boniface of Mayence, 
 at the advice of Pope Zach- 
 ary. £. @ 715, </. 768. 
 
 REPUBLIC OF VENICE. 
 
 452 to 181 5. St. Real's His- 
 tory. 
 
 Otway's Tragedy, Venice Pre- 
 served. 
 
 Hazlitt's Hist, of Venice. 
 
 Ruskin's Stones of Venice. 
 
 Quart. Rev., 31, 420. 
 Month. Rev., 90, 525. 
 West. Rev., 23, 38. 
 
86 
 
 How to do It 
 
 MISSIONARIES IN KENT. 
 
 | Dublin Univ. Mag., 21, 212. 
 
 AUGUSTINE. 
 
 There are two Augustines. This 
 is St. Austin, b. in 5th cen- 
 tury, 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, 
 Ang.-Saxon Chronicle. 
 Six old Eng. Chronicles. 
 
 Edin. Rev., 89, 79. 
 Quart. Rev., 7, 92. 
 Eclect. Rev., 25, 669. 
 
 FRANK PASSED THE RHINE. 
 
 Well established on west side 1 For. Quart. Rev., 17, 139. 
 at the beginning of 5th cen- 
 tury. 1 
 
 . GREEK ELOQUENCE AT ANTIOCH. 
 
 Miiller's Antiquitates Antioch- 
 ianae. 
 
 Greek Orators. Ed. Rev., 36 
 62. 
 
 IDOLS IN MECCA. 
 
 Burckhardt's Travels. 
 Burton's Travels. 
 
 NEW ZEALAND. 
 
 3 islands, as large as Italy. Dis- 
 covered 1642; taken by Cook 
 for England 1769. 
 
 Gov. sent out 1838. 
 
 Thomson's story of N. Z. 
 
 Cook's Voyages. 
 
 Sir G. Gray's Poems, &c, of 
 Maoris. 
 
 N. Am. Rev., 18, 328. 
 
 West. Rev., 45, 133. 
 
 Edin. Rev., 91, 231 ; 56, 333. 
 N. Brit. Rev., 16, 176. 
 Living Age. 
 
How to Read 87 
 
 LONDON BRIDGE. 
 
 5 elliptical arches. " Presents 
 an aspect unequalled for in- 
 terest and animation." 
 
 ST. PAUL'S. 
 Built in thirty years between 
 1675 an d I 705> by Christ. 
 Wren. 
 
 Now I am by no means going to leave you 
 to the reading of cyclopaedias. The vice of 
 cyclopaedias 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 sub- 
 jects. I do mean, however, to show you that the 
 moment you will sift any book or any series of sub- 
 jects, 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 : — 
 
88 
 
 How to do It 
 
 FLY-FISHING. 
 
 CYCLOPEDIA. 
 
 (For instance) 
 
 W. Scott, Redgauntlet. 
 
 Dr. Davy's Researches, 1839. 
 Cuvier and Valenciennes, Hist. 
 
 Naturelle des Poissons, Vol. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Richardson's Fauna Bor. Amer. 
 
 De Kay, Zoology of N. Y. 
 Agassiz, Lake Superior. 
 
 POOLE'S INDEX. 
 
 Quart. Rev., 69, 121; 37,345- 
 Edin. Rev., 78, 46, or 87 ; 93, 
 
 174, or 340. 
 Am. Whig Rev., 6, 490. 
 N. Brit. Rev., 11, 32, or 95; 1, 
 
 326; 8, 160; or Liv. Age, 2, 
 
 291 ; 17, 1. 
 Blackwood, 51, 296. 
 Quart. Rev. 67, 98, or 332 ; 69, 
 
 226. 
 Blackwood, 10, 249"; 49, 302 ; 
 
 21, 815; 24, 248; 35, 775; 
 
 38, 119, 63, 673; 5, 123; 5, 
 
 281, 7, i37. 
 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. (Hali- 
 eutica translated.) Jones's English translation was pub- 
 lished 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 Eng- 
 lish angling literature." See Noctes Ambrosianae. 
 
 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's Angler's Guide, 1849. 
 
 Storer, D. H., Fishes of Massachusetts. 
 
How to Read 89 
 
 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 Mis- 
 eries 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 list means is this : that you have 
 made the inquiry for " a sermon book and another 
 book," and you are now thus far on your way to- 
 ward 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 bet- 
 ter 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. 
 
go How to do It 
 
 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 invalu- 
 able 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 sub- 
 ject. 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 butter- 
 flies," 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. 
 
How to Read 91 
 
 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 
 1 Palissy the Potter/ and we should like to know 
 more about Sevres, 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. Per- 
 haps Venice has seemed to you the most interest- 
 ing 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, Delia 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. 
 
92 How to do It 
 
 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 Re'publique 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 Pre- 
 served," 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, 
 
How to Read 93 
 
 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 
 
 LlSTON 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 pelt- 
 ing northeaster, 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. Dubba- 
 doe 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 
 upstairs." 
 
 " 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." 
 
94 How to do 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 interest- 
 ing 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 upstairs 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. 
 
How to Read 95 
 
 " Oh, 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 interest- 
 ing 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 illustra- 
 
96 How to do It 
 
 tion 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, Cour- 
 age, and Reading. The consequence is that there 
 are unnumbered people who read as Mrs. Dubba- 
 doe 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 z>, 
 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 
 
How to Read 97 
 
 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 remem- 
 ber 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 any- 
 thing 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 
 
 7 
 
98 How to do It 
 
 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 recollect- 
 ing 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 
 
How to Read 99 
 
 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 any- 
 body 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 re- 
 view 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," 1 
 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 men- 
 tal 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 in all at once. Capel 
 Lofft says that this re-flection — 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 
 
 1 Self-Formation : Crosby and Nichols. Boston, 1845. 
 
ioo How to do It 
 
 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 Ru- 
 
 bens'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 
 
How to Read 101 
 
 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 mem- 
 ory. Moral: Renew your acquaintance with 
 whatever you want to remember. I think Ing- 
 ham says somewhere that it is the slight differ- 
 ence 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 some- 
 how. 
 
 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 memo- 
 randa will be, of course, of all sorts of things. 
 
102 How to do It 
 
 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 in- 
 dex at the end of the first volume : — 
 
 Percentage of salt in water, 1 1 : Gov. Revillagi- 
 gedo, 19: Caciques and potatoes, 23: Lime water 
 for scurvy, 29: Enata, Kanaka, avrjp, avd? 42: 
 Magelhaens vs. Wilkes, 57: Coral Insects, 72: 
 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 Philo- 
 gabblian ; you make it for yourself; and it means 
 that you yourself need this additional informa- 
 tion. 
 
 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 
 
How to Read 103 
 
 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 prob- 
 ably 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 try that in 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 read- 
 
104 How to do It 
 
 ing. 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 Robert- 
 son'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 
 
How to go into Society 105 
 
 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 Theo- 
 dore 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, ex- 
 cept 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 be- 
 ginning. The passion they have for it takes them 
 
106 How to do It 
 
 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 lead- 
 ing man in New Altona. Madame Chenevard is 
 a sister of Mrs. Schuyler, with whom Stephen's 
 mother worked five years on the Sanitary Com- 
 mission. All the bank officers are kind to Ste- 
 phen, and ask him to come to their nouses ; and 
 he, who is one of these young folks whom I have 
 been describing, who knows how to be happy at 
 
How to go into Society 107 
 
 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 Ste- 
 phen'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. Tol- 
 man'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. 
 
108 How to do It 
 
 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. Labbasse. 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 fourscore 
 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 Dunster, — at this 
 moment the favorite talker in society in Washing- 
 ton, as indeed he is on the floor of the Senate. 
 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 Catteraugus 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 
 
How to go into Society 109 
 
 did not care for him a straw, 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 en- 
 joy 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 king- 
 dom 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 pro- 
 vided. Therefore, first, we must all of us go to 
 these parties, whether we want to or not ; because 
 
1 1 o How to do It 
 
 we are in the world, not to do what we like to do, 
 but what the world needs. 
 
 " Second," said this unknown some one, " noth- 
 ing 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 asso- 
 ciate with them on the accustomed terms of the 
 
How to go into Society 1 1 1 
 
 place. Then you are free from the first diffi- 
 culty of young people who have trouble in soci- 
 ety ; 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 " 1 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 yourself call a very good time 
 when you come there. Oh 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 al- 
 
 1 I have heard the phrase criticised by people who ought to 
 know. But they did not. Dryden says, " The sons of Belial had a 
 glorious time/' Dryden is a good enough authority for you and me. 
 
1 1 2 How to do It 
 
 ways 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 sup- 
 posed 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 gen- 
 tlemen 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 no- 
 body 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 mat- 
 ters. 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 im- 
 mense comfort, and it has carried me through 
 
How to go into Society 1 1 3 
 
 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 
 
 8 
 
1 14 How to do It 
 
 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 would put 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 chap- 
 ter." 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 
 
How to go into Society 1 1 5 
 
 light dress will be wafted into the gaslight 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, 1 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 
 
 1 Sayini8i4. House still standing at the corner of Park and 
 Beacon Streets, Boston. 
 
1 1 6 How to do It 
 
 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 direc- 
 tions 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 gen- 
 tleman 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 some- 
 thing 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 impres- 
 sion after all? Did not Belch stay till near three 
 in the morning? And when he went, because I 
 
How to go into Society 1 1 7 
 
 had dropped asleep, did I not think him more dis- 
 agreeable 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 
 tjiat they will be sorry before they are done. I 
 wish they would read ^Esop'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, 1 — 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. 
 
 1 From one of Fichte's Lectures. 
 
1 1 8 How to do It 
 
 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 ana- 
 lytical 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 swim- 
 ming. 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 
 
How to Travel 1 1 9 
 
 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 horse- 
 back is the pleasantest. It is feasible for girls as 
 well as boys, if they have proper escort and super- 
 intendence. 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 morn- 
 ing. 
 
 You might try this, Theodora, — 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 
 
1 20 How to do It 
 
 Notch all four on a hand gallop, with the rain run- 
 ning in sheets off our waterproofs. Get them to 
 say they will go, and then hold them up to it. 
 
 For dress, you, Theodora, will want a regular 
 bloomer to use when you are scrambling over the 
 mountains on foot. Indeed, on the White Moun- 
 tains 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 but- 
 ton 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 crev- 
 ice 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. Do not forget your gymnasium dress. 
 
 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-fash- 
 ioned 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 
 
How to Travel 121 
 
 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 en- 
 joyment 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, as in riding, 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 be- 
 fore 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 
 
122 How to do It 
 
 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. Wads- 
 worth 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 
 
How to Travel 123 
 
 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. Maud Ingletree and 
 Esther 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 Thur- 
 lessen, a nice old Swede, who had served in the 
 army, and had ever since been attached to that 
 school as chore-man. At home 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 w r as 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 
 
1 24 How to do It 
 
 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 rind his wife had planted her- 
 self; 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 headquarters tent for Mr. and Mrs. Mer- 
 riam. And that night they all learned the luxury 
 and sweetness of sleeping upon beds of hemlock 
 branches. Thurlessen had supper all ready as 
 
How to Travel 125 
 
 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 Thur- 
 lessen 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 Ver- 
 mont 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 rind 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. 
 
126 How to do It 
 
 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 Whiteface, or looking 
 off into the village street from the piazza of a 
 hotel. 
 
 The party once determined on and the route, re- 
 member that the old conditions of travel and the 
 new conditions of most travel of to-day are pre- 
 cisely opposite. For in old travel, as on horse- 
 back 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 sys- 
 tem, 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, popu- 
 larly 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 al- 
 most 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 
 
How to Travel 127 
 
 my head out of a window in Ashland, and, ad- 
 dressing 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 conversa- 
 tion, 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 pleas- 
 ant places for rest, and thus when they arrived at 
 
128 How to do It 
 
 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 possibili- 
 ties 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 life 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 mem- 
 ories 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 your- 
 selves of your letters of introduction. See things 
 which are to be seen, or persons who are to be 
 
How to Travel 129 
 
 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 
 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 ac- 
 quainted with, that Miss Ferrier lays down her 
 bright rule for a visit, that a visit ought " to con- 
 sist of three days, — the rest day, the drest day, 
 and the pressed day." 
 
 And, lastly, dear friends, — for the most enter- 
 taining 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 forget- 
 ting yesterday, leaving to-morrow alone, and liv- 
 ing with all your might to-day. It will never do, 
 Pauline, to have to walk up to the innkeeper and 
 
 9 
 
130 How to do It 
 
 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 col- 
 lect 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 bo- 
 tanical 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 excel- 
 lent 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 gen- 
 eral 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. 
 
How to Travel 131 
 
 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, intelli- 
 gent 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 mul- 
 titude 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 Club-house. 
 
 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. 
 
132 How to do It 
 
 The next half of the book will be the applica- 
 tion 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 instruc- 
 tion and advice I give. That means that, as the 
 lawyers say, I am not retained by the teachers, 
 formerly called schoolmistresses and school- 
 masters, 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 
 
Life at School 133 
 
 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 McClure 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 posi- 
 tion. 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 
 
134 How to do It 
 
 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. 
 Abbott says, in his admirable rule, in Rollo or 
 Jonas, " When you grant, grant cheerfully." You 
 have come here to school without a fight, I sup- 
 pose. 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 hence- 
 forth 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. 
 
Life at School 135 
 
 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 
 
136 How to do It 
 
 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 playground (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 situa- 
 tion, 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 par- 
 ties, one under cover and the other out, grasping 
 the rope, and endeavoring each to draw the other 
 party across the dividing line. "Greeks and Tro- 
 jans" you will see the game called in English 
 books. Little we knew of either; but we hard- 
 ened our hands, toughened our muscles, and exer- 
 cised 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 ap- 
 
Life at School 137 
 
 ply 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 pro- 
 hibited. 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 
 
138 How to do It 
 
 " 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 Compan- 
 ion, 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 " syn- 
 genesious," and " coniferous," and such words, re- 
 markably 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 min- 
 ister 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. 
 
Life in Vacation 139 
 
 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 
 3'ou are at school, though they have their respon- 
 sibilities, 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. 
 
140 How to do It 
 
 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 thor- 
 oughly 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. 
 
Life in Vacation 141 
 
 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 discom- 
 fort 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 deter- 
 mine very solemnly what the great central busi- 
 
142 How to do It 
 
 ness 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 some- 
 thing 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 par- 
 ticular book or books. Or you want to use John's 
 tool-box for some very definite and attractive pur- 
 pose. Very well ; take this up also, for your indi- 
 vidual or special business. The other is the busi- 
 ness of the crowd; this is your avocation when 
 you are away from the crowd. I say away; I 
 
Life in Vacation 143 
 
 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 you are 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. 
 
 "Downstairs in time." \Mem. 1. Be careful about 
 this. It makes much more disturbance in the house- 
 hold 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 
 
144 How to do It 
 
 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 " Jungfrau," because un- 
 climbable, the "Aiguilles," &c. This about the draw- 
 bridge 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 de- 
 scended 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 pepper- 
 mints 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.] 
 
Life Alone 145 
 
 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 draw- 
 bridge, 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 delight- 
 ful summer excursion in the service of the State 
 of New Hampshire as a geologist, and I left the 
 other geological surveyors at Haverhill. » 
 
 TO 
 
146 How to do It 
 
 I remembered John Ledyard. Do you, dear 
 Young America? John Ledyard, having deter- 
 mined 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 bateau, — 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 
 
 1 
 
Life Alone 147 
 
 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 pre- 
 destined 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 Tele- 
 graph 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 
 
148 How to do It 
 
 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 calked. 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 any- 
 thing. 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 mus- 
 tache or these whiskers. 
 
 Had he, in the Laccadive Islands, some worth- 
 
Life Alone 149 
 
 less 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 solicita- 
 tion 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 
 
150 How to do It 
 
 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 experi- 
 ment 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 mis- 
 take 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 to be afraid of night, you 
 ought not to 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 
 
Life Alone 151 
 
 where we can do nothing else. In a railway car- 
 riage, for instance, on a rainy or a frosty day, you 
 cannot see the country. If you are without com- 
 panions, 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 refresh- 
 
152 How to do It 
 
 ments," 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 ar- 
 rangement 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 cer- 
 tain 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. 
 
Life Alone 153 
 
 "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 laugh- 
 ing 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 upstairs 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 But- 
 ler said a much better thing than that. He said 
 that m-m-m-m-m — 
 
 " Then Mrs. Tileston would say, * Oh, I thought 
 that s-s-s-s-s — ' 
 
 " Then I should say, * Oh 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 watch- 
 ing or of your travel greatly. 
 
154 How to do It 
 
 Second, as I said, there is reading. Now I 
 have already gone into some detail in this mat- 
 ter. 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 com- 
 pletely, 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 
 
Life Alone 155 
 
 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 every- 
 thing 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 ink- 
 stand, 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, what- 
 ever 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 
 
156 How to do It 
 
 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 draw- 
 ing-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 im- 
 proving. 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. Yes : but 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 
 
Habits in Church 157 
 
 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 draw- 
 ing 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 re- 
 member. 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 week- 
 days for four hours in the morning and three in 
 
158 How to do It 
 
 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 pre- 
 cisely 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, 
 
Habits in Church 159 
 
 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 sing- 
 ing 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 
 
160 How to do It 
 
 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 hap- 
 pens, during that half-hour, — that so, when peo- 
 ple 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 dis- 
 cipline. You should determine that you will only 
 
Habits in Church 161 
 
 do in church what you go to church for, and ad- 
 here 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 stum- 
 bling-block in the way of this resolution, that you 
 cannot fix your attention steadily upon it, I recom- 
 mend 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 open- 
 ing 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 
 
1 62 How to do It 
 
 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 after- 
 wards remember what the preacher said, with un- 
 usual distinctness. You will also gradually gain a 
 habit of listening, with a view to remembering; 
 noticing specially the course and train of the argu- 
 ment 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 chil- 
 dren 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 congre- 
 gational singing, and you can sing the tune, you 
 are to sing. It is certain that it requires the peo- 
 ple 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 
 
Life with Children 163 
 
 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 intention- 
 ally 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 los- 
 ing them by neglecting the little habits of concen- 
 trated 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 
 
164 How to do It 
 
 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 un- 
 derstand 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 
 
Life with Children 165 
 
 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 gen- 
 eral, 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 re- 
 
1 66 How to do It 
 
 presented 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 to- 
 gether into one, and will even forget that they ever 
 have been parted. That is the true rule for meet- 
 ing 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 every- 
 where prized and loved. All this is worth saying 
 in a book published in Boston, because New Eng- 
 enders 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. Bos- 
 ton 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 diffi- 
 culty 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 try- 
 
Life with Children 167 
 
 ing 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 wood- 
 house. 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 en- 
 list 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 pitch- 
 fork 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 
 
1 68 How to do It 
 
 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 great deal to the point in 
 Jonas's directions to Rollo, and in Beechnut's 
 directions to those children in Vermont; and per- 
 haps 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 per- 
 sons, 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 un- 
 dertaking 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 " tag- 
 ging after" you. Of course they tag after you. 
 At their age you were glad of such improving com- 
 pany as yours is. It has made you what you are. 
 Instead of scolding them, then, just avail your- 
 selves of their presence, and make the occasion 
 comfortable to them, by giving them some occupa- 
 tion 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 
 
Life with Children 169 
 
 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 peb- 
 bles, 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 sort- 
 ing 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, 
 
170 How to do It 
 
 you can cheer up these poor tired little things 
 who have been riding day and night for six days 
 from Pontchartrain, 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 vivants> 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 gen- 
 erally," 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 chil- 
 
Life with your Elders 171 
 
 dren 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 " Te- 
 lemachus," — 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 edu- 
 cation, 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 
 
\J2 How to do, It 
 
 of his father, who took him into his train or com- 
 pany for whatever service or help he could render. 
 And so, of a sudden, the boy found himself con- 
 stantly 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 substan- 
 tially two things : first, that his father would not 
 ask him any the more often because he teased him 
 for an invitation. The teasing was in itself wrong, 
 and did not present him in an agreeable light to 
 his father and mother, who wanted a pleasant com- 
 panion, if they wanted any. This was the first 
 
Life with your Elders 173 
 
 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 con- 
 versation. 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 in- 
 volved a good deal of the philosophy of the inter- 
 course 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 
 
174 How to do It 
 
 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 ex- 
 perience just like that open to each of you, The- 
 odora 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. 
 
Life with your Elders 175 
 
 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 revolu- 
 tionary 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 lan- 
 guage ; how he would say " Frangais, — mes freres " 
 (which means, Frenchmen, — brothers) ; and how, 
 in such strains of burning eloquence, he would set 
 all right so instantaneously that he would be pro- 
 claimed 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 "Frangais, — mesfrkres" and in forty 
 years this summer, in which time four revolutions 
 
176 How to do It 
 
 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, " Frangais y — mes freres" 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 wait- 
 ing 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 pro- 
 motions 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 
 
Life with your Elders 177 
 
 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 yourself 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, Massachu- 
 setts, where old and young people associated to- 
 gether more commonly and frequently than in 
 any other town I ever happened to live in, and 
 
178 How to do It 
 
 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 young- 
 est, 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. 
 
Habits of Reading 179 
 
 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 to- 
 gether, under the head of " Habits of Reading," 
 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, be- 
 cause they are all fed with just the same intellect- 
 ual food. You hear them repeat to each other 
 the things they have all read in the Daily 
 Trumpet, or the Saturday Woodpecker. In these 
 
180 How to do It 
 
 things, of course, there can be but little variety, 
 all the Saturday Woodpeckers of the same date 
 being very much like each other. When, there- 
 fore, 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 Jiave 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 sud- 
 den gale. The principle of sound habits of read- 
 ing, if reduced to a precise rule, comes out thus : 
 That for each hour of light reading, of what we 
 
Habits of Reading 1 8 1 
 
 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 ad- 
 vanced 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 " Mecanique Celeste " in less 
 than two hours' daily labor. I have told you al- 
 ready 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. 
 
1 82 How to do It 
 
 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 
 
Habits of Reading 183 
 
 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 agree- 
 able 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 dis- 
 tinguished 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 
 
184 How to do It 
 
 have made on the fly-leaf, were the book your 
 own. In this case you will keep these memoran- 
 dum 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 refer- 
 ence 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. ffi, Vol. j." 
 
 You will have but little difficulty in finding 
 your place in any edition of the " Pictorial His- 
 tory," 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 au- 
 thorities 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 cir- 
 cumstances are, whether you can go to the origi- 
 nals. But if you are near a large library, the 
 sooner you can cultivate the habit of looking in 
 
Habits of Reading 185 
 
 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 Cap- 
 tain 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 ques- 
 tion." 
 
 I was saying very much what I have been writ- 
 ing, 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 Gari- 
 baldi 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 
 
1 86 How to do It 
 
 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 cyclopaedia 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 
 
Getting Ready 187 
 
 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. Fer- 
 guson 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, 
 " Oh, 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. 1 
 
 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 Fer- 
 
 1 P. S. — We have been and returned, and all has happened 
 substantially as I said. 
 
1 88 How to do It 
 
 guson, that, when the sheriff is about to hang him, 
 a pardon arrives just in time from him (the Presi- 
 dent). But I shall not carry out for you any such 
 horrible picture of these two good fellows' fate. 
 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 en- 
 joyment, or for helping other people to pure 
 enjoyment. 
 
 The art of getting ready, then, shall be the clos- 
 ing 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 get- 
 ting ready for life beyond this. Bear that in mind, 
 and you will not say that this is a trivial accom- 
 plishment of Ferguson's, which makes him always 
 
 
Getting Ready 189 
 
 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 twen- 
 ty-four hours of every day, gives to him " all the 
 time there is." It is also one of those accomplish- 
 ments, as I believe, which can readily be learned 
 or gained, not depending materially on tempera- 
 ment 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 circum- 
 stances 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 
 
190 How to do It 
 
 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 break- 
 fast? 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 Voting 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 accu- 
 rately, 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 
 
Getting Ready 191 
 
 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 Robin- 
 son," 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 
 
192 How to do It 
 
 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 tool is or 
 that." 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 headquarters, 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 aide mount him. 
 The aide asked Haliburton what sort of horse he 
 
Getting Ready 193 
 
 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. War- 
 burton, 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 headquarters en- 
 campment. 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 came 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 " get- 
 ting ready " does not mean the piling in of a heap 
 of accidental accomplishments. It means sedu- 
 lously 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 
 
 13 
 
1 94 How to do It 
 
 from head to foot. This is the man whom Words- 
 worth 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." 
 
HOW TO LIVE 
 
HOW TO LIVE 
 
 [Seventeen years after the publication of How to do It, I 
 was asked to prepare for the great Chautauqua Reading Course 
 the papers on Practical Ethics of 1886. 
 
 I addressed these to the seniors of the young people for whom 
 How to do It was written. They were printed for fifty thou- 
 sand Chautauqua readers in 1886 under the title How to Live.] 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 I AM to send to The Chautauquan sixteen pa- 
 pers on the Method and Practice of Life. 
 
 They will be called " HOW TO Live." 
 
 They are, therefore, essays in practical ethics. 
 
 The received treatises on morals, with a few 
 distinguished exceptions, treat very largely on 
 the origin of morals. They discuss the ques- 
 tions, how does man know what is right or what 
 is wrong, and why does he think one thing right 
 and another wrong? 
 
 There are but very few books which, taking for 
 granted, once for all, the sense of right, attempt 
 to give what I may call practical recipes for liv- 
 ing, — which may be made of use, — as directions 
 for the care of hens, or the feeding of cows, or the 
 mixing of bread are made of use. 
 
 I have undertaken to give to the readers of 
 
198 How to Live 
 
 The Chautauquan sixteen essays, which shall, in 
 practice, give such directions. I am not to dis- 
 cuss the origin of the moral sense. On the other 
 hand, I take it for granted that the readers of these 
 papers have a distinct notion of the difference be- 
 tween " Ought " and " Ought not," between what 
 is right and what is wrong. 
 
 I shall take for granted some other things, con- 
 nected more or less directly with this sense of 
 right and wrong. 
 
 I shall take it for granted that my readers 
 believe in the existence of God, — and in his 
 presence here now, — that he loves them and 
 cares for them. 
 
 I shall suppose that my readers know they are 
 his children, — that they may be partakers of his 
 nature, — and that they wish to draw near to him. 
 
 I suppose also that I and my readers agree, in 
 believing that in the New Testament, the Son of 
 God gave statements of man's duty and of the 
 Way of Life, — which, on the whole, we can un- 
 derstand ; and that this statement is sufficient for 
 our direction if we faithfully use it. 
 
 I should never have written the essays which 
 the reader is now to try to read, but that, many 
 years ago, I wrote a smaller book, for younger 
 readers, which was called " How TO DO It." 
 
 This book proved to be useful, and has since 
 been a text-book in many schools in this country 
 and in Europe. 
 
Introduction 199 
 
 In a friendly and familiar way I undertook to 
 teach my young friends — not the essentials of life 
 — but some of those details of method which 
 are next to essentials in modern Society. Thus 
 one chapter told " How to Talk," one " How to 
 Read," one " How to Write," and one " How to 
 go into Society." 
 
 The young people for whom it was written were 
 about seventeen years old seventeen years ago. 
 They are now the fathers and mothers of families. 
 One or another of them asks me, almost every 
 week of my life, some question much more seri- 
 ous than those of talking or of writing. Such 
 questions I answer as I can, — now in a sermon, 
 now in a letter, now on the front seat of the car- 
 riage, while those behind us are chattering on 
 other themes. One of the queens in her own 
 circle, who, with the noblest inspirations allied 
 to intuitive wisdom, makes glad hundreds all 
 around her, has asked me to write a chapter in 
 answer to the question " How to grow old ? " 
 When I told another of my best advisers of this 
 question, she said, " I would advise you to write 
 on ' How to grow young.' " There is wisdom in 
 both suggestions. 
 
 From a thousand such suggestions and ques^ 
 tions the plan of these papers has grown. The 
 essays, such as they are, will embody the sugges- 
 tions from at least a thousand of such advisers, 
 persons, all of them, of some experience in the 
 matters where they question and advise. 
 
200 How to Live 
 
 Such as they are, the essays are written by an 
 American for Americans. They are written by an 
 American who is neither rich nor poor, for Ameri- 
 cans who are neither rich nor poor. They at- 
 tempt to meet only the common conditions of our 
 social order. 
 
 It is necessary to say this, in an introduction, 
 because, by misfortune, much of what we read in 
 America is written in England, by people who 
 know the English social order only, and write for 
 it, as they should. We therefore sympathize 
 with the position, the trials, the successes and mis- 
 fortunes of Lord Fitz-Mortimer and Lady Agnes, 
 and almost fancy, for a moment, that we are Mar- 
 quises or Dukes, Marchionesses or Duchesses. 
 At least we feel, as Mr. Pinckney did, that, apart 
 from our republican prejudices, we should be very 
 glad to fill the position of an English nobleman 
 with a large and independent income. 
 
 Now, in fact, none of us will fill that position, 
 no, nor any position like it. We are American 
 citizens, and shall remain such. To a certain 
 extent each of us is a leader in the social circle 
 in which he lives, and that is a legitimate ambition 
 by which any one of us tries to enlarge such lead- 
 ership. But, all the same, each of us has to lay 
 down the novel to go and take care of his horse, 
 or his child, or his shop, or his correspondence ; 
 each of us has duties to society which he cannot 
 shirk ; each of us must consider " ought " and 
 " ought not " from a point of view wholly different 
 
Introduction 201 
 
 from that of those people we read of in the 
 romances or in the history of other parts of the 
 world. 
 
 So far as I can understand it, their position has 
 some very great difficulties. Our position also has 
 some very great difficulties. But their difficulties 
 are not by any means always ours, and our diffi- 
 culties are not always theirs. 
 
 I have, therefore, to say, in the beginning, that 
 this is an American book, written by an American 
 author for American readers. I have no idea that 
 any person trained under other institutions than 
 ours will ever understand it. Far less will such 
 people profit by it. Dr. Furness once said that 
 he remembered no writer trained under an abso- 
 lute government who seemed to understand what 
 Jesus Christ meant by the " Kingdom of God," 
 which our time sometimes calls " The Christian 
 Commonwealth." 1 I should say the same thing. 
 And, therefore, I should say in general, to readers 
 in America, that they must form their social ethics 
 distinctly in view of their social condition. We 
 do not live in a community where one person is 
 the " fountain of honor." We do live in a com- 
 munity where from the lowest class to the highest, 
 there is open promotion. We do not live in a 
 community where any President or Governor is 
 the Sovereign. We do live in a community where 
 the People is the Sovereign, and Presidents and 
 
 1 It could be wished that the address of his which contains this 
 statement, and a hundred others of his addresses, might be printed. 
 
202 How to Live 
 
 Governors are the servants, perhaps messengers 
 or clerks, of the people. Most important of all, 
 we live in a community where, from the nature 
 of things, every man must bear his brother's 
 burdens. 
 
 I dislike " Introductions," and I generally skip 
 them, when others have written them, and omit 
 them in printing or in addressing the public, when 
 I have written them myself. But in this case, as 
 these essays must be, at best, too short for my 
 purpose, I choose to have my way clear, as far as I 
 can clear it, by saying in advance what I do not 
 propose and what I do. Most " criticism " con- 
 sists of the surprise of the critic, because the 
 author does not do something else, which the 
 critic would have done in his place. I do not 
 write this book for the critics. I write it for the 
 people who want to discuss these questions in this 
 way. The best success I ask for the series is that 
 described by Abraham Lincoln, — that those peo- 
 ple may like it who like that sort of a book. For 
 the others, I hope they will write their own books, 
 and that those who like them will read them. 
 
 The essays will be an effort to answer such 
 questions as these : — 
 
 How to choose one's calling. 
 
 How to divide time. 
 
 How to sleep and exercise. 
 
 How to study and think. 
 
 How to know God. 
 
 How to order expenses. 
 
Introduction 203 
 
 How to dress. 
 
 How to supply the table. 
 
 How to bear your brother's burden. 
 
 How to remain young. 
 
 How to deal with one's children. 
 
 How to deal with society. 
 
 How to grow old. 
 
 There will be a paper on " Duty to the State," 
 and one on "Duty to the Church of Christ." 
 
 Strictly speaking, each of these should be con- 
 sidered last, if this were possible; that is, each 
 subject needs to be studied in the light of the 
 others, and with the assumption that we are quite 
 right about the others. 
 
 For instance, if I do not sleep well, I cannot 
 think well ; and, on the other hand, if I have not 
 my mind well under control, I shall not sleep 
 well. 
 
 In practice, a man's growth is, or might be, 
 even along all these several lines. In writing 
 for the press, however, all the papers cannot be 
 first, nor all last, nor can all be published side 
 by side. The reader and I will do as well as we 
 can. 
 
204 How to Live 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 HOW TO CHOOSE ONE'S CALLING 
 
 PALEY says that it is a great blessing to man- 
 kind that ninety-nine things out of a hundred in 
 our lives are ordered for us, and that we only 
 have to make a choice one time, while ninety-nine 
 are thus directed for us. 
 
 This is probably true. Both parts of the state- 
 ment are probably true. That ninety-nine per 
 cent of our duties are offered to us, and must be 
 met, and also that it is well for us that we do not 
 have a choice more often than we do. 
 
 The ease of choice is very different with differ- 
 ent people. Some people decide promptly, and 
 then rest squarely on the decision. Other people 
 decide slowly and with difficulty, and some of them, 
 even then, doubt their decisions after they have 
 been made. 
 
 Did you never ride into Erie with your excellent 
 Aunt Cynthia, who had to choose there some cam- 
 brics to face some dresses with, when she spent 
 the whole morning in selecting among four or five 
 kinds, and, after all, went back the next day to ask 
 the dealer to be good enough to change those she 
 had bought for others ? Dear Aunt Cynthia is 
 
How to Choose one's Calling 205 
 
 not the only person in the world who finds it hard 
 to make a decision and hard to hold by it. 
 
 Now it may be well to take a long time to make 
 a decision. That is matter, very largely, of tem- 
 perament. I had two near friends, who came to 
 visit me on two different evenings. To each of 
 them I showed my book of questions, which I call 
 a " Moral Photograph Book." You have twenty 
 questions which a person is to answer, off-hand, in 
 writing: such questions as, " Who is your favorite 
 author ? " " What is your favorite newspaper? " 
 " What is your favorite flower? " 
 
 One of my two friends was a great banker. He 
 took the book and his pencil, and answered the 
 twenty questions almost as fast as he could write. 
 He was used to making up his mind promptly. 
 His business required prompt decision. Some 
 man would say at his desk, "What will you give 
 for High-flyers to-day — to be delivered in thirty- 
 one days ? " and he would answer at once, " I will 
 give 37J." Such promptness had become with him 
 second nature. My other friend was a judge of 
 the Supreme Court. He took the first question, 
 and discussed it, and then left it for another dis- 
 cussion. He talked on the second question, and 
 wrote an answer at last. The third was left, sub- 
 ject to a second consideration. Most entertaining 
 these discussions were. But, at the end of a long 
 visit he had only answered six, and he never 
 answered the others. 
 
 Now, I think both these men were right, morally. 
 
206 How to Live 
 
 One of them is made for prompt judgments. That 
 makes him a great banker. The other is made for 
 careful judgments which command the respect of 
 man. That makes him a great judge. 
 
 But each of these men would have held to his 
 judgment when he had made it. There they 
 differ from your poor Aunt Cynthia. And we 
 must train ourselves to do what the old lawyers 
 required, — " to stand by the decisions." " Stare 
 decisis " was their phrase. " If you start to take 
 Vienna, take Vienna," said Napoleon. And he 
 who directs us all says, " He who endureth to the 
 end, the same shall be saved." 
 
 Bearing in mind, then, that our choice of occu- 
 pation is not a thing for to-morrow to be changed 
 the next day, we go about it seriously. William 
 Ware said once, rather sorrowfully, that a young 
 man is called into his father's room for a serious 
 talk of an afternoon, and, in fifteen minutes, his 
 career for all life is decided for him. This ought 
 not to be so. He and his should take not days 
 only, but months and years in the choice, if they 
 can. His temperament is to be considered, — his 
 real ability, — what he likes and what he does not 
 like. We need not care much for the consider- 
 ation whether this or that calling is over-crowded. 
 If there is not room in one place for a good work- 
 man, there is in another. Or, at least, it may be a 
 good step in the ladder for something higher. Mr. 
 Webster says, " There is always room higher up." 
 
 Some of the very best artists have said, as to 
 
How to Choose one's Calling 207 
 
 Fine Art, that you must not ask whether a pupil 
 has a genius for his art, 1 but whether he likes it. 
 They say that if a boy likes to play the piano well 
 enough to do the hard work,* you should let him 
 go on, hoping that the ability will appear. But I 
 observe that this instruction is given by people of 
 genius. They may be too apt to think that the 
 pupils are like themselves. This is true, that 
 " liking " and steadiness make the best test we 
 have. As to genius, we are often mistaken. But 
 there are questions to be considered beside this 
 of liking, and, probably, to be considered first. 
 
 This is certain, that you are to do the duty which 
 comes next your hand. Say, you are sixteen 
 years old. Your father and mother have other 
 children to care for, and it is time you are earning 
 your living. I should not say then that you have 
 a large range in choosing what you will do. You 
 must do what there is to be done in that place, at 
 that time. Thus, the doctor wants an intelligent 
 boy to drive his horse for him. Or, Mr. Long- 
 stroth wants an intelligent boy to copy for him his 
 treatise on the " Visigoths in Catalonia." Or, 
 John Brither wants an intelligent boy to carry his 
 three-leg and his chain for him in the survey of 
 the Hills Common. Where there open before you 
 these three chances to be of use and to earn your 
 
 1 I had in my mind when I wrote two artists of the highest 
 rank. One of the two was William Morris Hunt, who is no longer 
 living. The other is one of the most distinguished musicians of 
 America. 
 
208 How to Live 
 
 living, you may select from the three that one 
 which you like best, either for the pay, the open 
 air, or the man whom you are to work under. But 
 you must not reject all, because you do not like 
 any one. You have these three lines from which 
 to choose, but you must choose one duty next 
 your hand. As among these three, you will choose 
 that which on the whole offers most recompense, 
 which on the whole you like best, and on the whole 
 offers most promotion. 
 
 But I should not call such decisions the choice of 
 one's calling in life. These are rather steps in edu- 
 cation, and you select them as a man might choose 
 one of two or three schools which were open to him. 
 They will, among other things, show you what you 
 are fit for, and what you can do well, which, prob- 
 ably, at sixteen years of age, you do not know. 
 
 When the time comes for a decision more likely 
 to be of permanent importance, you have to ask : 
 
 I. Is this business right or wrong? You must 
 not be a pirate. You must not be a counterfeiter. 
 You must not be a burglar. You ought to go into 
 no business which in practice, and generally, injures 
 your fellow-men more than it helps them. You 
 may go into the manufacture of powder, because, 
 though powder kills people, it has other uses much 
 larger than those of murder. But you ought not 
 to retail liquor, nor sell liquors for a beverage. I 
 would not manufacture them, though some liquors 
 have some uses. You must not, intentionally, lead 
 men into temptation. 
 
How to Choose one's Calling 209 
 
 2. Of two callings, one of which is better for 
 your constitution and health than the other, you 
 choose the healthier. 
 
 3. Look shyly on any calling which does not 
 open out into larger lines of life. You have a right, 
 as you grow older, to regular promotion. 
 
 4. If you have a fair opportunity to carry to a 
 new place the resources or attainments of an old 
 place, there are good reasons for doing so. The 
 chances of young men and women are, on the 
 whole, better in a new country, and it should be 
 so. For the invalids, those who are not adven- 
 turous, and the people who have tried themselves 
 and have proved failures, all like to stay in an old 
 country, and they keep down the rates of compen- 
 sation there. This is a legitimate reason why the 
 well people, the adventurous, and those who want 
 to try themselves should become apostles to a new 
 country. 
 
 5. Choose what is in the line of your genius, if 
 you know what that is. But, as has been said, 
 until they have tried, very few people know. And, 
 on the whole, work tells. Your great artist is a 
 great artist, but very likely he would have been 
 a great machinist, or a great poet. 
 
 6. An American has no right to take any calling 
 in which he cannot serve the State when the State 
 needs him. He must take his share in the moral, 
 social, and religious life of the town in which he 
 lives. 
 
 These notes, which are all for which this chapter 
 14 
 
21 o How to Live 
 
 has room, will be considered again, as the discus- 
 sion goes on in these papers. A man's regular 
 vocation should be considered in view of his other 
 occupations, which have been called, perhaps in- 
 correctly, his avocations; and of his sleep, his 
 exercise, his study, and of each of the separate 
 lines of duty which will now come into our view. 
 
How to Sleep 21 1 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 HOW TO SLEEP 
 
 To sleep well is one of your duties. Do not cul- 
 tivate, do not permit, any of the sentimental non- 
 sense which speaks as if sleep were a matter of 
 chance, or were out of your control. You must 
 sleep well, if you mean to do the rest well. You 
 must have body and mind in good working order ; 
 and they will not be in good working order, unless 
 you sleep regularly, steadily, and enough. Here 
 is the reason why one places the command of sleep 
 so early in a practical working list of men's duties 
 and habits. 
 
 One reason why there is so much vagueness and 
 false sentiment in people's talk about sleep, and 
 their behavior about it, is. that the true physiology 
 of sleep has only been known for the last genera- 
 tion. Old Galen, the Greek physician, supposed 
 that in sleep the blood-vessels of the brain are 
 more heavily gorged with blood than they are 
 when one is awake, and this mistake has been 
 entertained almost until our time. It is a mis- 
 take. Modern researches have made it certain that 
 in real sleep, — in the sleep which refreshes and 
 renews, — the blood is largely withdrawn from the 
 brain. "Stupor" is what follows when the blood- 
 
212 How to Live 
 
 vessels of the brain are over-gorged. In sleep they 
 contain not more than three-quarters of the blood 
 which is in them when you are awake. 
 
 The old farmer was perfectly right, who used, 
 before he went to bed, to draw off his boots, and 
 to bring his feet as near the coals on the hearth as 
 he could without scorching his stockings, so that 
 he might be ready to sleep as soon as he got into 
 bed. If the old man said he did it " to get the 
 blood off his brain," he showed that he knew more 
 than old Galen did. And — so far as our physi- 
 ology goes — all our effort in securing sweet sleep 
 must be turned to this business of withdrawing 
 blood from the circulation of the brain. When, 
 on the other hand, you find that your head is on 
 fire, — nay, that it almost sets the pillow-case on 
 fire, — and that you lie in bed, pitching and toss- 
 ing like an anchored ship in a heavy gale, it is 
 because you have neglected the proper precau- 
 tions, and the circulation of blood in your brain is 
 going on with undue rapidity and intensity. 
 
 Try to regard sleep as a duty. Then, just as 
 you would be ashamed and mortified if you were 
 the father of a family, and found in the morning 
 that there was no wood for the fire, no water for 
 the kettle, no bread, no butter, no flour, nor any- 
 thing to eat, so you feel mortified and ashamed if, 
 when night comes, you do not feel the prompting 
 and the power to sleep. Oh ! yes, I know all about 
 the exceptions. I know, in the one case, that 
 there may have been a freshet, and that the kitchen 
 
How to Sleep 2 1 3 
 
 and the store-room may have been taken down the 
 creek to the river, and down the river to the Gulf 
 of Mexico, and through the Gulf of Mexico to the 
 sea. And I know, in the other case, that some 
 dear friend of yours may be hanging between life 
 and death, and you waiting for the messenger who 
 shall tell you which befalls. There are always 
 exceptions. But, granting the exceptions, you 
 ought to be as eager to sleep as to eat your din- 
 ner, as able to sleep as to eat your dinner. And 
 if you find you are not, do not pet the derange- 
 ment of your life; do not sit reading a novel or a 
 newspaper till the sleep comes; but study care- 
 fully the causes of failure, and be sure so to cure 
 that disease that with the time for sleep shall 
 come the desire. 
 
 Do not place any confidence in the old laws 
 which limit the amount of sleep. There are such 
 old lies as " six hours sleep for a maid, and seven 
 hours sleep for a man." Take all you need, and 
 do not let any one tell you how much you need. 
 You will know better than any one else. The rule 
 is correlative to the rule for work. Thomas Drew 
 stated it thus: " You have no right in any day to 
 incur more fatigue than the sleep of the next night 
 will recover from." 
 
 I am taking it for granted that you can do as 
 you choose in this matter. I am taking it for 
 granted that you have a Will about it, and can use 
 that Will. That is to say, I take it for granted that 
 you are a child of God, who can WILL AND Do 
 
214 How to Live 
 
 what pleases him. Now, it pleases him that you 
 shall wake every morning as fresh and happy and 
 cheerful as that bird awakes which you hear sing- 
 ing when your eyes first open. It does not please 
 him that you shall wake doubtful, tired, unwilling 
 for a new day. 
 
 We have come to the first duty in our examina- 
 tion, " How to Live." We must here squarely 
 resolve to do that duty though the sky falls. " I 
 WILL." There is the whole thing; if we cannot do 
 that, we may as well stop before we begin. 
 
 I. I will sleep. What is needed for that physi- 
 ologically? It is needed that the blood shall 
 gently, easily, and steadily leave my brain; and 
 this, probably, for some hours before the time for 
 sleep comes. Then, I must not be working my 
 brain on difficult problems up to the last moment, 
 and then turn brutally round on it, and say, " Stop 
 working." 
 
 In especial, you must not undertake late in the 
 day anybody's problems of mathematics, say arith- 
 metic or other puzzles, if I may call them so. 
 Business men who have large trusts to manage are 
 forever making mistakes here. Such men as bank 
 cashiers feel that they must give the business 
 hours to the business of the bank. Then when 
 evening comes, they take the two hours before 
 bed-time, " So quiet, you know," for their own 
 personal affairs, as, to write the letters about their 
 own insurance, or to their tenants, or to fuss 
 over the housekeeping accounts. You must not 
 
How to Sleep 215 
 
 do any such thing. The last hours of the day- 
 must be for rest and solace to this brain which 
 you have been working all day. Better for you, 
 if you can give it five or six such hours ; if, going 
 to bed at ten, you undertake no serious mental 
 problem after four or five in the afternoon. 
 
 " But these things must be done," you say. 
 Perhaps they must, though with regard to that I 
 am not so certain as you are. If they must be 
 done, do them to-morrow morning, between five 
 and seven, if you please, or between six and eight. 
 Whether they be done, or not done, make sure of 
 this, that this good friend of yours, your brain, 
 who has done you so much good work, and will 
 do you so much more, has five or six hours of 
 easy life every day, before you and he go to sleep 
 together. You are not to press him in those last 
 hours. You may press him in the early hours of 
 the day, with certain exceptions which shall be 
 noted in another place. You are not to press him 
 after sunset, nay, not in the hours when the sun 
 goes fastest down. 
 
 II. When the time comes, and you enter on this 
 business of sleep, attend to it with all your heart 
 and soul and mind and strength. Here is the bed, 
 all ready for you, and you are as ready for it. 
 Put out the light, tumble into bed, pull up the 
 coverings, and go to sleep. That is what the bed 
 is for, that is what you are for. Yes ! If you wish, 
 as your cheek feels the cool of the pillow, you may 
 thank the good God for his mercies, the pillow 
 
2i 6 How to Live 
 
 not the least of them, and you may make your 
 prayer. This, if you have not done it on your 
 knees at the bedside. But that is all. You are 
 not to ask yourself whether the day has been a 
 good day or a bad day. You are not to review 
 the past, or look forward into the future. You 
 are not to plan that letter which you will write to 
 Allestree about the cattle. You are not to plan 
 out the way in which you can move the beds so as 
 to make room for Lucinda's children. You are 
 not to think of anything but Sleep. You are to 
 go to sleep, and, if you can, you are to stay asleep 
 until the morning comes. And so soon as you can 
 teach yourself that sleep is a duty and a central 
 duty, that it is not an accident, an incident, or a 
 mere bit of good fortune, the more able will you 
 be to keep yourself in training at this critical mo- 
 ment, and to refuse all the temptations. They are 
 temptations to carry on the business of the day in 
 the hours of the night, hours which are reserved 
 for a very different affair. 
 
 In nine cases out of ten, if you have left this 
 good-natured, hard-working brain to the six hours' 
 rest which has been described, you will have no 
 trouble in the first three or four hours of the night. 
 The practical difficulty begins, for most people 
 who are troubled by sleeplessness, at one or two 
 o'clock in the morning. This is not the place for 
 the description of that trouble so far as it comes 
 from indigestion, from dyspepsia, from tea or 
 coffee, or from hunger. It does come from these 
 
How to Sleep 217 
 
 things forty-nine times out of fifty, and they shall 
 be spoken of in their place. It is to the fiftieth 
 time that the rules apply which you will hear at 
 every corner, about occupying the mind with some 
 monotonous subject, such as saying the multipli- 
 cation table, repeating familiar poetry, looking at 
 a flock of sheep, and so on. 
 
 I do not say but these may be used in their 
 place, because sensible people use them and offer 
 them. Greyford wrote me a long letter once, in 
 which he said that the habit of his mind was dis- 
 cursive. He said that when he was sleepless, his 
 mind ranged over everything in creation, and that 
 it was work for him to keep it in the harness, and 
 to make it trot within the ruts and on the high- 
 ways. So he would compel it to give him, in 
 order, three names of kings beginning with A: 
 Alexander, Agesilaus, Alfred ; three names be- 
 ginning with B : Baldwin, Brian, Beelzebub ; and 
 that by the time he got to G or H he was asleep. 
 But this would not work for every one; and in 
 general you may say of such rules what Dr. Ham- 
 mond says, that it is setting fire to half of the 
 village by way of stopping the conflagration of the 
 other half. The only practical help I ever had 
 from such rules was given me by Captain Collins, 
 the night before he went to the Amoor River. 
 He says, " When you are sure you are not going 
 to sleep, open your eyes and compel them to look 
 straight before them. If it is pitch-dark, let them 
 look into the darkness. If there is a little light, 
 
2 1 8 How to Live 
 
 let them look upon the tassel or the picture which 
 is before them. In a minute the open eye-lids will 
 want to shut. " No, when I wanted you to shut, 
 when I wanted you to go to sleep, you would not. 
 Now you must look at the picture, or the tassel, or 
 the blackness. Look ; think picture, tassel, black- 
 ness ; and think nothing else." 
 
 I have tried this and with good effect. But I 
 have varied on it, by going to the Amoor River in 
 my bed to join Captain Collins there, and much 
 more often than " I think picture or tassel or 
 blackness," I think of a certain log cabin at the 
 mouth of that river, of its verandas, and the walk 
 down to the stream, and the vines that grew upon 
 the verandas, till I am thinking no more. And, 
 oddly enough, the other day another man told me 
 that he had the same experience at such times. 
 
 But a physical cure is better than all this play 
 with an over-wrought brain. Jump out of bed, 
 rub yourself heartily with a crash towel or mitten, 
 sponge your head thoroughly for two or three 
 minutes with cold water, take a wet towel back to 
 bed with you, and wind it around your forehead. 
 All this, you see, is to drive the blood off the 
 brain again. And take this always as a rule in 
 life, — that if there is a physical cure, you are to 
 use it, — and not seek for a cure in the higher 
 regions. Do not go to the minister for his 
 spiritual counsel, when a blue pill, or ten pillules 
 of hyoscyamuSy will answer. Do not cut blocks 
 with a razor. 
 
How to Sleep 219 
 
 III. If I had the space, I should go quite at 
 length here into detailed recipes of prescriptions 
 for the control of sleep. For I have been pained 
 to learn, since I delivered some lectures on the 
 subject more than fifteen years ago, that very 
 many Americans suffer from sleeplessness. Our 
 eager life, the wide range of our duties, and what 
 Mr. Appleton calls the " whip of the sky " drive 
 them into an intensity of effort, day and night, for 
 which sleeplessness is the revenge. But I must 
 satisfy myself by putting a few short notes at the 
 end of this paper, and by referring sufferers to 
 Dr. Hammond's treatise on Sleep, which they 
 will find interesting, instructive, and, if they will 
 obey, very useful. Meanwhile, I really hope that 
 nineteen-twentieths of the readers of this paper do 
 not suffer in this way. It is for them that I write 
 what remains. For there is really no need that 
 they should suffer. I have said that sleep is a duty. 
 It is at the same time a privilege, and everybody 
 may have the privilege who will discharge the 
 duty. But the duty is all interlinked with every 
 other duty in life. You are not going to buy the 
 privilege so cheaply as by repeating the multiplica- 
 tion table, or by thinking of a flock of sheep jump- 
 ing over a wall, or by buying half an ounce of 
 bromide of potassium. The privilege means that 
 you hold in control your body and your mind, 
 which are the two tools of your soul, and that your 
 soul knows what it is to control body and mind, 
 and how to become master and mistress of them. 
 
220 How to Live 
 
 Now take an instance. You find, as some people 
 do, that if you drink tea or coffee at seven in the 
 evening, you cannot compel sleep at one the next 
 morning. Or, if you eat a Welsh rarebit of cheese 
 just before you go to bed, you find, four hours 
 after, that you cannot sleep. Some people can- 
 not. Are you now your own master or mistress in 
 this matter of the tea, the coffee, and the cheese, 
 or are you the slave of tea, coffee, and cheese ? 
 That is the square question. And the answer to 
 that question throws us back where we were in 
 the beginning. It answers what seems a larger 
 question. " Are you a partaker of the Divine 
 Nature?" or are you only one who, as the Bible 
 puts it, " may be a partaker of the Divine Nature " ? 
 If you are in this latter class, is it not worth while 
 to promote yourself, with God's help, from " may 
 be" to "am"? 
 
 "lama partaker of the Divine Nature. I will 
 control this tea and coffee and cheese. I can do 
 without them and they may do without me." 
 
 I may say just the same thing about the mental 
 perplexities which come in the middle of the night, 
 and harass one and distress him. John Jones will 
 be sure to come to me at eleven o'clock to make 
 me indorse that note for him, and what in the 
 world shall I say? 
 
 In the first place John Jones and his note have 
 no business in this bed. This bed is the altar of 
 sleep. I will not receive John Jones here. He 
 and his note shall not come into this room. If 
 
How to Sleep 221 
 
 the American minister in London had led me to 
 the Queen's drawing-room, if I had just kissed 
 her hand, and if she had just asked me how the 
 children were, I should not stop to talk to John 
 Jones about his note. He shall not bother me 
 here, any more than he would there. 
 
 Or you may put it in the broader statement. 
 Everything must conform to absolute Right. 
 About John Jones' note there is a Right thing to 
 do and there is a Wrong thing to do. When he 
 comes to me in the morning I shall have all the 
 arguments on both sides before me. What there 
 is to know I shall know. And I shall have the 
 good God to direct me if I seek him. I will do 
 the right thing then. The right thing now is to go 
 to sleep, and that thing I will do now. 
 
 The central rule of life is not that we must 
 always refer everything to first principles, not that 
 we do refer everything to first principles, but that 
 we are ready to do so if there is need. That 
 readiness makes life simple, easy, and successful. 
 
 NOTES 
 
 1. Dr. Hammond says, and I am sure he is 
 right, that many more people lie awake from 
 hunger than do so from having eaten too much. 
 Recollect how almost all animals go to sleep im- 
 mediately after feeding. I shall show in another 
 place why I think a short nap after dinner a good 
 practice, if you can manage it. This is certain 
 
222 How to Live 
 
 that many people, perhaps most people, require 
 some simple, easily digested food just before going 
 to bed. I know people who find an advantage in 
 having a biscuit at the side of the bed, to eat in 
 the night if they are wakeful. 
 
 In this connection I may quote from Dr. Ham- 
 mond his remark that " all American women are 
 under-fed." When, in lecturing, I used to repeat 
 this at the West, it was received with shouts of 
 laughter. But at the East it was regarded as the 
 serious expression of a serious truth. I cite it 
 here that I may call the attention of people who 
 are suffering under the varied forms of " nervous 
 prostration" to the question whether they are 
 regularly eating and digesting enough, in quantity, 
 of simple food. 
 
 2. What I have said connects distinctly with 
 Dr. Hammond's axiom, " The complete satisfaction 
 of any natural appetite is generally followed by 
 sleep or the desire for sleep." 
 
 3. In our habits of life, the use of tea and coffee 
 has a great deal to do with sleep or the loss of it. 
 It is idle for one person to make rules for another. 
 I have only to say that if, after full experience, you 
 find they keep you awake, " they must go," to 
 borrow the expressive mountain phrase. There 
 is, probably, some foundation for the general habit 
 which has thrown coffee upon the morning meal, 
 and reserved tea for that of evening. But, on the 
 other hand, it is said, and I think truly, that the 
 sleeplessness resulting from coffee is agreeable, or 
 
How to Sleep 223 
 
 not intolerable, while the sleeplessness which fol- 
 lows tea, is rasping, provoking, and aggravating. 
 I believe, myself, that the use of both depends 
 very largely on the amount of exercise in the 
 open air. I should say to any person who wishes 
 to use tea or coffee at the evening meal of the day, 
 that he could probably do so in moderation, if he 
 was willing always to walk three miles in the open 
 air afterward. Of these details, however, I shall 
 speak more at length under the head of Exercise. 
 
 4. To the specific recommendations given in the 
 text for the benefit of the sleepers, I will only add 
 here that you may almost always secure three or 
 four hours of good sleep by the use of a hot foot- 
 bath, as hot as you can well bear. You may put 
 a little mustard into it, to increase the stimulus to 
 the skin. Steep your hands in the hot water at 
 the same time. All this draws the blood off the 
 brain. The use of the hair-mitten, a cool pillow- 
 case, or, if you please, a pillow of cold water, has 
 the same purpose. 
 
 5. Dr. Franklin was wholly ignorant of the true 
 physiology of sleep, and his papers on the subject 
 are full of theoretical errors; but some of his 
 practical instructions are very sensible, as they are 
 amusing. 
 
 6. I wish some ingenious machinist would fit up 
 a phonograph to be run by clock-work, which I 
 could start, — say at two in the morning, — and 
 make it deliver to me one of Dr. Primrose's ser- 
 mons, with all his delightful, drowsy cadence. 
 
224 How to Live 
 
 Failing this, a good musical box which will run 
 half an hour without winding, is a convenient piece 
 of furniture in a bedroom, especially where there 
 are restless children. 
 
 7. The habit of sleeping may be formed very 
 early, and should be. If a young child be healthy, 
 let no nurse (or anxious mother) sit with it in the 
 evening, after it is three months old. Undress it, 
 leave it, and let it put itself to sleep. The child 
 will thank you afterwards for what you hate to do 
 to-day. 
 
 8. An india-rubber bag full of cracked ice, 
 ready to apply to a hot forehead, is a good friend, 
 
 — when you have a hot forehead at two o'clock in 
 the morning. 
 
 9. But I have found a small flat-iron more con- 
 venient. Buy at a toy-shop for ten cents a 
 baby-house flat-iron. It need not weigh more 
 than half a pound. Tie a string to it, and fasten 
 the other end of the string to a bedpost. If you 
 do not sleep hold the flat surface to your forehead 
 
 — well, as long as you can bear it; then let it 
 drop away, while you enjoy the retreat of the 
 blood from the crowded blood-vessels. 
 
How to Exercise 225 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 HOW TO EXERCISE 
 
 It is quite worth while to read carefully the theo- 
 ries of the best Greek authors about education, and, 
 of our own race, to go as far back as Lord Bacon 
 and Milton and Locke, to see what they say 
 about it. For such reading saves us from that 
 delusion of our own time which confounds edu- 
 cation with book-learning, and almost takes it for 
 granted that a man who has read a great deal is 
 well educated. Now, any Greek who thought at 
 all had a thorough respect for the body, if it was 
 only as the physical tool which was to carry into 
 effect the conclusions of the mind, and the de- 
 mands of the soul. Paul went farther. He recog- 
 nized the divinity of man's nature. He knew that, 
 as James said, man could be a partaker of the 
 divine nature. Paul squarely claims, therefore, 
 that the body must be kept pure and holy, be- 
 cause it is the temple of the indwelling God. All 
 this runs quite counter to the happy-go-lucky 
 theory largely prevalent in our time, which sup- 
 poses that if you have a doctor to cure the visible 
 diseases of the body, the body may be left to take 
 care mainly of itself. The average public school 
 of America teaches reading, writing, and arithme- 
 
 15 
 
226 How to Live 
 
 tic, with, perhaps, a smattering of language, a 
 smattering of physical science, and, possibly, of 
 the higher mathematics. But as to any exercises 
 which are to make the eye more sure, the hand 
 more quick, the arm more strong, or the man 
 more enduring, the average public school knows 
 nothing of them. It sends the boys or girls out 
 to recess. Perhaps an intelligent teacher airs the 
 room, and that is all. The recent " craze," as I 
 may call it, in the matter of athletics is a help in 
 this matter, but it has its dangers also. 
 
 Indeed, every specialist is apt to think that he 
 must make every pupil such another as he is himself. 
 A music master will tell you you must practise 
 the scales six hours a day. The chief of a gym- 
 nasium, who can lift two thousand pounds him- 
 self, wants his pupil to lift two thousand pounds. 
 The president of an athletic club is eager to have 
 some one "beat the records" in running or walk- 
 ing or leaping. Every one thus exaggerates his 
 own specialty, forgetting that the whole business 
 of education is to make a perfect man, well-bal- 
 anced, rounded, if you please, and ready to do 
 whatever duty comes next his hand. When Starr 
 King was in the prime of his youth, not long 
 before his death, Dr. Winship was showing how 
 men could be trained to lift enormous weights. 
 " He does not understand what I need," said King. 
 " I have no occasion to lift half a ton, but I should 
 like to go 2.40." " Two-forty " was then the stand- 
 ard for fast trotting, and King meant that he 
 
How to Exercise 227 
 
 wanted to do promptly and well, in the best way, 
 what he had to do. Here, in an epigram, is the 
 statement of what one's " exercises " are for. They 
 are the use of a part of every day so that, when 
 duty comes, one may be ready for duty. And a 
 man will not be ready for duty unless he has ex- 
 ercised in such fashion as shall make him ready. 
 Young people read novels, and they fancy that 
 when the time comes they will do as well as 
 Harry or Jane does in the story. When you are 
 presented of a sudden to Mr. Gladstone, you 
 expect to answer his questions as readily as Harry 
 did when he had that charming talk, in the book, 
 with the Lord Chancellor. It will not come out 
 so. Amadis stood three days on the bridge, 
 holding it against all comers. But he could not 
 have done this if he had not trained himself 
 every day in all the exercises of knighthood. 
 
 There may be bodily exercises ; there are exer- 
 cises of memory, imagination, and other forms, 
 which we rate as simply mental; and there are 
 spiritual exercises beside. Of these, I give this 
 paper to some hints on bodily exercise, and when 
 I write " How to Exercise " at the top, I do so 
 because, in the ordinary language, exercise has 
 come to be spoken of as if it related principally 
 to the body. But, in derivation and in original 
 use, exercise implies the experience which one 
 gains in the repetition of any action. 
 
 1. People ask at once how much time should 
 be given to this series of exercises or to that ; how 
 
228 How to Live 
 
 much to study, how much to memory, how much 
 to walking or to riding. I shall answer this ques- 
 tion from no ideal standard of what one would 
 like, or of what they do or do not do in Paradise, 
 in Utopia, or in Sybaris, but with simple refer- 
 ence to what can be done in the ordinary life of 
 this country. 
 
 For there exists among us, quite low down and 
 fundamental in our arrangements, the necessity of 
 earning our living, and, whatever a man wants 
 or does not, and whatever John Milton or Pesta- 
 lozzi or De Gerando says he had better do or 
 not, the probability is as nine to one that he has 
 to go to the mill or the store or the shop or the 
 field every day, and work at some work or other 
 in " subduing the world." The probability is that 
 he must do this for eight or ten hours each day, 
 and he may have to give more hours. I hope not. 
 I hope, indeed, that we shall come round to the 
 average of an eight -hour system by and by for 
 all work which a man does in his craft, trade, or 
 profession, so that he may feel at ease, with a 
 good conscience, to give some of his waking hours 
 to some "exercises" which will train his body, 
 mind, and soul, beyond and outside the exercise 
 which they gain in his daily calling. 
 
 I give such advice as is to be found in this 
 paper, remembering this restriction. I have al- 
 ready said a man must do the duty that comes 
 next his hand. Now that duty may be the keep- 
 ing a set of books. It may be the watching a 
 
How to Exercise 229 
 
 shuttle as it flies backward and forward in a 
 loom. It may be sitting in a chair all day, and 
 purifying mercury. For the exercise of his body, 
 such a man must take time outside this daily 
 requisition; for some exercises of his mind, he 
 must take such time; and for some exercises of 
 his soul. 
 
 I am apt, then, to advise people who ask my ad- 
 vice in such things to limit their resolutions about 
 them at the first, to the control of three hours a day, 
 outside those which are given to what may be called 
 the daily vocation. If a man's daily vocation keeps 
 him in the open air, exercising his muscles, his 
 nerves, — or in general his body, — the three hours 
 need not be given to physical exercise. If, on the 
 other hand, they are given to indoor work, as in 
 the cases described, he will need to give much of 
 his three hours to physical exercise. He must 
 give a fair share if he means to be a perfect 
 man. He must have his body up to a working 
 standard. He does not gain that by resolving. 
 And he has no right to expect any answer to 
 his prayers, unless he fulfils the part God requires 
 of him. 
 
 " Two men are in a canoe in the Mozambique 
 Channel. A sudden flaw of wind upsets the boat. 
 Before they can right her she fills with water and 
 sinks; and the two men are swimming for their 
 lives. ' Ah, well ! ' says one of them to the other, 
 ' it is a long pull to the shore ; but the water is 
 warm and we are strong. We will hold by each 
 
230 How to Live 
 
 other, and all will go well/ ' No/ says his friend, 
 1 1 have lost my breath already ; each wave that 
 strikes us knocks it from my body. If you reach 
 the shore, — and God grant you may ! — tell my 
 wife I remembered her as I died. Good bye ! 
 God bless you ! ' — and he is gone. There is 
 nothing his companion can do for him. For 
 himself, all he can do is to swim, and then float, 
 and rest himself, and breathe ; to swim again and 
 then float, and rest again, — hour after hour, to 
 swim and float, swim and float, with that steady, 
 calm determination that he will go home ; that no 
 blinding spray shall stifle him, and no despair 
 weaken him ; hour after hour, till at last the palm 
 trees show distinct upon the shore, and then the 
 tall reeds, and then the figures of animals ; — will 
 one never feel bottom?" Yes, at last his foot 
 touches the coral, and with that touch he is safe. 
 That story that man told me. I copy it here 
 because it shows, in a good concrete case, what 
 exercise had done for one man which it had not 
 done for the other. Both of them, for all I know, 
 had strength, bravery, and prudence; but one of 
 them had exercised his body in the essential ex- 
 ercise of swimming, and the other had not. When 
 the test came, one knew how to live, and the other 
 went under. 
 
 . I certainly do not expect to give much advice 
 in detail in regard to the several exercises of the 
 body which a boy or a girl, a man or a woman 
 would do well to keep up, daily, weekly, yearly. 
 
How to Exercise 231 
 
 Lives differ so much that the advice for one man 
 would be quite different from that for another. 
 
 The directions for most women — as we live, 
 would be different from that for most men. But 
 there may be stated a few things which are central, 
 or fundamental : — 
 
 I. To live well, you must be in the open air 
 every day. This rule is well-nigh absolute. 
 Women offend against it terribly in America. 
 And women are very apt to break down. Rain 
 or shine, mud or dust, go out of your house, and 
 see what God is doing outside. I do not count 
 that an irreverent phrase which says one feels 
 nearer God under the open sky than he is apt to 
 do when shut up in a room. I know a very wise 
 man who used to say, " People speak of going 
 out, when they should speak of going in." He 
 meant that you do plunge into the air, as when 
 you bathe at the sea-side you "go into" the water. 
 Be quite sure of your air-bath. I will not dictate 
 * the time ; but, on the average, an hour is not too 
 long. You will fare all the better, will eat the bet- 
 ter, digest the better, and sleep the better, if in- 
 stead of an hour it is two hours or more. 
 
 A good many other things go with this. Form 
 the habit, if you have regular reading to do, of 
 reading in the open air. Find a nook in some 
 corner of the house, — on the outside of the 
 house, — or between two great rocks, where you 
 can sit in the sunshine, even in late autumn or in 
 the winter, and read your Chautauqua lesson under 
 
232 How to Live 
 
 the open sky. Very likely you will find at first a 
 certain strain on your eyes. You must, of course, 
 be careful about this. But ask yourself whether 
 your eyes were made only for rooms lighted by 
 one or two windows, and whether they ought 
 not to be exercised up to daylight. 
 
 2. Those people who are fortunate enough to 
 read these papers on the western side of the Al- 
 leghanies, will, in most instances, be fortunate 
 enough to have each a horse at command. Such 
 is one of the every-day luxuries of those States 
 which rule America ; and one of the reasons why 
 they rule America is that their people are tempted 
 to live so much in the open air. If you are so 
 fortunate, there is, I suppose, no exercise better 
 for health than horseback-riding, whether for man 
 or for woman. The rest of us, excepting the few 
 who have bicycles at command, 1 have to walk as 
 we take our air-bath. 
 
 Walking does not, of itself, exercise all the 
 muscles. Running is much more approved by 
 the authorities. I happen to know that Helm- 
 holtz, the great German physicist, recommends 
 daily running as the best treatment, where there 
 is any tendency to congestion of blood on the 
 brain. Military drill has immense advantages. 
 This nation has gained a great deal in the supe- 
 rior carriage of its men since the civil war. I could 
 wish that the teachers of girls' schools would do 
 something for their pupils which approaches it. 
 1 This was in 18S6. 
 
How to Exercise 233 
 
 Sweeping a floor is admirable exercise, and you 
 know Herbert says : — 
 
 " Who sweeps a room as for thy laws 
 Makes that and the action fine." 
 
 3. No exercise, perhaps, can be compared to 
 swimming; but generally in our climate we can 
 enjoy it only a few months in the year. All women 
 should learn to swim, as well as all men. It is 
 really unfair to their brothers or their husbands if 
 they do not. 
 
 4. Another set of questions will come up, which 
 different people will answer in different ways. I 
 have simply to remind my readers that they must 
 be answered in some way. For instance, a man or 
 woman must be in good training for walking. If 
 the man be a postman, the government will expect 
 him to walk twenty miles a day. If he be a light- 
 infantry man, he must be able to walk fifteen miles 
 a day, and to carry a knapsack, cartridge-box, and 
 musket. Now, what is the requisition for a gentle- 
 man or lady in ordinary life, who is not a postman 
 or a light-infantry man? 
 
 The answer would be different in England from 
 what it is here. Their climate on the whole per- 
 mits of walking more than ours, and they are on 
 the whole trained for longer walks than we are. 
 Here, I should say that every man ought to be 
 able to walk six miles a day without any sense of 
 extra exertion or fatigue — I know no reason why 
 a woman should not. Indeed, I think it would be 
 
234 How to Live 
 
 much better for the women of this country if they 
 were all trained to this standard. As these pages 
 pass the press, I see that President Eliot tells the 
 freshmen of Harvard University that they ought 
 to be able to walk ten miles a day on the average 
 as a matter of course. In the same address, he 
 says that a man should be able to hoe potatoes for 
 three hours without any sense of fatigue. 
 
 5. But it must be understood in all such sug- 
 gestions that we are not urging you to use up 
 your strength on exercise. I am not speaking 
 as if exercise were your business, I am only speak- 
 ing of preparation for your business. If your busi- 
 ness is study, keeping store, taking care of child- 
 ren, making boxes, shoeing horses, you are to use 
 your vital force, your strength, for those duties. 
 You are not, under the pretence of exercise, to unfit 
 yourself for the duties of the day. I once knew 
 a club of young enthusiasts, men and women, who 
 used to walk before breakfast summer mornings. 
 It is an exquisite time of day, and they had what 
 the New England dialect calls " beautiful times." 
 But when they came back after two or three 
 hours, and ate a sumptuous breakfast, as they 
 used to, they found themselves quite unfit for 
 the duties of the day, for making clothes, writ- 
 ing sermons, advising clients, or painting pictures. 
 This is what in slang phrase is called " running 
 exercise into the ground." Such exercise is no 
 longer preparation for living. Remember all 
 along that our business is to keep the body up to 
 
How to Exercise 235 
 
 the highest point, that we may get from it all the 
 work we can. 
 
 6. And remember, in the arrangement of your 
 physical exercises, another series of them, which 
 does not come at all under the head of athletics. 
 I wish I could give more room to speaking of 
 them than I can, but I must at least name them. 
 People are apt to call them " accomplishments." 
 But, as people live in civilized society, some of 
 these are as necessary as, in the middle ages, 
 swimming or fencing or riding were to a gentleman. 
 
 One of them is writing. Writing is learned and 
 is kept up by physical exercise. Every man 
 and every woman ought to write well. That is, 
 they ought to write quickly, in a handsome hand 
 which is easily read. And every man and woman 
 can do this by proper exercise of the hand and 
 arm, with or without a teacher. I have known 
 people who wrote execrably, reform entirely in a 
 fortnight's time by working faithfully, as you may 
 work, on the copies of a writing-book which may 
 be bought for ten cents. 
 
 Every one who can learn to write can learn to 
 draw. In fact, writing is rather a difficult sub- 
 department of drawing. I think every one should 
 train himself to draw accurately, so far as to be 
 able to represent in proper proportions what he 
 sees. If a man wants a book-case made by a car- 
 penter, he ought to be able to make a correct 
 drawing of it for the workman, which shall not 
 look as if it was tumbling over to the right. The 
 
236 How to Live 
 
 reason, by the way, that the drawings of unskilled 
 people always slant to the right is, that they learn 
 to write before they draw. Vertical writing will 
 help here as in other ways. 
 
 Exercise in music is another of these accom- 
 plishments. Here the test is, do you like it? If 
 you like it, you ought to keep it up so far as to 
 give pleasure to yourself, or to give pleasure to 
 your friends. For here is one more capacity of 
 the body, and you have no right to let that ca- 
 pacity die out. Remember what the body is, 
 what it is for, and who is its master. 
 
 Indeed, if in these three essentials, you will 
 carefully keep a fit reverence for the body, you 
 will be able, better than I can, to adjust for your- 
 self the physical exercises of your life. 
 
 NOTE 
 
 Reprinting this paper in 1899, I am able to cite James 
 Russell Lowell on the open-air requisite. In the first of his 
 Lowell lectures, recently exhumed by the Rowfant Club, he 
 says of the Ballad-Singers that they "had that education 
 for uplifting which comes from life in the open air, and from 
 that only." 
 
Appetite 237 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 APPETITE 
 
 What has been said relates to the training of 
 the body that it may do what man orders. It 
 remains to consider another form of training 
 which has the same end, but which seeks the 
 control of appetites which, if uncontrolled, be- 
 come masters, and control the man. 
 
 It is from the neglect of these appetites, and 
 from the mastery which they thus attain, that 
 there has sprung all that ascetic scorn of the 
 body to which I have alluded, and which, un- 
 fortunately, still has its part in education, and in 
 too many of the plans of religious teachers. 
 
 Take, as an illustration of such sway of these 
 appetites and the failure to govern them, this, the 
 story of the opium war in China. Keying, a 
 mandarin of high rank, was sent to Canton by the 
 Chinese government to suppress the illicit traffic 
 in opium with the English. He began by giving 
 a great dinner party. To this party he invited all 
 the first Chinese merchants in Canton who might 
 be concerned in the traffic. It was a great 
 honor to be invited, and they gladly went. 
 When the dinner was over they expected to go 
 home ; but they were then courteously informed 
 
238 How to Live 
 
 by their host that he should ask for their com- 
 pany for a longer time. Bedrooms would be 
 provided for them, and he would hope to see 
 them at breakfast. In fact he provided every- 
 thing which a large hospitality could suggest, ex- 
 cept opium. They could not have that. The next 
 morning some of them began to break down for 
 the need of it. Before a day went by, though they 
 knew it was death to confess their appetite, they 
 were confessing it. If he would only give them 
 a little opium, he might do what he pleased with 
 them afterward. And the story says that before 
 this terrible test was finished, every man of the 
 party had broken down. Every man had gone 
 so far in this terrible indulgence that he could 
 not live unless he might gratify it. They were, 
 one and all, at Keying's mercy. 
 
 We are to look at the means for keeping appe- 
 tite under control. In every case which can be 
 named, the appetite which gains such head is 
 God-given, and is, up to a certain point, neces- 
 sary to maintain human life. But whether one 
 speak of the desire for sleep, the desire for food, 
 the desire for drink, or any other desire of the 
 body, it may, like a pet leopard or a pet cobra, 
 get the upper hand and devour or poison the 
 foolish master. I will even include the case of 
 the opium-eaters, for there can be no doubt that 
 opium has its place. There was an English 
 physician in India who said in his enthusiasm 
 that opium was God's best gift to man. 
 
Appetite 239 
 
 Now, in answering the question What are we to 
 do with these appetites? I group my suggestions 
 under two heads. 
 
 I. I speak of the TESTS of the machine, for it is 
 all-important that you know where you are. For 
 this, especially in early life, a man or woman needs 
 certain tests. They may be compared to the oc- 
 casional experiments which the driver of a loco- 
 motive makes to see where the water is in his 
 boiler. If his engine has no index to teach him, 
 he will open a vent from which will issue water or 
 steam. He will then know whether the water or 
 the steam is above that line. Now, strictly speak- 
 ing, the man wastes force in opening this discharge ; 
 but he gains very essential knowledge. He learns 
 whether the water is high enough or not. If he 
 did not know, he might run on till an explosion 
 came, and then the steam he had saved would not 
 save him or any one. 
 
 In exactly the same way it is well for us all to 
 test our bodies and the appetites which ought to 
 be our slaves. Try once a month how well you 
 feel without coffee. If you can do without it for 
 two days, then you may take it up again. If you 
 find you are fretful or cross because you have no 
 coffee, keep on without it until you regain your 
 temper. You do not mean to be a slave to your 
 coffee-pot. I give just the same advice to smokers. 
 For myself, I wish they would not smoke at all. I 
 think the habit brings in a train of other habits. 
 I fancy Keying' s opium slaves began with slavery 
 
240 How to Live 
 
 to tobacco. But the injunction I give to smokers 
 is, test yourself. Find out if you are slave or 
 master. Go for a week without your cigar or pipe. 
 If at the end of the week you are as easy in mind 
 and body, as good-natured, as "well-balanced " as 
 you were, then you have a right to say to me that 
 you were not a slave when the week began. But 
 if you cannot say this, then it is quite time that 
 you could. If you find you are fretful, nervous, 
 excited, low-spirited, uneasy, because a certain 
 leaf from Virginia or from Cuba has not been 
 rolled up in a certain form and lighted in a certain 
 way, then you find that you are very near to per- 
 sonal slavery. It is quite time that you threw off 
 that slavery, and your test has come none too soon. 
 It was from the need of such tests of the machine, 
 as I suppose, that the institution of religious fasts 
 came in. Here is a man who says he is in training 
 to go into the wilderness and preach the gospel. 
 If he does go, he will have to wear the same clothes 
 night and day for months ; he will have to live on 
 the coarsest food ; he will have to sleep on the 
 ground. Can he do it? Let us try him before he 
 goes. Do not let us send on a business of the first 
 importance a man who, when he comes to his 
 place of work, will be whimpering and worrying 
 because he has no roast goose and apple-sauce for 
 dinner, and no feather-bed to sleep upon. Here, I 
 think, was the origin of the rules of fasting imposed 
 upon priests and monks. And I suppose these 
 passed from them to other persons who hoped to 
 
Appetite 241 
 
 gain their sanctity. Other fasting originates in the 
 remark early made, that the mind is more clear 
 when people have not taken an overdose of food, — 
 which the savage is very apt to take. 
 
 Now this test of the man who offered himself for 
 important duty is wholly legitimate. I know re- 
 ligious bodies which profit by it now. In most 
 Roman Catholic institutions for the training of 
 priests, the young student lives in a barrack which 
 is by no means agreeable or luxurious. His food 
 and clothes are of the simplest kind. He is never 
 alone ; he always has one, two, or perhaps forty 
 companions. By such discomforts he is trained at 
 that age when habits are most easily formed. Now 
 there are very few posts in life in which that man 
 can afterward be placed, in which some of the 
 most important conditions shall not be decidedly 
 more agreeable. In a mission among Indians, he 
 can have his own cabin. He will probably make 
 for himself a better bed, and it will not be long, 
 indeed, as he improves the civilization of the peo- 
 ple under his charge, before he has better food on 
 his table, or, at the least, a more varied bill of fare 
 than he had at the seminary. That man learns 
 something in his theological school which Andover, 
 New Haven, and Auburn do not always teach. 
 
 Here is the advantage, in our education of young 
 people, of giving them a chance to go camping 
 out sometimes. Let them learn how bad the coffee 
 is which they make themselves, and they will not 
 be so apt to abuse Bridget that her coffee is not 
 
 16 
 
242 How to Live 
 
 better. Let them see how hard it is to bring the 
 fried fish and the toast to the table, hot, crisp, and 
 unburned, and they will not be so often discon- 
 tented with the varied courses of their home 
 breakfast. 
 
 I once tried to comfort a forlorn mother whose 
 two sons were going to the war, by talking to her 
 of the education of a campaign. " I should like 
 to know what Dick and John are to learn," said 
 she. I said they were to learn how to eat their 
 rice out of the same tin can in which they had 
 made their coffee, and to be thankful that they had 
 rice, coffee, and can. Well, she was willing to ac- 
 knowledge to me that both of them were a little 
 particular if the buckwheat cakes were cold when 
 they came late to breakfast. When I heard of the 
 young men next, when war was over, they were 
 great leaders of industry on the western frontier. 
 
 Test yourself where you can test yourself safely. 
 If you think you will have to walk across a river 
 on a felled pine tree, try walking upon a pine tree 
 when and where there is no river below you. 
 
 Is my appetite as good as it was when I was 
 eighteen years old and was glad to breakfast or to 
 dine on such food as we had at the boarding-house 
 in Cranberry Centre, or in the forecastle when we 
 were fishing on the banks? Or can I only keep 
 good-tempered when I have turtle-soup for my 
 dinner, with all the accessories of Delmonico's ? I 
 ought to be able to answer these questions, and any 
 test by which I can answer them will be a help to me. 
 
Appetite 243 
 
 II. But, alas ! there are only too many instances 
 in which no experimental test is needed. Life 
 has been the test. The husband and the wife 
 have both found that he is cross when the bread 
 is sour. Or the master has found that the clerk 
 is late at the store, that he missed the morn- 
 ing train which should have brought him in ; and 
 it proves that he cannot tumble out of bed in time 
 in the morning. Or, worst of all, John or James 
 finds out that when Dick or Harry meets him on 
 the street, and asks him if he will not look in at 
 Bet's to " have a drink," he does not say no. He 
 " looks in " too often, and it is clear to all men 
 that his appetites control him, and he does not 
 control them. 
 
 Here comes the second half of our subject. 
 How is the man, who should be the ruler, to re- 
 gain this lost mastery? 
 
 1 . In the first place, he must try. He must want 
 to do it. Nobody else is going to do it for him. 
 
 Here, I think, we may generally trust him. I 
 think that in the effort to reform intemperate men 
 we generally waste time on this part of the busi- 
 ness. My experience has shown me that no man 
 knows the curse and tenor of drunkenness more 
 thoroughly than the drunkard himself does. 
 
 I was once lecturing in a course on the " Divine 
 Method of Human Life." In the course, one lect- 
 ure was announced on this very subject of 
 " Appetite." That was the whole announcement. 
 Nothing was said of temperance or intemperance, 
 
244 How to Live 
 
 except as that one word indicated it. When I rose 
 to speak, I saw at once, in my audience, three men 
 who had never been at any of the other lectures. 
 Nor did they ever come to any of the after lect- 
 ures of the course. I knew in an instant why 
 they came. They did not know each other. 
 They had come without any mutual communi- 
 cation. But, as it happened, I knew them. 
 Each of the three had broken down in intemper- 
 ance. Each of the three had pushed to that ter- 
 rible verge which is called delirium tremens, and 
 they knew what that is. Each of them had seen 
 this word " Appetite " in the newspaper, and he 
 knew only too well what that is. Each of these 
 three had come round to hear me speak, in the 
 faint hope that I might know or suggest something 
 which he did not know for the control of appetite. 
 I believe that you will find something of that sort 
 to be the case with almost all intemperate men, 
 perhaps with all of them. They are, of course, 
 men of weak will. That is only another way for 
 saying that their appetites master them. But it 
 does not follow that they are such fools that they 
 do not regret the mastery, and do not wish to 
 overthrow the master. They are often foolishly 
 self-reliant. I said to such a man one day : " You 
 will never succeed in conquering this temptation, 
 unless you ally yourself to other people in the 
 matter, unless you gain the help of sympathy and 
 cooperation." He answered very proudly that I 
 did not know what I was talking about. He had 
 
Appetite 245 
 
 seen the folly of drinking, much more thoroughly 
 than I had, and he knew more of it. He had re- 
 solved. That was enough. He should never 
 touch liquor again. And he wanted no one to 
 help him in that resolution. Of all which the 
 result was that, before a month was over, he was 
 arrested as a drunkard in the street; and it did 
 not need more than two years to bring about the 
 fourth and fifth acts of that tragedy, — his divorce 
 from his wife, and his death in delirium tremens. 
 
 2. But I am not writing simply of intemperate 
 people. I am writing for and of all people who 
 cannot control bodily appetite. I was once sit- 
 ting in a large circle of ministers who were dis- 
 cussing the central questions regarding "sin," and 
 discussing them most eagerly. I turned suddenly 
 upon the moderator, and said : " Why do we talk 
 about sin? Let us apply what you say to sins. 
 What was the last sin which you consciously 
 committed? Does what you say apply to that 
 sin?" 
 
 He is one of the truest men in this world. And 
 he was then. He replied at once : " That is good. 
 I will tell you. I was thinking, when I spoke, that 
 I lay in bed this morning full ten minutes, when I 
 knew perfectly well that I ought to be up and 
 making ready for the day." 
 
 As he spoke every man in the room laughed. 
 And I think that thirteen men — consecrated and 
 true men — confessed that the appetite or tempta- 
 tion they had had in mind, in all they had said, 
 
246 How to Live 
 
 was this wish of " a little sleep, a little slumber, a 
 little folding of the hands to sleep." 
 
 Now I have said already — in the second paper 
 of this series — what I think of sleep, and how 
 highly I prize it. All the more am I sure that a 
 man must hold the love of it under his absolute 
 control. He must determine. Remember that 
 determine is a better word than " resolve." He is to 
 fix a term for sleep. He is to fix it, and, where he 
 has fixed it, it is to remain fixed. Let me take 
 my illustration, then, from this temptation which 
 troubled the fourteen ministers. 
 
 You have fixed your moment for rising. It is 
 to be at 6.30, or is it to be at 7. Now the fact 
 that you say at 9 to-night that you will rise 
 in the morning at 7 will help. But that alone 
 will not control. Analyzed, what happens is this. 
 You say: "I, John Jones, at 9 in the evening, 
 being of sound, disposing mind and good memory 
 and health, resolve that I will rise from bed at 
 7." If this is all, there is nothing to make sure 
 that at 7 you do not say: I, " John Jones, 
 being of sound, disposing mind and good memory 
 and health, resolve that I will not rise till 8." 
 You have nothing, so far, outside yourself, against 
 which to push your oar. When you are in a boat, 
 you can pry against the water, — and so your boat 
 goes along. You lift your oar into the air to bring 
 it back, and that motion does not send the boat 
 backward. But when you are in a balloon, you 
 have no water. It is all air. You move your 
 
 
Appetite 247 
 
 paddle forward, and then you have to move it 
 back, and you do not move the balloon at all. 
 John Jones must find something outside himself 
 for his oar to push against. 
 
 You will find, then, if six people agree that they 
 will breakfast together, and that no one shall begin 
 until all meet, that they will hold very closely 
 to their agreement. There is then a contract 
 which John Jones has made with X and Y and Z 
 and A and B. Yes, I know that he may be so 
 selfish, which is to say so far gone, that he will 
 sacrifice them all ; but the chances are greatly the 
 other way. If he is so far gone, here is a very acute 
 case of disease, worth his consideration and theirs. 
 
 Here, then, is another case, where we find out, 
 as we have done, the value of the " together." We 
 find out once more that man is a gregarious 
 animal. We find out why the Saviour speaks to 
 us so often in the plural number, — why we pray 
 to "our" Father, — why the communion of men 
 and women with each other is urged so steadily by 
 all the masters of life. We find out that we are to 
 bear each other's burdens. We find out what dear 
 Owen Feltham meant when he said : " I think 
 that man will never go to heaven who thinketh to 
 go thither alone." 
 
 You are to make yourself, in some way, a part 
 of the company,— a partner in its concern. When 
 morning comes, and the bed is so warm, and the 
 pillow is so soft, and you are so lazy, you are not 
 to say, " Really, I would rather stay here than 
 
248 How to Live 
 
 have warm coffee," or, "Really, I would rather 
 stay here than take the train at 8." You are to 
 say, " I must be dressed at 7.30, or I shall dis- 
 appoint Tom or Mary or Philip, or I shall fail in 
 my appointment with Seth or Salome." The 
 partnership breaks down if one of the partners 
 fails, and you do not mean to be that partner. 
 
 3. Here is the place where I ought to speak of 
 diminishing temptation while one strengthens will. 
 The Saviour places this part of duty first. He 
 tells us to pray that we may not be led into temp- 
 tation. He knows that when the spirit is willing 
 the flesh is weak. 
 
 Fitzwilliam says, and I think it is true, that 
 many a man has strength of will enough to kick 
 the bedclothes off, while he has not strength of 
 will enough to leave the bed while they are on. 
 That is a good illustration of a man's power over 
 the temptations which environ him. The Duke of 
 Wellington went so far as to sleep on a narrow 
 camp-bedstead to the very end of his life. " When 
 a man needs to turn over," he said, " it is time for 
 him to turn out." I think this goes too far. But 
 the theory of the duke is the right one. He did 
 not mean to be led into temptation. 
 
 And here is the ground I take in the steady 
 battle against the saloon in our villages and cities, 
 and against the open bar. I do not think that we 
 ought to put temptation in the way of boys or 
 girls who have never been tempted, or of weak 
 men or women; and, indeed, I know no men and 
 
Appetite 249 
 
 women who are not weak. So I say that the 
 public ought not to sell liquor to be used away 
 from home, " to be drunk on the premises," as the 
 licenses say. To which the theorists reply that I 
 am limiting the citizen in his natural rights. John 
 Stuart Mill, for instance, says that if a private 
 man wishes to be drunk he has a right to be 
 drunk, — that, if he is not an officer of the State, 
 the State has no right to control him. I think Mr. 
 Mill doubts whether a man has not a right to com- 
 mit suicide, though he does not, I believe, express 
 himself clearly here. To all which I reply that, 
 in suppressing the open bar, the State does not 
 open this question of a man's or a woman's right 
 to be a drunkard. The State says simply that it 
 will not put temptation in the way of boys and 
 girls who are certainly under its care ; nor of men 
 and women who, having been tempted, have failed 
 and fallen, to the great injury of the State, as well 
 as of themselves. The State will limit their temp- 
 tations as far as it may. 
 
 I was once, when under age, so that I could not 
 well command, on a pedestrian excursion in the 
 wilderness of Maine. Before we started, an ad- 
 mirable guide — I hope he lives to read these 
 lines — came to tell me what stores he had laid 
 in for the tramp. " I have bought no liquor," he 
 said. " You young gentlemen must provide what 
 you want." I said that none of the " young gentle- 
 men " used liquor, but I said, what I would not say 
 now, " You will take what you need." " Ah ! " 
 
250 How to Live 
 
 said he, " no men take liquor into the woods. 
 When lumbermen go into their camp they take 
 the best of pork and the best of flour, but they 
 take no liquor. If you ever have to work on a 
 drive of logs, Mr. Hale, with eleven other men, if 
 you are all to be drowned because one of them 
 has not his wits about him, you will take care that 
 that man has no liquor." This was said to me in 
 the year 1841. He added that when the men 
 came home in the spring and were paid off they 
 might drink; but they could not afford to have 
 any one in the company drink while they were 
 dependent on each other. I have fancied that in 
 this lumberman's reasoning might be found the 
 origin of the " Maine Law." 
 
 To return; whatever the appetite you have 
 to master, reduce the temptations in whatever 
 way you can. Recollect how you broke down 
 last, and put out of the way, in advance, the 
 temptation that was too much for you then. A 
 second victory in such a thing is generally easier 
 than the first. 
 
 4. Do not talk too much of your temptation, 
 and do not think of it too much. Overcome evil 
 with good. If you have been reading low books, 
 put them into the fire and provide yourself with 
 the best books. Do not put them on the shelf, 
 and do not sell them at auction. Sacrifice must 
 come in with your determination. 
 
 5. And this implies that you think of others 
 more than you think of yourself. To return to 
 
Appetite 251 
 
 the trial, always present, of intemperance. The 
 chief of a great Washingtonian Home told me that 
 he never knew a man break up habits of intem- 
 perance, while he only tried to break up his own. 
 He must try to break up some other man's. He 
 must be thinking of that other man, caring for 
 him, praying for him, working for him. Then his 
 own temptations become less and less, and his 
 will stronger and stronger. The history of the 
 origin of the Washingtonian Movement in Balti- 
 more illustrates this perfectly, and may be studied 
 to great advantage. Gough, Hawkins, and the 
 rest saved themselves by forgetting themselves 
 and trying to save others. 
 
 6. To go back to the first principles again ; all 
 you have done by your resolution, even if you call 
 it a determination, is to empty your house and 
 clean it. You have cleaned it and you have gar- 
 nished it. You have bought flowers for it. You 
 have sent for new furniture. Very pretty furni- 
 ture it is. But are you fool enough to have the 
 house empty? Do you not know, has not the 
 Master told you, that the devil you turned out will 
 come and knock at the door? And if the door is 
 locked, he will peep in at the window, and if the 
 house is empty, he will jump in at the window. 
 And then he will open the door, and put his head 
 into the street, and he will whistle, and seven 
 devils worse than he are waiting, and they will 
 come and enter the house. Yes, and they will 
 dwell there. And you, my poor fellow, are worse 
 
252 How to Live 
 
 off than you were, and this is because you left 
 your house empty. 
 
 The moment you determine that you will change 
 your life, determine what stimulus shall take the 
 place of the stimulus you reject. You will be at 
 work for others. You will seek new society. You 
 will take new exercise. You will change your food. 
 You will change your home, perhaps. Life shall 
 be crowded full — too full for the old devil to find 
 a corner for lodgment. 
 
 7. All this means, as we found in a similar 
 matter before and as we shall find in every detail 
 that ever grasps us, that we must make sure of the 
 infinite alliance. This is the all-important help. 
 It is very well to agree with X and Y and Z, with 
 A and B and C, that we will work together to- 
 morrow. But it is much more to agree with the 
 good God that we will work with him. This is 
 the King's work which I have undertaken. I am 
 a fellow-workman together with him. I am on his 
 staff. Nay, more than that, and better, I am 
 his child. When I choose to do so, I partake of 
 his nature. If in treading down temptation, and 
 in selecting duty, I distinctly choose his work and 
 purpose as the end and purpose which I will carry 
 out, I shall not fail him, more than the aide of 
 Napoleon failed Napoleon in the crisis of a battle. 
 And in ways which no man can describe, but 
 which no man doubts who has had experience, 
 my Father will give me enough of the infinite 
 strength to carry me through. 
 
Appetite 253 
 
 NOTE 
 
 In the matter of intemperance, and the cure of 
 it, too much cannot be said of the value, almost 
 the necessity, of changing food, and, if possible, 
 home, or our other habits. 
 
 Food, in particular, has much to do with this 
 matter. If I owned a great factory where the men 
 had exhausting work, I would have bouillon, or 
 beef-tea, on tap at the door when they went out 
 and in, and give it to every man who would drink. 
 I am sure I should save, in the end, by the 
 temperance of my workmen. 
 
 My dear friend, Olive , who is now in heaven, 
 
 saw with great pain that one of the men who 
 came daily to bring her packages to the house, 
 from the great warehouse where she dealt, was be- 
 ginning to be a drunkard. She knew his employer 
 was only too willing to turn him off. She deter- 
 mined to save him if she could. She made every 
 day for him the glass of temperance bitters which 
 was to keep him from looking in at McGullion's 
 bar. A few chips of quassia soaked in hot water 
 over night and then nicely strained give you the 
 " bitters." " Mr. Jones," she said kindly, " you 
 have very hard work, and I want you to drink my 
 bitters twice a day." Dear child, what would he 
 not do if she bade him ? She never forgot to 
 have the glasses ready for him, till they wanted 
 her for other service, — I doubt if it can be better 
 or higher. 
 
254 How to Live 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 HOW TO THINK 
 
 In a playful little poem by William Barnard, who 
 was Dean of Derry a hundred and nine years ago, 
 in answer to a challenge from Dr. Johnson, who 
 had bidden him improve himself after he was 
 forty-eight years old, he selects his teachers. 
 Three of them are Sir William Jones, Adam 
 Smith, Edmund Burke, and the fourth, Beau- 
 clerk. The lines are : — 
 
 " Jones, teach me modesty and Greek ; 
 Smith, how to think ; Burke, how to speak ; 
 And Beauclerk, to converse." 
 
 The man who should have Adam Smith as a 
 teacher in the art of thinking would be fortunate, 
 if the teacher could really bring his pupil near to 
 his own level. And in the midst of the modern 
 philosophizing, I will say to any quiet, intelligent 
 person, who does not dislike common-sense, 
 that he will find the books of Jones to be good 
 reading to-day. 
 
 Capel Lofft says, in his curious book on " Self- 
 Formation," that the elder DTsraeli says that no 
 person has ever written on the " Art of Medita- 
 tion." 
 
How to Think 255 
 
 I have not been able to find the statement by 
 D'Israeli ; but Capel Lofft says that he has spent 
 much time in verifying it, and he believes it to be 
 true. 
 
 He goes further and says that not one man in 
 twenty ever does think ; by which he means that 
 very few men think to any purpose or with any 
 system. I am afraid that this statement is true. 
 Most of the people one meets in the world take 
 their opinions ready-made from the newspapers or 
 their neighbors or, in general, from the fashion. 
 
 There is indeed a habit, for which two causes 
 could be found, of taking it for granted that men 
 cannot control their thoughts. It is said squarely 
 that thoughts come or go wholly without the choice 
 or power of the man. But this is not the theory 
 of the great men, of the real leaders. They bid 
 us control our thoughts, that is, to learn to think, 
 just as we control any other appetites. Paul tells 
 us what we are to think of, and he goes on to the 
 other matter, which is more dangerous, and tells 
 us what we are not to think of. There are things 
 which are not even to be spoken of, and with an 
 allowable paradox Paul tells what they are. It 
 is only writers of a lower grade who seem to take 
 for granted that you must let thoughts go or come 
 at their reckless pleasure or by the mere chance of 
 what may be the condition of the circulation of 
 blood upon the brain. Such writers, if they were 
 pressed, would have to say that you are not to 
 undertake any control of bodily appetites, any 
 
256 How to Live 
 
 more than you undertake the control of mental 
 processes. 
 
 But the truth is that Man is master of mind, and 
 master of body, if he WILL. This is the privilege 
 of a child of God, and a true man asserts his em- 
 pire and uses it. I do not say he can begin all of 
 a sudden in such control, if he had never used it 
 before. But he can learn how to gain such con- 
 trol. He can have more to-day than he had last 
 Tuesday, and he can have more next Tuesday than 
 he has to-day. This is what is meant by learning 
 to think. Thus a man may train his memory to 
 do better work for him this year than it did last 
 year. True, when the body begins to fail, the 
 memory may begin to fail in its mechanical pro- 
 cesses, but none the less shall that man find that 
 the eternal realities of past life are his. Thus it 
 will happen that a man tells you that he cannot 
 remember, when he has never taught himself to 
 perceive, or to observe. 
 
 Mr. Ruskin goes so far as to say that all which 
 we call genius for fine art is simply an admirable 
 memory. He constantly recurs to this. Claude 
 Lorraine and Turner paint the sky well ; for they 
 well remember what they have seen. It seems 
 certain that the faculties even of the observation of 
 color may be improved by exercise. Any fore- 
 man in a dry-goods shop will tell us how fast the 
 boys improve in their study of color ; and it is well 
 known to oculists that women, because they have 
 been trained for generations in matching colors, 
 
How to Think 257 
 
 have become more precise in this business than 
 men are. It occurs to me, as I write, that one of 
 the most brilliant and successful colorists I know 
 among American artists began life in a dry-goods 
 shop. What drudgery he thought it then ! And 
 has he perhaps lived to think that drudgery a 
 blessing? 1 
 
 We begin then, as we always begin, by demand- 
 ing determination ; the will must act, and act im- 
 periously. " I will think on this subject." This 
 implies what the writers call concentration; just as 
 we found that in putting himself to sleep a man 
 must make sleep his whole business, — first, second, 
 and last, he must devote himself to sleep, — so now 
 he must devote himself to thinking on this one 
 subject and on no other. There is a great advan- 
 tage in the training of our public schools. Boys 
 and girls learn to study without attending to the 
 work of the school-room ; or if they do not they 
 throw away a great opportunity. You ought to 
 be able early in life so to concentrate thought 
 that in a railway carriage you can close your eyes, 
 take up a subject of thought, and hold to it for a 
 reasonable time, perhaps till you have done with 
 it. At all events you ought to be able to lay by 
 the subject for future reference, ticketed, so that 
 you may know how far you have advanced with it 
 and where you are to begin another time. 
 
 You determine, for instance, to think about a 
 protective tariff. How much do I know of it and 
 
 1 The reference is to Mr. Bradford, the painter of Arctic pictures. 
 
 17 
 
258 How to Live 
 
 where am I ignorant? What are the foundations 
 of my knowledge? How sure are they, and where 
 can I improve on them ? Now what follows clearly 
 and surely on the premises? What is more doubt- 
 ful, and how can I solve such doubt? 
 
 I do not believe that it is well to hold on long 
 at a time upon the same topic. I think it is better 
 to take a subject to a certain point, then to ticket 
 it, as I say, and lay it by prepared to take it up 
 again. But when you take it up again do not 
 begin at the old beginning and go over the old 
 ground. Take what you have done for granted, 
 and from the point where you are go forward. 
 
 In this matter, as in all other matters where will 
 is involved, there comes in the necessity of energy. 
 Capel Lofft, if you will look up his book, has a 
 great deal to say about this, and goes back to the 
 derivations of the Greek words. But it ought to 
 be enough to say that you cannot think well unless 
 you think with all your might. You cannot think 
 lazily. You cannot think if you are half-hearted 
 about it. You must somehow take interest enough 
 in your work to follow it at the moment as if it 
 were the only thing. Unless you work with 
 your whole heart, the work cannot be wholly done. 
 
 Without going farther into detail, I must say 
 something as to the necessity of the business in 
 hand, and I will take the three departments of 
 mental activity which we call memory, imagina- 
 tion, and argument, or reasoning. Although as 
 old age comes on the mechanical processes of 
 
How to Think 259 
 
 memory may give way, a man who has trained his 
 memory will feel himself sure all the same of the 
 external realities of his life, though he may not be 
 able to recall the letters of their names. So a man 
 may train and enlarge his powers of imagination. 
 Nay, he must, if he is to make any considerable 
 advance in the larger life. Full one half of men's 
 failures are due to their lack of imagination, or to 
 their neglect to use imagination at the right time 
 and in the right way. Once more, every man who 
 is rightly and wisely to do his duty in the world 
 among his fellows must train his power of argu- 
 ment. He must not stand by, helpless, when some 
 wordy fool on a platform makes the worse appear 
 the better reason. Memory, imagination, reason- 
 ing, then, are for us three good examples of the 
 great necessity in which we must exercise our 
 power. Of these three duties I will speak a little 
 more in detail, not dwelling on what a man may 
 do in training his perceptions, his power of con- 
 centration, his power of statement, or of conversa- 
 tion, and a hundred other faculties which come 
 under the general statement that the man is to be 
 master of the mind. 
 
 First, then, as to memory. Had one no other 
 reason for training memory carefully, and keeping 
 it in hand, here is the supreme reason ; that one 
 must keep ready at every instant of trial the deter- 
 minations made in the moments of reflection. As 
 I am always saying, Wordsworth defines the hero 
 as he 
 
260 How to Live 
 
 " Who in the heat of conflict keeps the Law 
 In calmness made, — and sees what he foresaw." 
 
 The little child untrained comes to his mother 
 in grief because he has done wrong, and makes, 
 probably, the true excuse, as he sobs out that he 
 did not remember. The trained man, trampling 
 temptation under foot, does remember. He. re- 
 members his resolution, and this re-enforces will. 
 There is an interesting thought in the mere ety- 
 mology of our word " conscience." • • Conscience " 
 is a Latin word, which means the knowledge all 
 at once of all the elements involved. If my 
 conscience is quick and strong, I know at once, 
 and that once is now, all that I can know of this 
 temptation. I know to what ruin it brings me; 
 I know by what methods I can quench its fire; I 
 know how to put my foot upon its head and the 
 point of my sword at its throat. I know all this 
 now. 
 
 " Conscire " is the Latin verb ; to know at once 
 the perceptions of the outward senses, the lessons 
 of old experience, and the present verdict of the 
 man within. 
 
 Charlotte Bronte refers to this necessity in that 
 central passage, where she describes her heroine's 
 conquest of immediate temptation. 
 
 " Laws and principles are not for the times when 
 there is no temptation ; they are for such moments as 
 this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their 
 rigor. Stringent are they, inviolate they shall be. If, 
 at my individual convenience I might break them, what 
 
How to Think 261 
 
 would be their worth? They have a worth — so I have 
 always believed ; and if I cannot believe it now, it is be- 
 cause I am insane — quite insane ; with my veins run- 
 ning fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count 
 its throbs. Conscience and reason are turned traitors 
 against me, and are charging me with crime. They 
 speak as loud as feeling in its clamors. Preconceived 
 opinions, foregone determinations are all I have at this 
 hour to stand by." 
 
 But we need not go to poetry or fiction for our 
 examples. The little child of whom I spoke 
 comes to his mother, crying, and can only offer 
 the apology that " he did not remember " that she 
 had bidden him keep away from the stove. If his 
 hand be not very badly burnt, she will not be very 
 sorry; because she now knows that he will re- 
 member better another time. Indeed, what Mr. 
 Ruskin says of fine art, we may say of life. That 
 all the training by which God is gradually chang- 
 ing us from babies into archangels is but so much 
 accumulation by memory, more or less completely 
 educated. 
 
 But this training of memory and this knowledge 
 at one and the same time of the cause and con- 
 sequence of the present temptation involves the 
 right use of the imagination. The larger life, 
 indeed, which is the purpose and object for which 
 we live every day, requires me to command and 
 control my imagination, to use it on the right 
 errands, and to refuse it when it would fain travel 
 the wrong way. The world in which I live may 
 
262 How to Live 
 
 be the cell of a wretched prison, cabined and con- 
 fined as was the unfortunate dauphin, the son of 
 Louis XVI., or as Kaspar Hauser was said to be, 
 so that his prison walls touched him above, below, 
 on the right hand and on the left, behind and 
 before. 
 
 One is really almost as badly off as he is 
 when he is in a crowded railway car after dark- 
 ness has come on. I cannot talk to my next 
 neighbor because he is a Moqui Indian, I can see 
 nothing but the shadows from the smoking lamp, 
 I can hear nothing but the clatter of the rail. 
 This is hard circumstance. But what is circum- 
 stance to a trained child of God living by the* 
 divine order. I ought to be able to bid Shake- 
 speare meet with Milton here. I may call Charles 
 Dickens and Walter Scott into the interview. I 
 may select the subject on which they shall talk, 
 I may bid them say their say, and I may send 
 them on their way. I may summon here all whom 
 I have loved most in literature, be they people 
 who have lived and breathed, or be they people 
 who never had form or weight or visible body: 
 such people as Jane Eyre or Di Vernon or Rosa- 
 lind. I have them and they cannot leave me. 
 The dead nausea of the disgusting car is forgotten, 
 and in that prison cell I have enlarged my life to 
 journey as I will. 
 
 I spoke of Mme. de Genlis. In her gossiping and 
 entertaining memoirs, she goes at length into her 
 habit of creating for herself an imaginary society. 
 
How to Think 263 
 
 The passage is worth the search of enterprising 
 readers, though I am afraid the book has neither 
 index nor contents. 
 
 Now for the same reason and for the larger life 
 which all along we are seeking, you must train the 
 faculty of reasoning, that you may have an opinion, 
 and that opinion your own. To look on both 
 sides and choose the better side, to dissect the 
 rhetoric of a demagogue, to strip off his coat of 
 many colors, and to show him for what he is, to 
 decide between rival plans and to determine one's 
 aim, for one's own purposes, by one's own abili- 
 ties, — all this is the duty of a man. Without 
 this he forfeits a man's privilege. He is a chip 
 on the current, whirled down in this flood, whirled 
 up in that eddy, or left stagnant in some standing 
 pool. How often, alas, one meets a man who 
 never knew the luxury of an opinion. He has 
 taken his morning impression from one news- 
 paper, his evening impression from another. 
 Meanwhile he has been the tool and the fool of 
 every person who chose to use him, or to tell him 
 what to think and what to say. To keep clear of 
 that vacancy of life, a true man cares diligently, 
 lovingly, for the weapons which have been given 
 him, weapons of defence, — yes, and sometimes 
 weapons of attack, if need may be. He learns 
 how to reason, how to search for truth, how to 
 question nature, how to interpret her answers. 
 He learns how to arrange in right order such eter- 
 nal truths and such visible facts as relate to the 
 
264 How to Live 
 
 matter he has in hand. He clears and enlarges 
 his power of reasoning. 
 
 The power of induction and deduction man has 
 because he is a child of God. It is the faculty 
 which distinguishes him from the brutes. A body 
 of wolves in the Pyrenees may gather round the 
 fire which a peasant has left, and will enjoy the 
 warmth of the embers. A group of chattering 
 monkeys on the rOck of Gibraltar might gather 
 so round the watchfire which an English sentinel 
 had left burning. They can enjoy the heat ; but 
 they cannot renew the fire. They cannot work 
 out the deduction which is necessary before one 
 kicks back upon the glaring embers the black 
 brand which has rolled away. Were it to save 
 their lives, they must freeze before one of them 
 can deduce from what he sees the law or the 
 truth as to what he must do. Here is it that man 
 differs from the brute. He can learn. He can 
 follow a deduction. He can argue. He can rise, 
 step by step, to higher life. 
 
 This he does when he takes the control of 
 thought. He rises to a higher plane and lives in 
 a larger life. 
 
 There is no neater or better illustration of the 
 way in which a wise teacher draws out the think- 
 ing faculty of a- child, than that which Warren Col- 
 burn borrowed, from Miss Edgeworth, I believe, 
 to place in the beginning of that matchless oral 
 arithmetic which still holds its place in many well 
 regulated schools. The advantage which the think- 
 
How to Think 265 
 
 ing faculty gains from good training in mathe- 
 matics cannot be overstated. A master in that 
 business 1 used to say to me that, when you meet 
 a man who says that he has no mathematical 
 faculty, he is simply a man who was not well 
 taught his " vulgar fractions " or his " rule of 
 three " in childhood. I am inclined to think that 
 this is true. A thousand writers have been eager 
 to prove that good grammatical work does the 
 same thing, — and I believe that they are right. It 
 is just the same mental process by which I build 
 up a Latin verb, pronoun, and noun, so that they 
 shall express the fact that " George Washington 
 had taken off his own hat before he met Henry 
 Knox," as the process by which I work out the 
 truth that seventy-two apples costing nine cents a 
 dozen may be exchanged for two pecks of wal- 
 nuts costing three cents and three eighths a quart. 
 Why the parallel of the two studies of language 
 and mathematics as mental gymnastics should 
 have been so much belabored as it has been, I 
 have never known. 
 
 This is certain, that no one learns to think without 
 thinking. I believe we may say more. I believe 
 he must make a business of thinking. He must 
 take hold of the control of his thought intentionally, 
 resolutely, and energetically. If he does this I 
 believe he will think more clearly, and with better 
 results next year than he does to-day. 
 
 1 Nathan Hale, Jr. 
 
266 How to Live 
 
 NOTES 
 
 I. Capel Lofft's book which I have cited above 
 is called " Self Formation, by a Fellow of a 
 College." It has been reprinted in America, and 
 will be found in the large libraries. It is a 
 gossiping, entertaining book, professing to describe 
 the " history of an individual mind," and has a 
 good many practical hints, useful to young stu- 
 dents. He is always talking of his great discovery, 
 which to most people seems almost a mare's nest. 
 Two pages, one in the first volume, one in the 
 second, contain the whole of it. It amounts to 
 this, — that in reading, you should stop at the end 
 of each sentence and " re-flect," turn back on the 
 sentence, to be sure that you possess its meaning. 
 What follows will be, he says, that you must go 
 through it at one breath, or if it be an unusually 
 long one, that you give one breath to every mem- 
 ber of it. On this business of our breathing, in 
 time, he lays great stress, as a good teacher of 
 swimming would bid you breathe in proper time 
 with your strokes. When, in the second volume, 
 we come to the great secret of the book, it proves 
 that we cannot think, unless we think in time with 
 our breathing. " I have already stated my con- 
 viction that the management of the breath is very 
 important in conversation, in studious reading, and 
 in oratory. I am just as thoroughly persuaded 
 that this is true of meditation, that it governs in 
 great degree the thinking faculty. . . ." " I de- 
 
How to Think 267 
 
 spatched every sentence," as he thought it, " in a 
 breath, and then, doubling the blow, — a second 
 idea having flowed into the interval of vacuity, 
 — I applied myself to it in the same way, and so 
 proceeded through the series." 
 
 It is evident that Lofft had never read Sweden- 
 borg. If he had, he would have cited the Arcana 
 Celestia. " The reason," says Swedenborg, " why 
 life is described in Genesis ii. 7, by breathing and 
 breath is because the men of the most ancient 
 church perceived states of law and of faith by 
 states of respiration. . . . Concerning this respira- 
 tion nothing can yet be said, inasmuch as it is a 
 subject at this day altogether unknown ; neverthe- 
 less, the most ancient people (those before the 
 flood) had a perfect knowledge of it; " and Swe- 
 denborg refers to the same subject in page 1,1 19, in 
 the tenth book, of the Arcana. I think that Swe- 
 denborg was here referring, consciously or uncon- 
 sciously, to Abraham Tucker (Ned Search), where 
 he describes the method of inter-communication of 
 souls in their " spiritual bodies." 
 
 2. I have not dared go into the systems of what 
 is called artificial memory. The best by far, I 
 think, is in Gouraud's book, published with a good 
 deal of fuss and feathers in New York forty years 
 ago. Gouraud remembered everything so perfect- 
 ly that we used to call him " the Wandering Jew." 
 
 All these systems depend on using the stronger 
 side of memory, whatever it is, to re-enforce the 
 weaker. 
 
268 
 
 How to Live 
 
 3. All that is said on the cultivation of the 
 imagination shows the importance of giving to 
 children enough fairy-tales and enough poetry 
 with which to amuse themselves. 
 
 4. All that is said on the culture of the thinking 
 faculty is to be remembered, seriously, by teach- 
 ers who are in any danger of using text-books too 
 much. The text-book, as an authority, injures the 
 child's power to think. Make him work out the 
 rule for himself, — if you can. That means, prob- 
 ably, if you know how to think yourself. 
 
How to Study 269 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 HOW TO STUDY 
 
 The perfection of methods of study seems to 
 have been attained in the best work of the English 
 colleges. A young man who wants to work en- 
 gages a special tutor, who is technically called his 
 " coach." This gentleman has made it his busi- 
 ness to teach certain subjects. He has very few 
 pupils, probably no more than four or five. You 
 go to him, say, at eight in the morning. You sit 
 at the same table and absolutely study with him. 
 He gives you his personal help in the process of 
 study. You look out your words in the dictionary 
 together. Why, he would even show you techni- 
 cal details in handling the dictionary, if you needed ; 
 he would show you how to arrange your notes, 
 and tell you the traditions of the best way to work. 
 After an hour of such joint study, you would leave 
 and work for three hours alone. At twelve or at 
 one, perhaps, you would meet him again and all his 
 other pupils, three or four, perhaps. For one hour 
 you would then work all together on the subject or 
 book which you had been working on separately. 
 By such a system you seem to gain every advan- 
 tage. You work with a superior, you work alone, 
 and you and your peers work with a superior. 
 
270 How to Live 
 
 You must be dull, indeed, if you do not find in 
 such a method full stimulus. The plan in such an 
 outline as I have made gives, probably, the best 
 period for daily work on books. Five hours such 
 study is enough. You might read all day. Read- 
 ing can hardly be called work. But reading with 
 the purpose of study is quite a different affair from 
 reading for mere amusement. When you are 
 really working you had better not attempt more 
 than five hours a day. And I do not believe in 
 varying from the average. Of course there may 
 be excuses for such deviation. But one should 
 not plan with any idea of making occasionally 
 what the French call a " turn of force " with which 
 to overtake your omissions. College boys are apt 
 to loaf through half a term, and think to make 
 up by cramming at the end. You cannot do it. 
 It is hard to loaf at the beginning of a day's march, 
 and make up by a stiff pull in the evening. But 
 that plan is much more likely to succeed than is 
 the corresponding effort which treats the brain to 
 a turn of laziness, and proposes to pick up dropped 
 stitches by a spurt at the end. 
 
 We know curiously little about the methods of 
 brain work. But we do know this, that the brain is 
 very sensitive, and that its full faculty is very soon 
 exhausted. Thus the best teachers of short-hand 
 will tell you that when you have practised fifteen 
 minutes on that art you had better wait — per- 
 haps till the next day — before you practise again. 
 In the same way Mr. Prendergast, the great teacher 
 
How to Study 271 
 
 of language, says squarely that the power of ac- 
 quiring words by memory is well-nigh exhausted 
 in fifteen minutes. After you have studied so 
 long on his exercises, he would like to have you 
 wait for one or two hours. A friend of mine who 
 studied with him went to him six times a day ; the 
 result of which was that at the end of six weeks 
 this gentleman could speak German, though he 
 understood nothing of it before. How sadly this 
 makes me watch those wretched school exercises 
 in which, after three unbroken hours, perhaps, the 
 poor sensitive brain of the jaded child is expected 
 to turn out as much and as good work as it did at 
 the beginning. But this only applies to one line 
 of study, which is, indeed, comparatively unim- 
 portant, namely, the committing words to mem- 
 ory. Fortunately, we have not a great deal of 
 this to do. Even the difficulty of learning language 
 is much exaggerated. And it is in learning lan- 
 guage that this memory business, in its mechani- 
 cal forms, is most called upon. Now, let it be 
 observed that few of us in daily life, in what we 
 speak and hear and write in letters, use more than 
 three thousand words. Three thousand words is 
 a very good vocabulary, whether for speaking or 
 for understanding the speech of others. Suppose, 
 then, that in learning a foreign language you learn 
 thirty words a day. You must learn them thor- 
 oughly. You must not forget them. Day by day 
 you must review and refresh your knowledge of 
 them. In one hundred such days you will have 
 
272 Flow to Live 
 
 learned the three thousand words necessary for the 
 vocabulary of your knowledge of a new language. 
 In the same time you must learn the declensions 
 of the nouns and the inflections of the verbs. 
 
 When one is in a foreign country he does this 
 without much thought. He reads the words on 
 the signs of the shops. He hears the talk of cab- 
 men and omnibus-drivers. He has to order his 
 own meals at times, or to give his own instructions 
 about luggage. The reason why we spend years 
 at home in gaining a poor smattering of some lan- 
 guage which we might learn well in four months, 
 is that at home we have, perhaps, a teacher who 
 knows very little of what he teaches, and also that 
 we turn away from the lesson in language to do 
 something else, and think of something else, and 
 come back to it almost as to a new and strange 
 affair. 
 
 I think myself that we spend too much time in 
 most of our schools in the study of language. 
 When I was in Buda-Pesth, I asked a Hungarian 
 gentleman, who was of just my own age, how he was 
 taught Latin, a language which he spoke as easily 
 as his own. He said he was sent to school at 
 eleven years of age, and was told there that if, 
 after a month, he was heard speaking any language 
 but Latin, he would be whipped. You may be sure 
 he learned a thousand words of Latin before that 
 whipping period came. He was surrounded by 
 boys who spoke it, his teachers spoke it, his books 
 were written in it. You may almost say he could 
 
How to Study 273 
 
 not help himself. We generally reverse all this. 
 We keep the boy in an atmosphere of English. 
 A teacher who has read only as much Latin in all 
 his life as there is of English in two volumes of 
 Dickens, undertakes, at intervals, to teach the boy 
 a language of which he does not know much him- 
 self; and the usual result is that at the end of six 
 or seven years of such mistaken effort, the boy 
 throws the language over and says he does not 
 care for the classics. We are apt to teach French 
 in much the same way. How many girls are read- 
 ing this paper in the Chautauqua course, who were 
 compelled at school to " study French," perhaps for 
 five hours in a week crowded full of other things ? 
 The result in this case is a slight acquaintance 
 with the outside of the language, no confidence in 
 it, no love of it, and not sufficient real knowledge 
 to enable the student to read a French magazine 
 or newspaper easily. It seems to me that it would 
 be better, often, for the student to put off French 
 entirely, till it will be convenient to give three 
 months to it, and to nothing else, and then so 
 to make herself mistress of the language that 
 she can use it familiarly, almost as she uses her 
 mother tongue. For this reason I always advise 
 young people who have any control of their own 
 studies, not to attempt at school the rudiments 
 of two languages at one time, in general to 
 study few languages at school, and to study 
 those as thoroughly as the circumstances make 
 possible. 
 
 18 
 
274 How to Live 
 
 I. We will return now from the study of lan- 
 guage — which is merely an accidental detail — to 
 what is much more important, namely, the general 
 range of study by which we are to gain more 
 knowledge of the truth than we had before. 
 
 We are not all of us so fortunate as to be able 
 to work under the daily direction of first-rate 
 teachers. I like, however, to call the attention of 
 Chautauquan readers to the advantage which our 
 system of work gives them. They generally can 
 enlist the other advantage of those English college 
 students, which is the prime advantage, indeed, of 
 all college systems. I mean the sympathy and 
 co-operation of other persons who are studying 
 the same thing at the same time. I should not 
 ask for many such associates, nor advise any one 
 to seek for many. Three or four, I think, are 
 better than nine or ten would be. But four peo- 
 ple, one on each side of the same table, with the 
 books of reference, the maps, and the paper and 
 ink between them, make an admirable force for 
 study, and, if they choose, they can achieve as 
 much as can well be achieved in the same time. 
 The good guessers will help the bad guessers ; the 
 imaginative will help the unimaginative; the prac- 
 tical will spur up the dreamers; and the dream- 
 ers will quicken the ideas of the practical. They 
 must not quarrel. They must not be cross. No 
 one must ever be cross, and no one must ever 
 quarrel. But, granted this conquest of the im- 
 perfections of mortal nature, those four students 
 
How to Study 275 
 
 are greatly to be envied by people who have to 
 study alone. 
 
 The great danger to the student in our time is 
 that he shall over-estimate the value of books, and 
 not examine for himself or think for himself. The 
 book carries an audacious pretence in its mere 
 form. It seems impossible that mere trash shall 
 have succeeded in writing itself, printing itself, in 
 compelling somebody to read its proof-sheets, and 
 at the last, in securing a good binder to put a 
 good cover on it, and an honest book-seller to 
 sell it to me for money. But alas ! all this does 
 happen. No man who knows anything dares say 
 how large a portion of what is in books is worth- 
 less. And the more arrogant the book and the 
 more bold its tone, the more certain is it that it is 
 worthless. 
 
 The student, then, must always be on his guard 
 against being the slave of his book. The book is 
 a witness on the stand, presumed to be honest, but 
 perhaps dishonest; a witness, however, who has 
 probably had better opportunities than the reader, 
 as to the matter in hand. The student is fortu- 
 nate if there exist within his reach two books by 
 different men, who look at his subject from differ- 
 ent points of view. It is thus that the stereoscopic 
 method of observation gives roundness and a nat- 
 ural effect to what is seen, precisely because there 
 are two points of view. We gain such advan- 
 tages when we can look through the eyes of two 
 authors. 
 
276 How to Live 
 
 Recollect that generally, not always, you are 
 reading to learn something of the subject, and that 
 the knowledge of the book itself is only a second- 
 ary object. So soon, then, as the book branches 
 off on something else than what you are studying, 
 you may abandon it. Here is the principle of 
 brave and good " skipping " in reading. So soon 
 as the writer begins to talk of himself, of his quar- 
 rels or of his honors, you may generally abandon 
 him, and turn over to find the place where he 
 becomes a witness again. But, of course, it may 
 be your object in reading to learn about the author 
 himself, whether he is a poet or a philosopher, a 
 man of sense or a fool. 
 
 It is a good practice to make your own index to 
 the book you read, noting, on a fly-leaf at the end, 
 those points which you yourself may be specially 
 apt to need in the future. The notes are so many 
 helps for your future reference, when you shall 
 take down this book some day to find what its 
 statement is. With a little practice you can make 
 this index nearly alphabetical. Here is a speci- 
 men which will, I believe, explain itself. 
 
 Index to Vol. IV. of Carlyle's " Frederick the 
 Great." 
 
 American Anarchy, 236. 
 
 Automaton Chess Player, 420. 
 
 Confederation, 314. 
 
 Free Trade, 270. 
 
 Globe of Compression, 235. 
 
 Lee's Papers, date of, 434. 
 
How to Study 277 
 
 Pulaski, 329. 
 
 What is Vienna MS.? 114. 
 
 I speak with a certain hesitation about the use 
 of commonplace books or any sort of index in 
 which a student attempts to make his own per- 
 sonal encyclopaedia of things which he has read 
 and thinks he may need to use. I kept such a 
 book when I was a young student. It makes two 
 large volumes now, and I often refer to it. But I 
 have observed that since I have had much work to 
 do I never make an entry in it. And I believe 
 that such will be the experience of most students. 
 Robert Southey is the only distinguished excep- 
 tion whom I remember, among English students 
 of our time. His commonplace books are so 
 curious that fhey have been published. 
 
 Probably the rule applies here which John 
 Adams lays down for all diaries. He says that we 
 only write diaries when time is plenty with us; 
 but that, as soon as we have anything to tell worth 
 telling, we have, alas ! no time to write it down. 
 
 Perhaps it will be safe to let this rule work, and 
 to make no attempt to fight against it. Let the 
 young scholar who has time enough keep a book 
 in which to refer to such things as he supposes he 
 may need. Let him never copy into this book 
 anything for other people to see or use. It is sim- 
 ply for his own purposes. Let him index this 
 book carefully, by any of the convenient processes 
 which have been invented by John Locke, and by 
 many others. Into such a book he will copy, with 
 
278 How to Live 
 
 great reserve, the heads of what is vitally impor- 
 tant in his reading, especially what he finds in 
 strange places, where he would be apt not to look 
 for it. A similar book may hold important cut- 
 tings from newspapers. But they are all useless, 
 unless regularly indexed. 
 
 An accomplished friend of mine 2 has his own 
 card catalogue which is his " personal index " to 
 those statements which he has thought important 
 enough to note in this way. It consists of more than 
 ten thousand cards alphabetically arranged, refer- 
 ring to as many as ten thousand different topics, and 
 telling where these topics are handled. This seems 
 a very large index. But if, in the reading of every 
 day he made only four such notes and put them in 
 their places, which would cost him perhaps two 
 minutes daily, he would have an alphabetical index 
 of fourteen thousand topics in ten years. 
 
 II. This is all our limits will allow me to say of the 
 study of books. The habits which I have been 
 urging will form themselves, if, at the same time 
 with the study of books, the student will have se- 
 lected some one line in which he shall be carefully 
 studying things ; for the habit of accurate obser- 
 vation is an excellent corrective of that lazy dis- 
 position to take things on trust which is the 
 special danger of mere book students. The great 
 naturalist, Agassiz, was forever insisting on this, 
 and he has done a great deal for the teachers and 
 learners of this country by what he said. 
 1 Mr. Frederic Beecher Perkins. 
 
How to Study 279 
 
 If, for instance, in the spring, you will begin to 
 give a little time every day to real observation of the 
 growth and habits of caterpillars and butterflies, 
 you will find out what it is to learn systematically. 
 Suppose you cage half a dozen caterpillars of dif- 
 ferent species, watch their growth, their cocoon 
 spinning, their changes into moths or butterflies, 
 and then observe the history of these ; suppose 
 you keep a regular memorandum, day by day, of 
 what you certainly know on these matters, and also 
 of what you think you know, or conjecture. You 
 may, to great advantage, teach yourself to*: draw at 
 the same time. Thus, if you have secured a brood 
 of caterpillars just from the egg, you will find that 
 you can draw an accurate portrait of one of them, 
 just as you see him. Make his portrait again and 
 again, as he grows, so often as you observe any 
 change in him. Or you may do the same thing if 
 you are really studying the processes by which 
 buds unfold or leaves enlarge and ripen. 
 
 I know an accomplished man who wanted to 
 obtain the latest practical information on the sub- 
 ject of tanning, an industry in which steady im- 
 provement is made from year to year. He knew 
 he could not get this from books. Instead of sat- 
 isfying himself with books, he advertised widely 
 that he would pay a handsome premium for the 
 best essay he received from a working tanner on 
 the newer processes of tanning. He offered a sec- 
 ond premium for the second essay, and a third for 
 the third. He got just what he asked for. He had 
 
280 How to Live 
 
 specially made the condition that he did not seek 
 for literary excellence, and he did not propose to 
 print the papers. He obtained three treatises, all 
 of them, I think, written by men who had educated 
 themselves, as we say, which he told me he be- 
 lieved brought the science of tanning up to the 
 latest point. He told me that these manuscripts 
 were to him well-nigh invaluable. Such is an illus- 
 tration of the way in which such men as the 
 writers of those papers can study a subject without 
 the study of books. I do not know the names of 
 these three men. But I do know where the cir- 
 culation of The Chautauquan will be likely to 
 carry these lines. And I take pleasure in saying 
 here, therefore, that I have no doubt that these 
 three writers have trained themselves to careful 
 habits of daily observation, that they have some 
 system in recording these observations, and that 
 this has given them the ability which they have for 
 expression. And I could not have a better illus- 
 tration of what I mean by the study of a subject, 
 apart from the study of books. 
 
 There is one branch of personal study, where one 
 studies the subject and not a book, which I hope 
 all students of Chautauqua may, in general, make 
 their own. It is the study of the local history of the 
 place where they live. Nothing is more pathetic 
 and more annoying than the destruction which 
 now takes place every year, almost under our eyes, 
 of written documents which are of substantial im- 
 portance for the history of the country. Besides 
 
How to Study 281 
 
 this destruction, there is the inevitable destruction 
 of landmarks of different sorts, which could at 
 least be preserved in drawing for the interest of 
 after generations. On the painted rocks of the 
 Mississippi, a little above the junction with the 
 Missouri, were ancient pictures of which the de- 
 signs were so striking that Marquette thought the 
 best painters in France would scarcely have done 
 so well. The last of these pictures, the Piasa bird, 
 is remembered by men now living. There were 
 copies of some of them in a hotel in Alton in the 
 early days of that city. But, if anybody have any 
 accurate copies of these remarkable pictures now, 
 he has not, I think, produced them for engraving 
 or for study, and there seems to be danger that we 
 have lost one of the most curious monuments of 
 our early history. Such is one illustration, where 
 there are thousands, of the way in which the knowl- 
 edge of our own history is dying out. Now it is 
 in the power of every student in our course to study 
 with care the history of the county where he lives. 
 He must question old people. He must look up 
 and copy documents. He must be able to refer 
 travellers and other inquirers to the proper sources 
 of information. 
 
 So satisfactory is such study of a subject itself; 
 so much more profitable is it than the mere study 
 of books, as books, that you may say quite safely 
 that it gives to the student that self-respect which 
 any one has who adds to the stock of human in- 
 formation. Four times out of five, if you will 
 
282 How to Live 
 
 choose some line of observation in which you 
 have, by whatever circumstance, some little van- 
 tage-ground — if you do not take too wide a sub- 
 ject, and if you satisfy yourself with some modest 
 inquiry — you will know more on that subject at 
 the end of a month's honest work than is written 
 down for you in any book now in the world. So 
 far as that topic goes, you become an authority 
 upon it yourself. And thus you have the satis- 
 faction of feeling that you are not merely depend- 
 ent upon others, but that in this place you can do 
 your part, however small that part may be, in the 
 work of the great concern. 
 
 I have spoken of drawing as an accomplishment 
 in which every student should at least make some 
 experiments. A master in the last generation, the 
 late John Gadsby Chapman, used to say that 
 every one who can learn to write can learn to 
 draw. This is true. In general, also, though not 
 in some details, you are yourself the best teacher 
 you will ever have. Of course you will get the 
 best lessons you can, and the best suggestions 
 from people who know more about it than you do. 
 But, on the whole, the steady work which you do 
 day by day, if you will keep it so that you can criti- 
 cise it after months have gone by, will teach you 
 more than any single teacher can do. Now every 
 reader would think it a curious thing if in this 
 essay on the Method of Learning I had said it was 
 necessary for the student to learn to read or to 
 write. I really wish that those who follow me 
 
How to Study 283 
 
 would regard the learning to draw as a matter not 
 to be neglected more than either of the other 
 studies. Fortunately, in our time the helps for 
 such study are more and more abundant, and no 
 one reads these lines who cannot procure all which 
 are necessary. 
 
284 How to Live 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 HOW TO KNOW GOD 
 
 It has been taken for granted in these papers thus 
 far that a man can do much as he really chooses 
 to do in the matters which have been considered. 
 Thus it has been taken for granted that he can 
 give up the use of tea or coffee or tobacco or 
 spirits, if he chooses. Or it has been taken for 
 granted that he can rise from bed when he chooses, 
 or go to bed when he chooses. It has even been 
 suggested that he can attain such control of his 
 occupations and desires and habits that he can 
 sleep when he chooses, though sleep is proverbially- 
 coy and wayward, and, as is supposed, dislikes to 
 come and go at man's will. 
 
 What right have we to assume that man has 
 this power, almost absolute, over the machinery of 
 his life? 
 
 Our right comes from this, that man is a living 
 and infinite soul, although he lives in a finite body. 
 He is the child of God, and may partake of God's 
 nature when he chooses. He has, therefore, 
 always the resource of infinite power, if he knows 
 God well enough and confidently enough to call 
 for infinite power to the help of that power which 
 he calls his own. He is permitted and encouraged 
 
How to Know God 285 
 
 to ask for this infinite help in all cases where he is 
 to will and do anything pleasing to God. 
 
 It is no part of the business of these papers — if 
 it be part of any man's business — to demonstrate 
 the being of God or to try to do so. It is presumed 
 in the outset that those persons who come to these 
 papers for advice believe that God is, that they 
 are his children, and that they may partake of his 
 nature. But no instructions as to the methods of 
 life can go far, without some consideration of the 
 ways by which we draw near to him, by which we 
 come to know him, even imperfectly, to learn 
 what his methods are, and his purposes, so that 
 we may wish to will and do what he would have, 
 and may carry out that wish. 
 
 Every child of God, indeed, is left in somewhat 
 the position in which we may readily imagine the 
 son of a great statesman to be when that statesman 
 is engaged in critical duty. Such a young man 
 may, if he chooses, take advantage even of his 
 father's engrossed attention to public affairs, to go 
 off on his own amusements, with his own compan- 
 ions, for his own purposes and theirs. Shake- 
 speare has so represented Henry V., before he was 
 king, as indifferent to his father's policy, and even 
 as separate from him in daily life. But such a 
 young man might be constantly in the work-room 
 of his father. He might talk with him even famil- 
 iarly of the secrets of the empire. He might 
 execute his commissions for him, could copy a 
 document, or draft a letter. If he did, if he chose, 
 
286 How to Live 
 
 he could thus enlarge, by every day's experience, 
 his own power of life and of duty, if he really had 
 his father's blood in his veins. There is many an 
 instance in history where a son, in such intimacy 
 with his father, has been able thus to enter into 
 his father's life, and to carry from that life new 
 strength for the purposes which his father in- 
 trusted to him. 
 
 No analogies serve us perfectly when we come 
 to speak of God, with whom there is no one to be 
 compared. But God is our Father and we are his 
 children. We can learn something of him, though 
 we cannot learn the whole. We can gain some 
 sense of his purpose. All that we know of law is 
 that it represents his wish to-day. And we shall 
 gain strength for the duty of living and the plea- 
 sures of living in proportion as we know him, his 
 methods, and his purposes. 
 
 How shall we do this ? How shall we know him ? 
 
 I. What the people say who have lived with 
 most success is that we can find God, " if we seek 
 for him with all our hearts." These are the words 
 of Moses, the greatest man who has yet lived, and 
 those words have been repeated by the leaders of 
 life. It is quite fair to take again the analogy of a 
 crown prince, who is the son of a great king. The 
 young man has two courses before him. His father 
 has given him a separate establishment. He can 
 live in his own home, with his own companions, for 
 his own purposes, by his own laws. If these laws 
 interfere too critically with his father's laws, there 
 
How to Know God 287 
 
 will come a break. He will find out that his father's 
 laws are stronger than his. But many a crown 
 prince has lived on in this way, quite indifferent 
 to his father's purposes, and has fancied that his 
 father did not seem to take much notice of his 
 career, or, at all events, would not call him to ac- 
 count. Of which the result is that he does not 
 understand his father's plans, is not in any sort in 
 sympathy with him, does not know him, indeed, as 
 he ought to know him. If he is sent off on a cam- 
 paign he cannot enter into his purpose, and is, in 
 every way, an inefficient officer in his service. But, 
 as has been said, the Crown Prince may make him- 
 self acquainted with that service. He may find his 
 father every day — for he will never be put out of 
 council chamber, of court, or of closet. He may, 
 if he chooses, interest himself in his father's under- 
 takings, he may even understand the relations of 
 one policy to another, and see how the fulfilment 
 of one plan makes another easier. 
 
 This is what a great commander like the prophet 
 says we must do, if we would find the greatest 
 Commander of all. If we want to find him we 
 must seek for him. 
 
 In the first place, we must listen and see what he 
 has to say. Form the habit of going off by your- 
 self at a fixed hour every day " to see what God 
 has to say to you." Listen and find if there is not 
 some answer, and what that answer is. I have 
 known a man who told me he had such a place 
 of conference or rendezvous in the attic of his store. 
 
288 How to Live 
 
 He went upstairs — none of the clerks or boys 
 asked themselves why, or to which story he went. 
 Of course there were a hundred reasons why the 
 master of the store might have to go upstairs. He 
 went up and up every morning. No one need see, 
 no one need ask why, or did ask. He came to his 
 " oratory." In the New Testament it is called a 
 " closet." There he could sit on a box he had for 
 the purpose; he could let the downstairs cares 
 drop off; he could and did forget the prices of 
 sugar and flour and candles and the rest; he forgot 
 the mail and the unanswered letters so far that he 
 could ask what God wanted him to do and to be 
 that day. He did ask, and he waited five minutes 
 before he went downstairs, to see what answer 
 came. Sometimes he had his answer. Sometimes 
 he thought he did not. But I have suspected that 
 he always had it, though he did not always have it 
 in his own way. I think he went downstairs better 
 able to work with God that day than if he had not 
 gone up, and better able to carry out the large 
 laws of life ; and this, whether he were conscious or 
 were not conscious of God's reply to his questions. 
 These papers are for advice. I should advise 
 any man who had such a closet, to keep in it a 
 Bible and any other book which he liked, which 
 seemed to him strong and positive, not necessarily 
 to read every day, but to open, if he wanted to, 
 and to take a tonic or a stimulus from it. It is a 
 good thing, sometimes, to get a good flavor on 
 one's tongue. 
 
How to Know God 289 
 
 II. In the analogy with which we started, the 
 Crown Prince really tries to acquaint himself with 
 his father's methods and ways of work. The man 
 who tries to acquaint himself with God's methods 
 and ways of work finds himself engaged in what 
 Jeremy Taylor calls the " practice of the presence 
 of God." Bishop Taylor puts it in his plan of daily 
 life as the third of the methods or instruments by 
 which a man will secure full strength for daily 
 duty. Taylor counts the " care oi time " as the 
 first method, and " purity of intention " as the sec- 
 ond. In these papers we have taken " purity of 
 intention " for granted, and, having considered the 
 " care of time," we come directly to this " practice 
 of the presence of God " as a daily habit for any 
 man who wants more strength than the separate 
 human body could claim or expect if there were 
 not a " Power which makes for righteousness " 
 which can be secured in alliance to the separate 
 human body. God is at work in this universe 
 which is outside of me. I will find out how he 
 works. I will find out what he wants. I can 
 then row my boat in the direction in which his 
 river flows, and I need not be pulling against the 
 current, or across it, as a man might do who did 
 not know how or where it was flowing. 
 
 All that we say of the Laws of Nature is our effort 
 to divide and set in order, for our convenience, 
 what we know of God's present wish for this world 
 and this universe, so far as we can make out their 
 various processes. We talk of the law of gravita- 
 
 19 
 
290 How to Live 
 
 tion, of the laws of heat, of electricity, of cohesion, 
 of attraction and repulsion. We are a good deal 
 pleased when we find how closely they are related 
 to each other. We then say that the different 
 forces are co-related, and it pleases us to find 
 that out. All this time we know that at bottom 
 these several laws are so many statements which 
 we have been able to make in words and figures of 
 the way in which God works, who is always in this 
 world which he maintains. Now the man who 
 " practises the presence of God " does not permit 
 any language to keep him from feeling God's pres- 
 ent interest in these present affairs. It is God 
 who works them out, and the Crown Prince, really 
 desiring to enter his father's service, always re- 
 gards them as God's affair. " In the face of the 
 sun you may see God's beauty; in the fire you 
 may feel his heat warming ; in the water, his gen- 
 tleness to refresh you ; he it is that comforts your 
 spirits when you have taken cordials ; it is the dew 
 of heaven that makes your field give you bread ; 
 and the breasts of God are the bottles that minister 
 drink to your necessities." This is the quaint, old- 
 fashioned language of Taylor, so often cited as to 
 become almost proverbial, perhaps. That man is 
 wise and grows stronger who can form the habit 
 of tracing, in such fashion, God's present purpose 
 in whatever he enjoys. Stephenson, the inventor 
 of the locomotive, stood with an English nobleman 
 on a terrace, and they watched together the move- 
 ment of a train through the valley below them. 
 
How to Know God 291 
 
 "What do you think moves that train? " said Ste- 
 phenson. " One of your engines, I suppose," said 
 the other, a little surprised. " Yes, indeed ! But 
 what moves the engine? The engine is moved by 
 the expansion of steam. The steam expands be- 
 cause the water is heated. The water is heated 
 because the coal is burned. The coal burns be- 
 cause it is but a mass of ferns and other leaves and 
 stems packed away, ready for burning, some hun- 
 dreds of thousands of years ago. And these ferns 
 and leaves and stems grew because the sun then 
 shone over England as the sun does not shine over 
 England to-day, and by its heat and light forced 
 stem and leaf to pack up the carbon from that 
 heavy carbonic acid of those days ; all, that when 
 you and I and the rest here want it, the train 
 yonder might pass from one side of England to 
 another." This is the substance of Stephenson's 
 answer. I do not believe that either of those men 
 ran back in that way over the ages upon ages which 
 have thus conspired together for the health and 
 wealth and comfort of our age, without more grate- 
 ful thought of that Being, whose name is I Am, 
 who is the same in all time, and so arranges his 
 heat, his light, his carbonic acid, his water, and 
 his steam, that his children may prosper to-day 
 and be comfortable and happy. 
 
 What we call the study of natural science is, 
 really, the practice of the presence of God, if we 
 go in the least beneath the phenomenon — the 
 thing which appears — and feel for the wisdom, 
 
292 How to Live 
 
 the tenderness, the love, or the purpose or law 
 which lies beneath the external appearance. And 
 any man or woman who will mix in with every day's 
 life some interest in nature, may be gaining in that 
 interest a more close sense of the love of God and 
 of his present power. The study of the plants in 
 your window in winter, of the growth of seeds in 
 your flower border in summer, of the crops you 
 have to handle, of the weather, of the shells on the 
 shore, or the lichens on the walls or the trees, may 
 be made a study which brings you nearer to the 
 Great Power who IS in all the universe, so that you 
 shall rely upon him more, and in the end, gain 
 more of his help as you work in your place in car- 
 rying out his large concerns. 
 
 III. For you have a right to remember, and 
 you gradually come to know, that you can partake 
 of the divine nature of this Power which makes for 
 righteousness. This is the direct statement of the 
 Christian religion. And the shortest and easiest way 
 for any man to test that statement is to try the ex- 
 periment. Let him hold daily conversation with 
 God, let him every day study God's methods of 
 work, let him look forward as if he were immortal, as 
 an angel of light would do, let him keep the body 
 under, as such an angel would do; let him keep 
 up such a course of life for ten years or twenty, — 
 and then let him tell us, or let him tell the world 
 he lives in, whether he does not know what is 
 meant by being " a partaker of the divine nature." 
 Man is the child of God, the child of this Power 
 
How to Know God 293 
 
 which makes for righteousness who is in all 
 nature. Man is not simply the creature of this 
 Power, as an oak tree is, or as a crystal is. Man 
 is his child. Man can know something of his 
 wishes; can know something of his purposes; 
 can go about his business. If man is wise, he 
 tries to do so. And in that very trial he learns 
 more of those wishes and purposes and of that 
 business, and partakes, as the Bible says, more 
 intimately of that nature. 
 
 The practical habit or rule to be followed in this 
 has been suggested here in what has been said of 
 the choice of one's occupation. I must so choose 
 my occupation that it shall be in the line of God's 
 present work, and that I may feel, all along, that I 
 am a fellow-workman with him — just as the 
 crown prince is when his father sends him out on 
 a special duty in his service. I do not feel this 
 when I am retailing liquor behind a counter. 
 Therefore I do not choose that calling. I do not 
 feel this when I am maintaining a rascal's cause 
 before the court. Therefore I decline to be his 
 counsel when he comes to me. I do feel this when 
 I am putting seeds into the ground, and using 
 sunshine and rain for a harvest. Therefore I am 
 glad to be a farmer. I do feel this when I am 
 running a line across the prairie, which for a thou- 
 sand years, perhaps, is to be the boundary between 
 farm and farm, and determine for honest men their 
 rights, so that there may be no doubt, corfflict, or 
 confusion. Therefore I am glad to be a surveyor. 
 
294 How to Live 
 
 I am glad to work where it is clear to me all the 
 time that I am at work with God, with " the Power 
 that makes for righteousness." I am sorry to work 
 in work where I am trying to make people unright- 
 eous, to disobey law, or fight against him. I will 
 not do that. Between these extremes there are 
 various callings, where it is easier or harder to see 
 whether we do or do not carry out his purposes. 
 The hack artist who makes a vulgar valentine, 
 which only gives pain if it ever meets the purpose 
 for which it is printed and sold, must feel that her 
 work is very little connected with the work of God. 
 Yet, in the same work-shop, at her side, there may 
 be sitting another, who, as she mixes her colors, 
 or draws the outlines of her flowers, is thinking of 
 the pleasure which her pretty picture is to give to 
 some group of happy children, and is glad that 
 the good God has made her his instrument for 
 adding to their cheerfulness. There have been, 
 thus, two women grinding their corn side by side 
 with stones just like each other. You take a bar 
 of stone about ten inches long, bulging a little in 
 the middle, and you rub the corn grains on a flat 
 stone, a little hollowed out below. You can see 
 this done in the plaza of San Antonio, just as you 
 could see it done in the valley of Jezreel. No 
 machinery, no science, no water-power, wind- 
 power, or steam-power, lightens the labor. It is 
 all labor, which in itself degrades, unless the spirit 
 makes it into work, which is the control of mere 
 physical forces by an idea. These two women 
 
How to Know God 295 
 
 were sitting side by side, and rubbing down their 
 corn into meal. The circumstances of the two 
 were identically the same. But one of them as she 
 ground kept complaining of the hardship of her 
 toil, that she was a mere bond-slave, and watched 
 every little lump of the flour as it gathered so 
 slowly, till she could see that there would be just 
 enough for her to make her miserable lonely dish 
 of polenta. And the other woman, with every 
 movement of the stone, was thinking how she was 
 working with God, that he was just so good 
 that he permitted her to be the last agent in his 
 infinite work. He permitted her to put her private 
 seal on the finished success. It is indeed the last 
 of a series of infinite miracles. For miracle is the 
 subjugation of matter by the spirit. God has 
 bent the course of the world in its orbit, he has 
 directed the flames and storms of the surface of 
 the sun, he has moved the great waves of air 
 above the earth, he has led the clouds hither and 
 thither, he has ordered day and night, summer 
 and winter, has whispered to a thousand hidden 
 germs and commanded them to swell and grow 
 and tassel out, and in due time to ripen to harvest. 
 Nay, he has whispered to thousands of men and 
 women, brothers and sisters of her who is grinding 
 here, that they might do their share, in preparing 
 field and tools, in training and yoking oxen, in 
 plowing and in reaping. Of all which the sequel 
 is that she has this pint of corn which she is rub- 
 bing between the stones. And now he is willing 
 
296 How to Live 
 
 to give this to her, and permits her to put the last 
 touch to this infinite series of agencies, that her 
 children may be fed to-day. She can say to her 
 little ones when she calls them to the table, " This 
 is your good Father's gift to you, and your 
 mother's!' I do not wonder that that woman works 
 cheerfully, or that she works well. I do not 
 wonder that, as the Bible says, she is taken — 
 taken into the very joy of her Lord — while the 
 other is left, in her own sulky selfishness. 
 
 The true child of God, who partakes of the 
 divine nature, is really a partner in the work or of 
 universe. True, in proportion to the other partners 
 he does not put in a great deal of work or of 
 capital. But he does put in something. And the 
 man who wants to gain the help of the other part- 
 ners, especially of the First Partner, who has 
 been willing to make his children fellow-workers 
 in the great concern, likes to think of himself as 
 engaged in no trivial or special business, but in 
 the larger work which is helping all mankind. 
 
 It is, then, a good thing for a weaver in a mill, 
 who is in monotonous duty, rather discouraging in 
 some of its details, to think of himself, not as an 
 " operative " at a dollar and a quarter a day, but 
 as an essential factor in God's work for the world. 
 It is a good thing for a boy on a prairie in Dakota 
 to remember, as he oils the running gear of the 
 reaper, that he is the person whom the God of 
 heaven has chosen so that the prayer for daily 
 bread of some sailor in Alaska or some old woman 
 
How to Know God 297 
 
 in the Scotch Highlands may be answered. It is a 
 good thing for any of us who want to know God 
 to accept this great offer of partnership which he 
 has made to us, and to work, not as separate spec- 
 ulators, on our own capital in our own way, but as 
 fellow-workmen together with him. 
 
 The more we know him, the more infinite 
 strength shall we have for life, whether for finite 
 or temporal duty, or for infinite and eternal duty. 
 
 We gain this knowledge, first, by purity of inten- 
 tion; next, by seeking him with all our hearts; 
 next, by studying his method of work ; and again, 
 by working with him. 
 
298 
 
 How to Live 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 HOW TO BEAR YOUR BROTHER'S BURDENS 
 
 [We cannot ask for a better phrase than that of the Epistle to 
 the Ephesians in which Paul bids every man bear his brother's 
 burden. It is, however, rather a pity that neither the Received 
 Version of the Testament nor the Revised Version recognizes the 
 distinction, obvious enough, between the two Greek words used by 
 Paul, — which they translate " burden," as if they were the same. 
 Paul says, " Let every man bear his own <poprtov;" and then he 
 says, " Let every man bear his brother's fidpos." 
 
 The difference would be well enough expressed in English if 
 we said, u Let every man have his own carpet-bag and carry it," 
 and at the same time, " Let every man relieve his neighbor of any 
 burden." This, as I have tried to show, was what Paul meant' 
 Let every man be ready to help in lifting the world's load. $op- 
 riov is something which is carried. Even the freight of a ship is 
 (popriov, whence, indeed, our word " freight." The word conveys 
 the idea of movement, fidpos, the other word, is dead weight. 
 The attraction of gravity, had the Greeks known enough to talk 
 about it, would be fidpos. You might speak of the fidpos of a 
 pyramid, but not of its (popriov. 
 
 By a natural figure fidpos means a calamity, a heavy misfortune. 
 <poprtov would not be used for this.] 
 
 We have thus far considered in these papers what 
 are called personal duties. By this phrase, which 
 is an unfortunate one, is meant the treatment or 
 education which the man gives to himself, — to his 
 own body, mind, or soul. Such duties are, in fact, 
 possible to a certain extent in a desert island. 
 
 But all this is by way of preparation only. We 
 train the body or we train the mind, simply that, 
 
Bear your Brother's Burdens 299 
 
 when the time comes, we may use them with most 
 profit. In what have been called " spiritual exer- 
 cises " the man trains his soul, that he may have 
 more life ; he does so that he may live to more 
 purpose. 
 
 Now, whatever may be said or believed in other 
 systems, in the Christian system this enlargement 
 of the life and power of body, mind, and soul is 
 sought and gained that the man may be of use to 
 mankind. 
 
 As Paul puts it, there is one body, of which each 
 of us is a member, and no one member can im- 
 prove himself unless he have in mind the improve- 
 ment of the whole. 
 
 Fichte says the same, in a remark which is the 
 central expression of all modern social life : " The 
 human race is the individual, of which each man 
 and woman is a separate organ." 
 
 This means that man is a gregarious animal. 
 And just as a bee would die who should separate 
 himself from the swarm and set up housekeeping 
 for himself, the man really dies who separates him- 
 self from the great company of mankind. 
 
 Together is the central word. 
 
 And when the Saviour and his apostles give such 
 prominence as they do give to " Love " in the 
 Christian statements, it is because " together " ex- 
 presses the central idea, and no man can develop 
 himself or fulfil the duties for which he is placed 
 in the world, excepting as a member of the 
 partnership. 
 
300 How to Live 
 
 This is what Paul means when he says that 
 every man is to bear his brother's burdens. 
 
 And, on the other hand, it is at this point that 
 those romances break down, or the rules of those 
 religious communities, which imagine lonely Chris- 
 tians. Robinson Crusoe is really an impossibility. 
 That is, the conception of a man steadily improv- 
 ing in his spiritual life, and growing better and 
 stronger because he is wholly alone, and parted 
 from other men for twenty years, is a false concep- 
 tion. So of religious orders which bind them- 
 selves to silence. You do not let the man in the 
 next room speak to you, lest he should interrupt 
 your thought of God. But the precise thing for 
 which God put you and him into the world is that 
 you and he shall speak to each other. You are 
 not to improve your life alone, and he, his alone. 
 You are to bear each other's burdens. You are to 
 live in a common life. 
 
 One cell in an oak leaf may as well expect to 
 live successfully without organic union with the 
 other cells, as one man in society to live so, with- 
 out organic union with other men. 
 
 I. It is best, however, to begin with acknowl- 
 edging that philanthropy, or what is now called 
 " altruism," because every generation likes its own 
 word, often makes itself very ridiculous. In a 
 comedy now forgotten, the hero, Paul Pry, whose 
 name is perhaps still remembered, after interfering 
 absurdly in other people's affairs, winds up the in- 
 evitable wretched failure of his operations, by say- 
 
Bear your Brother's Burdens 301 
 
 ing, "I never will do another good-natured thing 
 as long as I live." Mr. Thoreau, by way of satir- 
 izing the Christian ministry, says that if he saw 
 any one coming in at the door of his cabin to do 
 him good, he would jump out at the window. In- 
 deed, whenever you see people who make a trade 
 of philanthropy, and there are such people in the 
 world, you understand Mr. Thoreau's feeling and 
 sympathize with him. I was among the people 
 who formed the first Emigrant Aid Company to 
 assist in settling Kansas, in 1854, when "squatter 
 sovereignty " was to determine whether it should 
 be a free State or a slave State. There was some- 
 thing at once exasperating and annoying in the 
 storm of applications which we received from 
 sedentary tramps, as I call them, who wanted, not 
 indeed to go to Kansas, but to be clerks in the office 
 at home which was to send out the emigrants. In 
 various other public enterprises with which I have 
 been concerned, the same nuisance has regularly 
 appeared at the outset 
 
 There is a certain class of men, best denomi- 
 nated as " shiftless," who having had no success 
 in taking care of themselves, or of their own fam- 
 ilies, offer themselves to be servants of the public, 
 and especially for that service which is the 
 most delicate and difficult of all, the care of the 
 poor. Such people and the failures which follow, 
 almost of necessity when they are intrusted with 
 that care, have done much to make philanthropy 
 ridiculous. 
 
302 How to Live 
 
 There is also a temptation, subtle and dangerous, 
 pressing on the really benevolent man or woman 
 who is not shiftless ; who, on the other hand, suc- 
 ceeds in some bit of public-spirited work. Such a 
 man hates to see anything fail. Perhaps he does 
 see that some matter of public interest is going to 
 the dogs for want of sensible oversight. Precisely 
 because he has succeeded once, he thinks he shall 
 succeed again ; and so he is tempted to undertake 
 the second, and then the third, and then the fourth 
 public enterprise which offer themselves for volun- 
 teers, perhaps even to the detriment of the first, 
 where he began. The fault here is not wholly his 
 own. It is largely the fault of people who ought to 
 have stepped into those places, but who have stood 
 back for him and others like him to overload 
 themselves. 
 
 People who have read Dickens will remember 
 Mrs. Jellyby and her preposterous missions at 
 Borrioboola Gha. There is hardly any exaggera- 
 tion in this sketch. There are just such people 
 in the world, and they are not all, by any means, 
 self-seeking people. They are adventurous peo- 
 ple. They dislike the hum-drum of every-day 
 life, and they like such excitement as correspond- 
 ing with the Secretary of State and receiving let- 
 ters from Africa and entertaining native chiefs at 
 tea. So they have fallen into the line of philan- 
 thropy which furnishes these excitements, just as 
 other people, in the same necessity, fall into novel- 
 reading or card-playing or travelling or visiting. 
 
Bear your Brother's Burdens 303 
 
 All such people unfortunately make benevolence 
 ridiculous and give it a bad name. 
 
 In making our plans we must try to avoid their 
 mistake. This we shall do by finding out, if we can, 
 each one of us, what is the " duty next his hand." 
 
 II. Something has already been said on the 
 principles here involved, in an earlier paper of 
 this series, on the selection of one's calling. Those 
 principles apply as well when a man is looking to 
 see where he can best be of use to others in the 
 world. First and absolutely he is not to try to do 
 everything. He is to do that which he can do 
 best, if no one else is doing it, and, as between 
 two enterprises of equal necessity, he may choose 
 that which is more agreeable to him. But he is 
 not to take into consideration his likes and his 
 dislikes, unless the necessity is equal in the two 
 cases before him. Generally speaking, however, 
 a necessity at his side is more pressing than a 
 necessity at a distance. That is the meaning of 
 the proverb, which is true more often than most 
 proverbs, that " Charity begins at home." 
 
 III. To begin with, then, let it never be forgot- 
 ten that the family in which it has pleased God to 
 place you is the place of activity for which he 
 trained you. It is that for which you are most 
 fit, and where you work in every way at the best 
 advantage. Many a girl has thought it her duty 
 to go and teach music badly in a ladies' seminary, 
 seven hundred miles away, so that she may send 
 home fifty dollars a year for the education of one 
 
304 How to Live 
 
 of her brothers. She would have served mankind 
 much better had she stayed at home and helped 
 her mother train the other children in the decencies 
 of life and its larger duties, while she had left the 
 brother to earn his own schooling. And, in gen- 
 eral, in all this "looking for a mission," of which 
 one hears a good deal, the foundation question is, 
 " What is needed at home, and what can I do 
 where I am?" A man of much experience once 
 said to me that he had to consider, not simply 
 whether he were to accept a new part, but whether 
 his old part were done with him. Now, one is 
 never done with his part in the family. Even if 
 he travel far, there is always an electric cord con- 
 necting him with pleasures or with duties there. 
 Here is the reason why, when married life begins, 
 woman and man both find that there is an end to 
 that old anxious question, "Where is the duty 
 next my hand?" That duty is now at home. 
 And when the first child is born, and still more, 
 when the second and third come, all the old tan- 
 gles about conflicting duties come of themselves 
 to an end. Room enough for unselfishness now. 
 Field now for the steady growth of love ! For 
 God himself has shown where it is, and where 
 your work for your kind is to centre. 
 
 IV. It is to centre there, but it is not to be con- 
 fined there. Charity, or love, begins at home, but 
 it does not end at home. The great text, " One 
 is your Father, and ye are all brethren," means 
 what it says. And the simple fact that the an- 
 
Bear your Brother's Burdens 305 
 
 alogies of home life are taken, even to give us the 
 forms of language by which we shall speak of the 
 larger life and its pleasures and duties, is enough 
 to show us what those pleasures and duties are, 
 and in what spirit they are to be carried through. 
 Indeed, if one asks what the Christian "way of 
 life " was, or what it did, when it had no name but 
 " The Way " when it started to conquer, his answer 
 will be found in the success in which it follows out 
 these analogies. Paul, at Rome, so deals with the 
 soldier who holds him prisoner that the soldier 
 comes to conceive of this larger life of Paul's, 
 enters into it himself, and is ready, on his part, 
 to call others into the same brotherhood. Our 
 first question recurs then, where and how shall a 
 man's brotherly affection pass beyond his own 
 household into the world of those brothers who 
 are "of the same blood with him?" How is he 
 to bear their burdens, and at the same time be loyal 
 in his own work for himself and for his family? 
 How shall he avoid that Mrs. Jellyby folly of send- 
 ing a pin-cushion to Timbuctoo, and a book on 
 the Logos of St. John to the Port Royal negroes ? 
 Clearly there is a limit somewhere. How is that 
 limit to be found? 
 
 Here is where, I think, such satires as this of 
 Dickens's have been of use to us all. It is a great 
 deal better to do one thing well than to half do 
 two, and it is a very great deal better to do one 
 thing well than to do a fiftieth part of each of fifty. 
 Let a man remember, then, that what he does, in 
 
306 How to Live 
 
 public spirit, is to be done from principle and not 
 from impulse. He does it because he ought, and 
 not because a pathetic appeal has been made to 
 him, and he finds the tears starting from his eyes. 
 Let him make up his mind in advance how much 
 money, how much time, how much thought, how 
 much care he ought to give to bearing his brother's 
 burdens. Let him determine how he can concen- 
 trate this work, so as to save wear and tear, save 
 steps, save time, and save money. That is a 
 charming social condition in which people live 
 so simply that one is interested of course in his 
 neighbor's affairs, and can kindly help them with- 
 out affectation. Thus, when I live in the country, 
 I can lend my books and newspapers to the neigh- 
 bor's boys, or the neighbor's girls may come in 
 and practise on my piano. I can watch with my 
 neighbor if he is sick, and so in a thousand offices 
 we can help each other. Indeed, what we call in 
 towns by the grand name of the " Organization of 
 Charity" is simply an effort to bring about, under 
 the agency of what we call the " friendly visitor," 
 the same cordial, helpful, mutual intimacy which 
 exists without management in the ease of simple 
 society. 
 
 Precisely as an intelligent director says to a 
 pupil, " Read what seriously interests you," — a 
 wise adviser would say, " Choose what interests 
 you," to a person seeking the place where God 
 needs his work. "Something interests you. If 
 you have a passion for dogs and cats and horses, 
 
Bear your Brother's Burdens 307 
 
 find some way to be of use to dogs and cats and 
 horses. Are you fond of children? Go to the 
 children's ward of the hospital and see what they 
 want. Are you vitally and really interested in 
 politics? See that we have a decent city govern- 
 ment and that the public is brought to a proper 
 understanding of its duties." I remember a lady, 
 one of the saints, indeed, who, as she sat at her 
 window, saw a poor laborer fall from the top of a 
 high building to the foundation. She saw the 
 crowd which rallied round his dead body ! It is 
 no wonder that from that moment she cared per- 
 sonally for his widow and his children, and left 
 the friendly charge of them as a legacy to her 
 children. Such trace of what one is tempted to 
 call " the feudal system," in our dealings with 
 those whom we can help, makes the work easier 
 and more cheerful. 
 
 V. But it will not do to rely here simply on the 
 " gospel of the attractions." We shall do best what 
 we are fit for. But there are many other things. 
 " Do the thing you are afraid to do," is one of Mr. 
 Carlyle's rules, borrowed, I suppose, from Goethe. 1 
 Once done, you will find that you do not fear it 
 so much again. Man or woman who thus selects 
 lines of life finds out, indeed, sooner or later, that 
 he has done a thousand things more than he pur- 
 posed. He planted, and God gave the increase. 
 He lighted a lantern because he hoped that so his 
 son's skiff would clear the rocks; but the same 
 1 Or is it Emerson ? No one will tell me. — E. E. H. 
 
308 How to Live 
 
 beacon answered as a warning for the great East 
 Indiaman, and the hard-tossed frigate. The little 
 experiment, in the way of benevolence, if it suc- 
 ceed, will be an encouragement right and left, and 
 as the Saviour's parable says, from that seed, 
 others shall gather a hundred-fold. 
 
 The truth is that, in this business of bearing 
 one another's burdens, the personal element must 
 come in somewhere. That personal charm or 
 power by which one man controls and blesses 
 another man is the evidence that we are living in 
 a common life. In other words, we are all chil- 
 dren of one God. The moment a true man really 
 opens his heart to me, I accept what he shows 
 me of himself as almost a revelation of my own 
 nature, and my own possibilities. He does reveal 
 to me something of God's nature which he in- 
 herits, and that nature I can share with him. It 
 does not do, then, for me to leave all my work of 
 charity or public spirit to this or that well-knit 
 organization, however wise may be its plans. The 
 world wants not mine, but me, and besides direct- 
 ing soldiers how to fight, I must throw myself 
 somewhere into the battle. An old minister, still 
 well remembered, who had many young students, 
 used to say to them, " I will never ask you to do 
 anything which I would not do myself; but I had 
 better tell you, by way of warning as we begin, 
 that I have had to black John Jones's boots, and 
 to put up the widow Flaherty's stove." Personal 
 presence moves the world, and only personal con- 
 
Bear your Brother's Burdens 309 
 
 tact carries with it the promised gift of the majes- 
 tic triumph of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 VI. It seems necessary to say all this, even in 
 some detail, in our time, which relies so largely 
 in its arts on the "division of labor." Because 
 I employ one man to make the head of a pin, and 
 another to polish it, it does not follow that I can 
 appoint yet another to " do my charities " while I 
 sit at home by the fire and read Thackeray. I have 
 my own personal part, and that part I must bear. 
 
 VII. There remain the duties to the public 
 in which one engages as a member of an associa- 
 tion, and those which the largest association of all, 
 the State, carries forward. A very happy tendency 
 of our century unites us in special societies for the 
 removal of wrong, which borrow their impulse 
 from the great central society which we call the 
 " Church of Christ." The State, once existing 
 only to repel the invasion of enemies, gradually 
 assumes in our times, as the kingdom of God 
 comes in, the duties of benevolence, and proves to 
 be best equipped for many of them, for it can be, 
 indeed, imperious in its demands for the means 
 required. So wide are the charities of the State 
 now, and, on the whole, so well administered, that 
 we find men who will join in no others. " I pay 
 my taxes," such men say, " and you must expect 
 no more of me." But we do expect more. 
 
 We expect that the same skill and diligence 
 which build up a man's inventions or business, 
 which he shows in the books he writes, the 
 
310 How to Live 
 
 speeches he makes, in the cure of his patients, or 
 in the care of his farm, shall be shown somewhere 
 and somehow in the care of deaf or dumb or blind 
 or hungry or naked, of the prisoner, or of the 
 stranger. We remind him that all these are gifts 
 intrusted to him as a trustee, which no assessor 
 can value, and on which the State collects no tax, 
 but which, all the same, he holds in trust for the 
 common good. Where he will use them, he may- 
 decide. That he must use them, God has decided. 
 The same rule applies here as in the personal 
 kindness which one renders to his neighbors in 
 need. Better do one duty thoroughly than risk 
 failing in twenty. " Go not from house to house," 
 the Saviour said. The warning goes far enough 
 to check me, when I run from a meeting of the 
 " Prevention of Cruelty to Children " to a meeting 
 " for the conversion of Africans," and thence to the 
 " Society for Promoting Theological Education," 
 which I am obliged to leave before the meeting 
 ends, that I may be in time at the " Prisoners' Aid." 
 What we try to do, let that be well done. But, 
 in this danger, there is no excuse for failing to 
 work somewhere. 
 
 VIII. The point most in danger of being for- 
 gotten in our American life is the personal pres- 
 ence, personal help, and personal sympathy of the 
 private woman and the private man in the institu- 
 tions founded by the State. The danger is that 
 these shall be left to a dead routine. " I was in 
 prison, and ye visited me," said the Saviour. It 
 
Bear your Brother's Burdens 3 1 1 
 
 would have been a poor reply, as he used those 
 gracious words in that central parable, had one of 
 the hearers explained to him that the regulations 
 of the prison commissioners are severe, that only 
 on certain hours are the visitors admitted, and that 
 it was very inconvenient to obey him. The genius 
 of the Christian life is sympathy and mutual help, 
 and the school which is left to be carried on by 
 the public machinery, without the presence, on 
 occasions, of fathers and mothers will be a bad 
 school. The Sunday-school which seeks to run 
 by machinery will not fulfil its office. The alms- 
 house which is not lighted up by the visits of the 
 flower-mission, the young people of the neighbor- 
 hood, and this or that friendly surprise occasion- 
 ally waking up its torpor, will one day develop 
 some wretched misery. It is not good for man to 
 be alone ; and it is no more good for an " institu- 
 tion " than a man. 
 
 Indeed, the best result which the science of 
 " organized charity " achieves is the recognition 
 on both sides, by the public officers and by the 
 private student, of one principle. The public is 
 to provide liberally the means for the conduct of 
 its great charities. But, for the superintendence, 
 it has a right to rely on the generous unpaid as- 
 sistance of persons who give their time and their 
 service from their love of the cause in which they 
 are engaged. 
 
312 How to Live 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 HOW TO REGULATE EXPENSE 
 
 It may seem to inexperienced readers that we 
 make too sudden a descent in passing from such 
 high themes as have engaged us to the subject of 
 this paper. But persons who have seriously met 
 life and tried its experiments know that we have 
 now a very serious matter in hand. We are none 
 of us living in the simplest form of social order. 
 We are living in a highly organized society. No 
 one of us lives by the food which he obtains by 
 his gun or his arrow, but few by baking the bread 
 made from the corn which they have themselves 
 planted. Some of us are so fortunate that we 
 do subsist, in part, on food which is more sweet 
 because we have shared in its creation. But all of 
 us are largely dependent, most of us are wholly de- 
 pendent, on an intricate and complicated social 
 system, in which we spend something, probably 
 money, even for the food which we eat; in which 
 we must exchange our own work, or the fruit of 
 our own work, for all that we receive and enjoy. 
 
 This is to say that we are all living in a con- 
 dition of things where the regulation of our ex- 
 penses comes in very early in the consideration 
 of our duties. We must not turn aside from it, as 
 if it were insignificant, in studying " How to Live." 
 
 i 
 
How to Regulate Expense 313 
 
 Mr. Micawber says, and he is right, that if one's 
 income is a shilling, and his expenditure twelve 
 pence half-penny, the result is absolute misery; 
 that if, with the same income, one's expenditure 
 is eleven pence half-penny, the result is absolute 
 happiness. 
 
 This is quite true, and because it is true, faith- 
 ful and intelligent people determine on the regula- 
 tion of their expenses, under a very distinct and 
 reliable system, among the first foundations which 
 they lay for successful life. 
 
 Of course it is not in our power, in making 
 suggestions for this business, to go into the same 
 detail with which we can treat subjects where 
 everybody's circumstances are the same. A man 
 whose wages are paid him weekly regulates his 
 expenses in one way ; the man who draws his divi- 
 dends twice a year regulates his in another. We 
 will attempt little more than to lay down some 
 general principles, and enforce them by some 
 illustrations or parables, which will not be so apt 
 to be forgotten as general principles are, when 
 memory is not so fortified. When Princess Vic- 
 toria was married, who is now 1 the Empress Fred- 
 erick, her father, Prince Albert, who was a good 
 administrator in details, wrote her a very wise 
 letter of advice in this business. I think it is to be 
 found in Martin's life of him. He told her that 
 she might be sure, however wisely she thought she 
 had forecast her expenses, that a set of unexpected 
 
 1 1899. 
 
314 How to Live 
 
 demands would come in on her, generally very 
 suddenly. He said, "Monsieur l'lmprevu will 
 take care of half your income for you ; " by which 
 he means " Mr. Unexpected." Young people can 
 never be, made to believe that this will happen so. 
 But as they grow older they know much better 
 who " Monsieur 1 TmpreVu " is. This is to say, 
 very seriously, they find out as they grow older 
 that they are not alone in the world, and cannot be 
 alone. Every one is a part of a great social order, 
 which he cannot resist without forfeiting manhood 
 and real life. This social order may make very 
 sudden claims upon him, and these are the claims 
 of " Monsieur 1 Tmprevu." I do not say that 
 Prince Albert's statement for a princess, that she 
 must reserve half her money for such claims, is the 
 statement for all Chautauquan readers. But I put 
 at the beginning of our paper this statement from 
 one of the most skilful managers of our time, that 
 we may be sure from the beginning to make all 
 our plans with a very large margin. We will not 
 think we can foresee everything. 
 
 An English clergyman 1 has brought forward a 
 plan which will be wrought out in legislation, I 
 think, before fifty years are over, by which all 
 young people shall be compelled by force of law to 
 provide for their own old age. He proposes that a 
 very heavy poll-tax shall be levied on all persons, 
 say from the ages of sixteen to twenty-six. After 
 this time, he supposes that they may have their 
 
 1 Canon Blackley. 
 
How to Regulate Expense 315 
 
 families to care for, and so this poll-tax will 
 then be remitted. The taxes thus gathered are to 
 go to a great fund, kept by the treasury of the 
 State, from which, in turn, every person living 
 after the age of sixty-five will receive a pension 
 till he dies. I think every one will admit that 
 this would be a wise and prudent plan, if it could 
 be carried out, — if legislatures could be made to 
 pass the laws, and treasurers were sure to be 
 honest. Any opposition which is made to the 
 plan will be made to difficulties in detail. But 
 there is no difficulty of detail if a person is his own 
 law-giver, his own subject, and his own treasurer. 
 And every young wage-earner at sixteen years of 
 age, in America, is able to make the provision for 
 old age which is thus contemplated. The sum to 
 be laid aside thus, for the exigencies of possible 
 sickness, or for the decline of life, need not be 
 large. But it should come into the estimate made 
 for the division of expenses when life begins. 
 
 There are some old-fashioned methods of social 
 order, descending even from feudal times, in which 
 such provision is now compulsory. Thus, under 
 the law of the United States, when a sailor is paid 
 his wages, a certain very small fraction is always 
 deducted and paid into a fund which is known as 
 " hospital money." The sailor thus buys a right 
 to be treated free in the marine hospitals estab- 
 lished for his care by the government of the 
 United States in the neighborhood of every great 
 commercial city. This means that because sailors 
 
3 1 6 How to Live 
 
 are a distinct class, it is proved on the whole 
 possible and desirable that they should insure 
 themselves against the risk of sickness at a small 
 fixed charge, and this is accordingly required by 
 law. Old custom, which has the force of law, does 
 the same thing in many of the German States for 
 domestic servants. When you hire a servant you 
 bind yourself to pay a small fraction of her wages 
 regularly to some institution which will receive her 
 as a patient if she should need care or medical 
 relief. For some of the richer classes of society, 
 indeed, a similar arrangement is made, so that a 
 lady who finds herself without friends, at an ad- 
 vanced period of life, may claim, not as a favor, but 
 as a right, her home in the institution, which, from 
 her childhood, by such payments she has endowed. 
 
 With us, such artificial arrangements have not 
 been generally made ; but, as has been said regard- 
 ing the English plan for pensions for old age, it is 
 in the power of each one of us to look forward into 
 the indefinite future, and to provide in time for 
 what is certain, that sickness or other calamity will 
 sooner or later come. 
 
 Before we have come to this point, some one 
 will say that we are beginning at the wrong end ; 
 that a man must live to-day, and that we had 
 better consider what we are to eat and drink to- 
 day than how we shall buy our food sixty years 
 hence. I do not think so. We live in America, 
 and that is the same as saying we shall not starve. 
 Also and alas ! it is the same as saying that we 
 
How to Regulate Expense 317 
 
 shall be tempted to run for luck, or not to be 
 provident, unless our best advisers begin with 
 telling us to care for our future. 
 
 The proportion of the various expenses of peo- 
 ple's lives has been very carefully studied. What 
 is known as Engel's Law was laid down by Dr. 
 Engel, after careful study of the circumstances of 
 life in Germany. The distinct propositions of this 
 law are these four : — 
 
 First That the greater the income, the smaller 
 is the relative percentage of outlay for sub- 
 sistence. 
 
 Second. That the percentage of outlay for 
 clothing is approximately the same, whatever 
 the income. 
 
 Third. That the percentage of outlay for lodg- 
 ing or rent, and for fuel or light, is invariably the 
 same, whatever the income. , It is, in fact, 12 per 
 cent of the income. 
 
 Fourth. That as the income increases in amount 
 the percentage of outlay for sundries becomes 
 greater. 
 
 Engel found that a German workman who 
 earned $225 a year, a man of his intermediate 
 class whose income was between $450 and $600, 
 and a person of easy circumstances, all paid alike 
 12 per cent of their income for their house-rent or 
 lodging. It proves in this country that the aver- 
 age working-man in Illinois pays 17.42 per cent, in 
 Massachusetts 19.74 per cent, while in England it 
 is 13.48 per cent. Our own great master of sta- 
 
3 1 8 How to Live 
 
 tistics, Mr. Carroll Wright, has brought together 
 the results of a large number of returns in America 
 which may be studied to great advantage by per- 
 sons who want to adjust their expense on system. 
 We must not go into such details here farther than 
 to say that on an average in Massachusetts in 1883, 
 a thousand dollars expense would be cut up thus : 
 
 Groceries $295.20 
 
 Other provisions 197.60 
 
 Fuel 43-oo 
 
 "Dry Goods" 20.00 
 
 Boots, shoes, and slippers 36-3° 
 
 Clothing 103.20 
 
 Rent 19740 
 
 Sundries 107.30 
 
 $1,000.00 
 
 Now it is in this line of sundries, which make 
 nearly 1 1 per cent of our expenditure, that people 
 are apt to differ most from each other. Engel's 
 man "in easy circumstances" spends 15 per cent 
 for sundries. Of this, 5 J per cent is for education 
 and public worship ; 3 per cent is for legal pro- 
 tection; 3 per cent is for care of health; and 3.5 
 per cent " for comfort, mental and bodily recrea- 
 tion." It would be idle for us, as I have said, to 
 lay down any specific formula. But the use of 
 these figures is that we may learn really to live 
 while we live, and I have copied them at such 
 length that young people may see that in pro- 
 portion as they have a strong will and " deter- 
 mine " to reduce the proportion which they pay 
 
How to Regulate Expense 319 
 
 for subsistence, for clothing, for lodging, and for 
 fire, they have the more power to care for com- 
 fort, mental and moral recreation, and for the 
 future. The average American workman pays for 
 these things in the proportion which has been 
 shown above. For fuel and for rent, we can none 
 of us much reduce those proportions. But, as 
 Franklin found and even as Thoreau showed, the 
 others may be decently brought down very far 
 without any injury to health. Without going into 
 detail I will say that I think every young American 
 is wise who, while he is in health, lays apart 10 per 
 cent of his income for a time when he shall not be 
 in health, or shall have outgrown his working fac- 
 ulty. (As to detail in family management, I will 
 take the liberty to refer the curious reader to a 
 paper in a subsequent part of this volume, called 
 "What Shall we Have for Dinner?") 
 
 As for the housing, for which these gentlemen 
 allow nearly 20 per cent of our income, I have only 
 this to say, in passing. If I should buy a farm from 
 a great western railway, their people would take 
 me and mine to it in what is called a box freight- 
 car. They would run that car off the track upon 
 my farm, and would let my family live in it till I 
 had built a better house. My charge for " hous- 
 ing" during the months I lived in it would not be 
 nearly 20 per cent of my income. I think very 
 likely these lines will be read by some people who 
 are living in that way, and I will thank any of 
 them who will write to me to tell us what he 
 
320 How to Live 
 
 thinks the proportional charge for rent or lodg- 
 ing should be in one's scale of expenses. 
 
 Briefly, our object is to bring up the percentage 
 for " comfort, mental and moral recreation, and 
 health " as high as we can by fair sacrifice of the 
 other elements of expenditure. 
 
 In the very curious report of Mr. Edward Atkin- 
 son, made last summer at the meeting of the chiefs 
 of the various Bureaus of Statistics and Labor, he 
 gives estimates for daily rations for men at four 
 rates. One is from 20 to 45 cents a day, one from 
 15 to 20, and one from 12 to 15, one below 12. 
 There are eight methods given of obtaining the 
 cheapest of these. The very cheapest is 1 lb. of 
 alewives, 2 lbs. potatoes, J lb. corn meal, \ lb. 
 wheat flour, and 1 oz. of butter. This ration 
 costs 10J cents. Each ration given gives 26 
 parts of proteine, 12 parts of fat, 1.1 parts of 
 carbohydrates. 
 
 The cost of a woman's food should be four fifths 
 of this, and at the same modest standard would 
 be. These papers will be read by many in those 
 fertile States which feed the world, who could make 
 even a lower estimate. I have been told that it is 
 a boast in Ohio that no man was ever hungry 
 there, and from my experience of the hospitality 
 of the people I can well believe this. In States 
 where corn and wheat hardly pay for the carriage 
 to market, cracked corn, cracked wheat, meal, 
 flour, milk, pork, and even eggs make up, at a 
 very low price, a bill of fare sufficient to provide 
 
How to Regulate Expense 321 
 
 all the ingredients for food which physiological 
 chemistry insists upon. 
 
 The days have probably passed by when a pair 
 of prairie hens could be bought for five cents in 
 Michigan. But, even now, the cost of food where 
 food is created is so small that it would astonish 
 the dwellers in large sea-board cities. I suppose 
 that with the growth of the wealth of the country, 
 the days of " pork and beans " as a staple of diet, 
 are over. Liebig proved that the New Englanders, 
 in inventing that dish, had hit on a compound which 
 united in very precise proportion the necessities of 
 human food. But Dr. Palfrey, the historian of 
 New England, implies that this union in a national 
 dish of the " flesh of the commonest animal with 
 the commonest vegetable " indicates a period of 
 great poverty in the colonies. 
 
 There are many schools in America where, to 
 be sure that the charges of boarding-house keepers 
 are not extravagant, the directors provide a table 
 for pupils who will use it, at one dollar a week. 
 And, alas ! many a man or woman will give us his- 
 tories of school expenditure where they " boarded 
 themselves " at a rate even lower. 
 
 I am afraid Ben Franklin is responsible for a 
 good deal of horror here. He describes in his 
 biography his life as a journeyman as being both 
 vegetarian and economical. We take the impres- 
 sion that he lived on bread without butter, and 
 strange to say with a large supply of raisins. But 
 this statement was written long after the time he 
 
 21 
 
322 How to Live 
 
 describes. One is reminded of that celebrated 
 novel " Queechy," where a whole family appears to 
 subsist on water-cresses. Indeed, the account 
 which Thoreau gives of his life by Walden Pond 
 at the money charge of twenty-nine cents a week 
 is a parallel. There are incredulous Concord peo- 
 ple who will tell you that the twenty-nine cents 
 only show the money account on Thoreau's cash- 
 book, and that the cold mutton and loaves of bread 
 and cuts of cheese which his mother carried to his 
 hut and left behind her, have not been sufficiently 
 remembered. 
 
 I hope the instructions in the chapter on Appetite 
 have been sufficient to guard us against any danger 
 of starvation, even for a good motive. The ma- 
 chine must be fed. There must be fuel enough 
 under the boiler, and fresh acid enough for the 
 batteries. But what has been said in these pages 
 is enough to show that, in America, the real main- 
 tenance of life requires but a small fraction of the 
 expense of a regular American wage-earner. 
 
 As to the cost of clothes, a " decent regard to 
 the opinions of mankind " is certainly necessary; 
 but courage shows itself, first, in the determination 
 not to be wholly subservient to them. Thoreau's 
 rule is simply " Wear your old clothes." But this 
 is absurd. Many women, most women, try to solve 
 the problem by making most of their own clothing. 
 But, with the introduction of machine-sewing, this 
 rule, so interesting and valuable in the maintenance 
 of home industry, will have to give way. In many 
 
How to Regulate Expense 323 
 
 cities now it is simply the duty of many women to 
 " put out their sewing," and to use their time for 
 work in some more difficult grade, where there are 
 fewer competitors. In the figures given in the sta- 
 tistics of Massachusetts the working man of the 
 lowest wages spent 7 per cent of his income on 
 the clothing of his family. The working man of the 
 highest income spent 19 per cent. The average 
 in Massachusetts in 1883 was 15.94 per cent, and 
 in 1875 was 15 per cent. The average in England 
 and Germany was about 18 per cent, and Mr. Lord's 
 averages collected in Illinois were 21 per cent. 
 
 It is interesting to observe that, while the average 
 American is much better dressed than he was even 
 half a century ago, the average dress is much 
 cheaper. Thirty men and women will now make 
 as much cotton cloth as one hundred would twenty- 
 five years ago. And the change with regard to 
 other textiles is similar. 
 
 On the other hand, fashion exacts more; a de- 
 cent regard to the opinions of mankind exacts 
 more. Thoreau might live in his old clothes by 
 Walden Lake. But he was no such fool as to wear 
 them when he went a-lecturing. 
 
 It is a question of conscience for each person to 
 decide, seriously and with prayer, how large a pro- 
 portion of his expense should be distinctly and 
 definitely for others. On this, we need make but 
 one or two notes. Strictly speaking, all right ex- 
 pense is for the benefit of others. You feed your- 
 self and you clothe yourself only that you may do 
 
324 How to Live 
 
 what God wishes you to do for the benefit of your 
 fellow-men. You keep the machine in the best 
 possible working order. Now this does not mean 
 that the machine is to be slovenly. You are to 
 polish the brasses of the locomotive as carefully as 
 you oil the running gear. Yes, and you are to 
 hang flowers upon the locomotive by way of re- 
 joicing upon a holiday. Much of your expense 
 and much of your care are given thus to keeping 
 your machine in order. But not all. Part of it is 
 given consciously and directly for the good of 
 others. Do not be misled here in thinking it must 
 be given to tramps or beggars only. That honest 
 baker in the square, who sells cream cakes and 
 Washington pies, is just as good a fellow and de- 
 serves just as much thought at your hands as if he 
 had no trade, and had come to you to beg for bread 
 and cheese for his breakfast. You must decide for 
 yourself. Only be sure that somewhere, of con- 
 scious purpose, you lay aside a regular part of 
 your income for the good of some one you are not 
 compelled to serve. The State will compel you to 
 render service in your taxes. And things should 
 be so arranged that the rate of taxation should be 
 the sign of the civilization of the community. The 
 higher the taxation, the higher the civilization. 
 But, beside this, if you are really to live, you must 
 tax yourself by some fixed rule, as has been said. 
 I cannot offer a better suggestion than that which 
 is made so nobly by Starr King: "We say that it 
 is the duty of every man, with any means, to ob- 
 
How to Regulate Expense 325 
 
 serve proportion in his surplus expenses ; to have 
 a conscientious order with regard to the service 
 which his superfluous dollars discharge. Over 
 against every prominent allowance for a personal 
 luxury, the celestial record-book ought to show 
 some entry in favor of the cause of goodness and 
 suffering humanity; for every guinea that goes 
 into a theatre, a museum, an athenaeum, or the 
 treasury of a music-hall, there ought to be some 
 twin guinea pledged for a truth, or flying on some 
 errand of mercy in a city so crowded with misery 
 as this. Then we have a right to our amusements 
 and our grateful pleasures. Otherwise we have no 
 right to them, but are liable every moment to im- 
 peachment in the court of righteousness and charity 
 for our treachery to heaven and our race." 
 
326 How to Live 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 HOW TO DRESS 
 
 I AM relieved from the most difficult necessities of 
 this paper, because in the current volume of The 
 Chautauquan Miss Ward has treated so fully the 
 most important details of the subject, and has 
 given so many directions which will prove their own 
 value. I need not, even by way of illustration, 
 allude to such details again, and I gladly refer my 
 readers to her treatment of them. Our discussion 
 will be more general, and may be confined chiefly 
 to considering the comparative expense of dress, 
 and the amount of thought and care to be given to 
 it ; and such considerations will require some view 
 of the importance of fashion as a factor in society, 
 and indeed of dress as a test in the comparisons 
 of civilization. 
 
 I. I wish I could make the young people of the 
 present day read Carlyle's " Sartor Resartus," but 
 I have at last given up the effort. Everything 
 that is good in " Sartor Resartus " has been bor- 
 rowed and borrowed, and used in other literature 
 so abundantly that when young people come to 
 the book itself, which in its day was thought so 
 bright and fresh, they find its doctrine common- 
 place and its wit strained or exaggerated. The 
 
How to Dress 327 
 
 words " Sartor Resartus," mean a " Tailor Patched." 
 The original idea of Carlyle seems to have been 
 to write an amusing satire upon the shams of mod- 
 ern life, by showing that the various forms of social 
 life are but as so many garments, of which the 
 fashion can be changed at will. He would have 
 been glad to work out in this way, directly or in- 
 directly, the suggestion that what can be changed 
 so easily cannot be essential or fundamental, that 
 the foundation of life is deeper than its costume, 
 and that men are much better employed in study- 
 ing the foundations than they are in regulating the 
 outside. But Carlyle had not far advanced in the 
 papers, which were published serially, before he had 
 engaged himself so seriously in the grave discus- 
 sions which were to decide what the fundamentals 
 are and how they are to be found, that he became 
 careless about the amusing details of dress and its 
 accidents, which he had meant to make the frame- 
 work of the book all through. When he returns to 
 them, the reader is puzzled and annoyed, and 
 wishes it was not there, that he might follow, with- 
 out interruption, the memoir of Teufelsdrockh, 
 around which the philosophy of the book really 
 forms itself. He finally forgets that he and the 
 author started with the clothes-philosophy. 
 
 None the less do I refer to it here, because we 
 need to begin by remembering, as Mr. Carlyle 
 bids, that it is in one mood that we determine on the 
 realities of life, and in quite another that we adjust 
 the details of its forms or of its costume. That is 
 
328 How to Live 
 
 no accident by which, when we transfer the words 
 which deal with the manufacture of clothing, to 
 use them for analogies with other arts, we always 
 imply blame. A tailor, a shoemaker, a milliner, 
 are people who are subduing the world as loyally 
 as any other workmen. A tailor's work, in itself 
 considered, is as noble, as he conquers matter, as 
 is that by which a farmer conquers matter. The 
 work is as brave and true in the one case as in 
 another. But so great is the danger of the misap- 
 plication of such work, in the manufacture of this 
 or that folly of costume, that to say of a bit of 
 writing that it is " a piece of millinery " is dis- 
 praise. Such a writer as Shakespeare will allude to 
 " tailors and cobblers " as if they are necessarily 
 unable to enter on serious discussion. All this 
 means, Mr. Carlyle would say, that man will not 
 regard the forms of things as of so much value as 
 the things themselves, and his " clothes-philos- 
 ophy " is an attempt to make men remember and 
 acknowledge this. 
 
 The discussion of dress should come into serious 
 papers on the conduct of life, because we must 
 determine for ourselves how far, in the conduct of 
 life, we will be swayed in the non-essential by the 
 decisions of other people, and how far we will 
 undertake to regulate these decisions, or, at the least, 
 to take a part in them. These papers do not treat 
 the question " how to hoe potatoes " or " how to 
 fire an engine." Yet there is a good way and there 
 is a bad way to fire an engine, and to hoe potatoes. 
 
How to Dress 329 
 
 The good way or the bad way, however, may be 
 learned best by an individual with the coal-shovel 
 or the hoe in his hand, and hardly depends on any 
 principle of his own life, which he should have 
 found by study, observation, determination, and 
 prayer. In regulating dress, on the other hand, 
 we are acting, first, for other people as well as our- 
 selves. My friends see my clothes much more 
 than I do, and my neatness or elegance affects 
 them, at the first blush, much more than either 
 does me. More than this, the general decision of 
 the world on the matter of costume has a great 
 deal to do with the economies of my costume. 
 The lady who should set out to-day to clothe her- 
 self in "samite wonderful," because ladies were 
 clothed in it in the days of King Arthur, would 
 have a long career of "shopping" before her. 
 " No, Miss, we have no samite in stock ; plenty of 
 gingham and calico, Miss, but no samite." Prob- 
 ably she must dress in what the shops will furnish. 
 It is worth while, at all events, for her to know 
 where her individual determination to wear samite 
 must stop, and how far the quest for it may carry 
 her. 
 
 If it be safe to digest from the " Sartor Resartus " 
 twenty lines of truth, for readers who will not read 
 the book because it was written fifty years ago, 
 the following lines may be taken as an experiment 
 in that way : Man cannot go naked ; decency for- 
 bids, and in the parts of the world best adapted 
 for living, the climate forbids. Man must be 
 
330 How to Live 
 
 clothed. The daily work of a great number of 
 men and women will be enlisted in the making of 
 clothes for all. In savage life, each person makes 
 his own clothes. In civilized life, work is sub- 
 divided, fewer persons are engaged, and the clothing 
 becomes more uniform. So the man is warmed, 
 and can go about his daily affairs easily, and pre- 
 sents an agreeable aspect to those who look on, 
 without stopping himself to make the materials of 
 his clothes, without cutting them out, and without 
 sewing them together. Practically the clothing is 
 almost all which the observer sees of the man. 
 His face and hands are but a small part of his 
 person. But let no man be deceived by this into 
 thinking that the clothes are the man. And, of 
 the larger man, of the human family, which is one 
 body, of which we are the members, let no man be 
 deceived into thinking that its clothes are the body. 
 The body has its own life, and we must not regard 
 the fashion of its dress as more important than 
 the realities of the life. 
 
 Whether for society or for the man himself, 
 this lesson of the " clothes-philosophy " is worth 
 remembering. 
 
 I determine, then, that my dress shall be a sec- 
 ondary consideration, though an important one. 
 I will not be a slave to it, more than I am to appe- 
 tite. But I will not offend my neighbors by what 
 is a trifle in the comparison with fundamental 
 realities. I may have to add the determination 
 that, so far as my share goes, I will add to the 
 
How to Dress 331 
 
 harmony and elegance of the rooms I am in, as I 
 would have a good picture on the wall, in place of 
 a bad one, if it were in my power. To carry out 
 that illustration, I should be a fool if, when I 
 stopped at an inn for an hour, I spent my time in 
 improving the pictures on the wall of the reception 
 room. It may be that the time I spend on my 
 adornment for an hour is as badly wasted. I must 
 have some principles which will determine what is 
 legitimate, and what is waste. 
 
 II. Now, here, what has been said on the regu- 
 lation of expense is to be considered in the deter- 
 mination of the proportion of expense which shall 
 be given to dress. We have tried to show how far 
 the true man and woman, in regulating the use of 
 his income, may or ought to economize in the pur- 
 chase of his food. In that determination the 
 elements are more simple than they are in his 
 choice of his dress. His choice of food affects 
 himself and no one else. Strictly speaking, if he 
 eat enough good food to keep him in health, 
 no one else need interfere with his selection. But 
 I must dress so that I shall not offend certain re- 
 quisitions of the society in which I live. I must 
 not go to an evening party in a dress which shall 
 be offensive to my host or to the greater part of 
 the guests whom I meet there. As we go on we 
 shall see that this condition acts in such ways that 
 it cannot be avoided. 
 
 It is to be observed, also, that the expenditure for 
 dress of the people who live in our modern world 
 
332 How to Live 
 
 is a much smaller part of their expenditure than is 
 that for subsistence. The cost of a man's subsist- 
 ence ranges, it seems, in America from forty-one 
 per cent of his expenditure, which is the average 
 cost in Illinois, to sixty-three per cent, which is the 
 highest of the averages reported in different years 
 in Massachusetts. In the matter of subsistence, 
 then, a half or two thirds of one's expenditure is 
 determined. But, on the average, the clothing of 
 a man or woman only takes sixteen per cent of his 
 expenditure or hers, in the favorable conditions of 
 Massachusetts, where clothing and the materials 
 for it are cheap, being produced in large factories 
 established for the purpose. Even in Illinois, 
 where the conditions for the cheapest clothing are 
 not so favorable, the average cost of clothing is 
 only twenty-one per cent of the expenditure. It 
 seems desirable to call attention to these limita- 
 tions, because in practice, where people find re- 
 trenchment in expense necessary, they are always 
 tempted to reduce the cost of their clothing, with 
 a kind of superstitious feeling that they are already 
 living on the minimum ration of food which is pos- 
 sible. It will prove, in many instances, that the 
 reform of expenditure should be effected at just 
 the other end. Many a girl makes herself miser- 
 able by giving up her new ribbons or a new dress, 
 who could save her money to much more advan- 
 tage by giving up her candies, her chocolates, her 
 maple sugar, and other such dainties. 
 
 Indeed, if I am to give a practical rule, which 
 
How to Dress 333 
 
 will save a deal of trouble, and will generally, 
 though not always, work well, I should say that, 
 generally, a person had better accept the ratio 
 which the experience of his neighbors has assigned 
 for this department of expense, and not try, single- 
 handed, to alter it. If you live in Massachusetts, 
 set aside sixteen per cent of expenditure for the 
 dress of your family; if in Illinois, twenty per 
 cent. Accept this as what has come about in the 
 order of manufacture and trade, and do not waste 
 weeks of time and care and discomfort in the effort 
 to save five dollars by fighting against this law. 
 On the other hand, do not go beyond it. Be sure 
 that by your care of your clothing, by your neat- 
 ness and simplicity, you make the dress you wear 
 answer its purpose, and keep within the rule. 
 
 The best adviser whom I have consulted on the 
 economics of dress, after referring me to admirable 
 articles which will be found in the journals of mil- 
 liners and clothiers, and also to some clever little 
 hand-books easily obtained at the book-shops, says 
 that, in the matter of economy in dress, people are 
 apt to neglect one important consideration. They 
 should make their plans for three or four years, and 
 not for one. A man's overcoat, the garment which 
 a woman wears for the same purpose, furs, arctics, 
 underclothing, are bought, not for twelve months, 
 but for a longer period. And my adviser says (in 
 1886) : " Your pupils will come to grief if they buy 
 clothing simply for this year, as if there were never 
 to be any 1887. That year will certainly come, 
 
334 
 
 How to Live 
 
 and the plan for clothing must be made broad 
 enough to cover it. We cannot wear our old 
 clothes always, as Mr. Thoreau bids us, but, on the 
 other hand, much of our clothing must be bought 
 with reference to long usefulness. Impress upon 
 them all the necessity of constant care of their 
 clothing. The question whether a coat lasts two 
 hundred days or one hundred and fifty is deter- 
 mined simply by the care with which it is kept." 
 
 III. Shall I contend against the fashion, or sub- 
 mit to it? 
 
 If the fashion tampers with the health, you must 
 stand against it. But this is not apt to happen. 
 It does not happen nearly so often as the careless 
 writers say. Fashion in most instances follows 
 some general law, and is justified by considera- 
 tions which do not at first present themselves. 
 " Let us not treat fashion too gravely, nor let us 
 magnify its inevitable importance by railing at it. 
 In its essence it is not a disease, to be eradicated ; 
 it is rather a passion of the human soul, liable like 
 all passions to constant abuse, which must be 
 regulated, and exercised in due balance with the 
 other forces which go to make our life." These 
 are the words of Mr. William Weeden, who has 
 had the opportunity, which only a great manu- 
 facturer of textiles has, to know the dispositions of 
 fashion year by year. He says, again : — 
 
 " The devotees of fashion are voluntary pioneers 
 — the few who explore the new possibilities of 
 dress and freely give to the slow and sober many 
 
How to Dress 335 
 
 the benefit of their dearly bought experience. For 
 example, remember the impression we all received 
 from the long ulster overcoat when it first ap- 
 peared on the fops a few years since. It seemed 
 to be a preposterous caricature of a garment. But 
 we soon found our conservative notion was a mis- 
 take ingrained by the custom of short coats. Now 
 these garments are common as any, adapted in 
 price to the means of car drivers and laborers, as 
 well as of the dandies who introduced them ; and 
 they afford a comfort needed in the fickle fierce- 
 ness of our climate." 
 
 Here is a fair illustration of the value of fashion 
 in the line of preserving health. The same may be 
 said, on the whole, of the compulsion of fashion in 
 making women wear thick shoes and boots. It 
 must be confessed that at the same time fashion 
 ruins their gait and indeed abridges their exercise 
 by lifting the heel absurdly. But, as has been 
 said, the questions of detail are not to be discussed 
 here. So far as women's dress is concerned, the 
 questions regarding health in the dress of women 
 are so well discussed by Miss Woolson and others, 
 in what is the standard treatise on dress reform, 
 that I will not attempt them in detail. People 
 who want to study the subject must obtain Lady 
 Haberton's tracts and papers also. 
 
 IV. Mr. Emerson's verdict on American dress 
 is interesting, as coming from an unprejudiced 
 observer, quite willing to tell the whole truth ; and 
 whoever is tempted to make repression the only 
 
336 How to Live 
 
 rule in the management of costume should note 
 what he says of the effect of dress in " levelling 
 up " the person who has been used to mean ap- 
 parel. Mr. Emerson says : — 
 
 " One word or two in regard to dress, in which 
 our civilization instantly shows itself. No nation 
 is dressed with more good sense than ours, and 
 everybody sees certain moral benefit in it. When 
 the young European emigrant, after a summer's 
 labor, puts on for the first time a new coat, he 
 puts on much more. His good and becoming 
 clothes put him on thinking that he must behave 
 like people who are so dressed, and silently and 
 steadily his behavior mends. But quite another 
 class of our own youth I should remind, of dress 
 in general, that some people need it and others 
 need it not. Thus a king or a general does not 
 need a fine coat, and a commanding person may 
 save himself all solicitude on that point. There 
 are always slovens in State street or Wall Street, 
 who are not less considered. If a man have 
 manners and talent, he may dress roughly and 
 carelessly. It is only when mind and character 
 slumber that the dress can be seen. If the intel- 
 lect were always awake, and every noble sentiment, 
 the man might go in huckaback or mats, and his 
 dress would be admired and imitated. Remember 
 George Herbert's maxim, ' This coat with my dis- 
 cretion will be brave.' If, however, a man has 
 not firm nerves, and has keen sensibility, it is 
 perhaps a wise economy to go to a good shop 
 
How to Dress 337 
 
 and dress himself irreproachably. He can then 
 dismiss all care from his mind, and may easily find 
 that performance an addition of confidence, a for- 
 tification that turns the scale in social encounters, 
 and allows him to go gayly into conversation 
 where else he had been dry and embarrassed. I 
 am not ignorant. I have heard with admiring 
 submission the experience of the lady who de- 
 clared that ' the sense of being perfectly well 
 dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquillity which 
 religion is powerless to bestow.' " 
 
 This is to be remembered as a corrective when- 
 ever some preposterous fashion, like that which 
 slaughters fourteen million song-birds in a year 
 for women's hats, makes the prophets speak of the 
 law of " dress " as wicked in itself. To quote Mr. 
 Weeden again : The stimulus given in all classes 
 by the fashion " is the one social stimulus most 
 profound in its source and most far reaching in its 
 effects. Better culture makes the home the centre 
 of social ambition and surrounds it with the fruits 
 of personal sacrifice, including the offerings of 
 dress and personal adornment. But in the early 
 stages of individual growth there is no principle 
 of social emulation so potent in the average man 
 and woman as the desire ' to look like folks.' " 
 
 V. All that we have said thus far may be con- 
 sidered equally by men and women. In the phi- 
 lippics of the press and pulpit on the follies of 
 fashion, women generally receive the brunt of the 
 attack in our day. In such absurdities as this of 
 
 22 
 
338 How to Live 
 
 the song-birds, they certainly deserve it. But it 
 is probable that taking the world in general, the 
 passion for good dress is quite as strong with men 
 as with women. It certainly shows itself more 
 among men than among women in savage tribes, 
 where by virtue of their superior force, men are 
 more apt to have their own way than they are in 
 countries which have attained some share of Chris- 
 tian civilization. Speaking of civilized fashions, 
 Mr. Weeden says : " There is never absent from 
 our present apparel a slight sex relationship, and 
 this expresses itself very curiously. A new color 
 in male garments is now almost always introduced 
 by imitating a feminine fashion. But I have never 
 known the ladies to take a color from our side. 
 On the other hand, forms of garments seem to be 
 more essentially masculine and to be often copied 
 by feminine taste. The billycock hat, peajacket 
 or roundabout, long ulster coat, and buttoned 
 gaiter-boot, the stiff linen collar with cravat, the 
 riding hat, and other ladies' - fashions which will 
 suggest themselves, are adopted from the male cos- 
 tume. I remember no instance in our time where 
 men have borrowed a form from their sisters." 
 
 Perhaps the whole matter may be abridged in a 
 single remark of his. He says that " the draperies 
 of Phidias have clothed the human form forever, 
 and admit of no change or improvement. But if 
 these be the epics of history and culture, the 
 woman of the time, the perfectly dressed lady, is 
 the lyric of her own period and breathes forth the 
 
How to Dress 339 
 
 best expression which that time is capable of. 
 Color softens form, and we can have social color 
 only from instantaneous and changing life. That 
 indescribable something, that grace more beauti- 
 ful than beauty, will utter itself only in the well- 
 bred lady, and she will be well dressed because 
 she is well-bred." 
 
 VI. There is one detail which cannot be passed 
 by in any consideration of the general subject of 
 dress, which did not come into the range of topics 
 which Miss Ward discussed in her article. She 
 had no occasion to refer to the questions regarding 
 " mourning " and its place in the customs of Chris- 
 tian civilization. 
 
 It can hardly be denied that a person in great 
 grief for the recent death of a friend will wish to 
 apprise other persons whom he meets that he 
 has suffered such a bereavement, by some sign 
 readily noticed at the first meeting. There are a 
 hundred good reasons why such a signal should be 
 given, and those who give it and those who profit 
 by it have an equal interest in preserving customs 
 which give such a signal. Such signals are given 
 in dresses which bear the signs called " mourning." 
 
 When this has been said, however, probably all 
 has been said on which this custom of " mourn- 
 ing " can rest, if it is to be tested by its utility. 
 Probably, also, it cannot be urged that the origin 
 of the custom is to be found in the simple wish to 
 give such visible sign of sorrow. The origin of 
 the custom is to be found in the self-humiliation 
 
34° How to Live 
 
 which wore sack-cloth arid scattered ashes on the 
 head, when one was conscious of sin and wished 
 to acknowledge the wrath of a supreme God, 
 before whom he would not even appear to con- 
 tend. In such a mortification and confession of 
 failure came in the custom of which the only relic 
 now is to be found in the mourning habiliments 
 worn on occasions of sorrow. 
 
 It must, however, be thoughtfully remembered 
 by people who are attempting to guide social life 
 under Christian agencies and principles, that with 
 the Life and Light of the Gospel, no such view of 
 death remains as is intimated in these customs of 
 a savage religion. We do not now regard the 
 death of a friend as a punishment imposed by God 
 on any folly or frailty of ours. Often we regard 
 it as promotion to a higher field of service; 
 always we believe it is ordered in a Providence 
 which understands life much better than we do. 
 We submit to that Providence, and do not measure 
 our wishes against its conclusions. We do not 
 wish, therefore, to wear sack-cloth in token of our 
 wickedness or failure, or as a confession that we 
 have struck our colors in a contest where we have 
 been in the wrong. 
 
 Reserving, then, the right to ourselves to indicate 
 by quietness of costume, or by some badge easily 
 understood, that we have suffered loss by the death 
 of a friend, perhaps that we do not want to be asked 
 to go into scenes of special gayety or excitement, 
 we must, in consistency, carry this custom of 
 
How to Dress 341 
 
 " mourning " but very little further from mere 
 deference to the habit of the community. If that 
 habit comes, as it certainly does in the case of 
 " mourning," from a lower notion of religion than 
 ours, it is our business to modify it and improve it. 
 This we do best, not by writing essays about it, 
 but by abstaining, when occasion comes, from any 
 change of costume, excepting such as shall give 
 to friends the immediate intimation, to which they 
 are entitled, that we have sustained a bereavement. 
 Any thoughtful person who leads the social 
 customs or opinions of the town in which he lives 
 will find ample reason for considering this duty 
 very carefully. The expense which is thrown on 
 the poor by the custom of " mourning," at the 
 very moment when the expense of sickness and 
 death is hardest to bear, is a very serious matter 
 in the economics of those to whom economy is a 
 difficult business. The lead given by five of 
 the ladies most highly considered in the town is the 
 lead which will be followed by five thousand of the 
 people who have least money to spend on black 
 crape and other " luxuries of woe." Even if one's 
 personal wish, at the time of bereavement, would 
 be to drift with the current, to let one's friends 
 " do what they choose about dress, if only they will 
 let me alone," still there is a duty to the public of 
 the place in which you live. That duty is to re- 
 strict to the very smallest conditions the tokens of 
 " mourning" which you place on your costumes as 
 an indication that you have lost a friend by death. 
 
342 
 
 How to Live 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 HOW TO DEAL WITH ONE'S CHILDREN 
 
 IN Miss Edgeworth's sequel to " Frank," there is 
 a conversation between Frank's father, who had no 
 other name, and the Engineer, who had no name, 
 on the education of children. The conversation 
 did not belong in the story, but Miss Edgeworth 
 forced it in because it contains the essence of her 
 theory and her father's, and she wanted to force it 
 upon people who would not read their longer trea- 
 tise on that subject. That treatise itself, now gene- 
 rally forgotten, is commended to conscientious and 
 affectionate parents. 
 
 In this talk between Frank's father and the En- 
 gineer, Frank's father says that he has himself 
 taught Frank to ride on horseback, because he 
 wanted the boy in after life always to associate the 
 pleasure he took in riding with the memory of his 
 father. He confesses that he is jealous of any one 
 else who should come between him and his son in 
 that business. 
 
 Frank's father has a right to this gratitude of 
 his son and the pleasure connected with it, because 
 he is his father. And a very important principle 
 of education is involved in the declaration. 
 
 Make your children your companions, as far as 
 
How to Deal with one's Children 343 
 
 you possibly can. This is the practical statement 
 which is involved in the principle. 
 
 There is a certain danger, not much but enough 
 to be considered, that the Juggernaut tyranny of a 
 great public-school system may do something to 
 crush out that natural tenderness which ought to 
 bind children and parents, parents and children, in 
 one. Thus, of necessity, the school hours must 
 be fixed, and they are unchangeable. All home 
 hours have to conform to them. In bad schools 
 there will be evening lessons sent home. Of 
 course these must be learned, and so much time is 
 thus taken from home intimacies, duties, and plea- 
 sures. Because this is all so, it is all the more 
 necessary in America that fathers and mothers 
 shall watchfully keep close to their children, and 
 keep the children close to them, by any device in 
 amusement, in study, in daily work. There is no 
 fear but the children will gladly hold on upon their 
 share in this companionship. 
 
 Suppose a growing family, of half a dozen chil- 
 dren of all ages, from fourteen down. Suppose 
 such a family in a city of the comfortable size, not 
 too large or too small, such a city as the Spring- 
 fields, or Akron, or Syracuse. Evening comes. 
 Supper is over and there are two hours before the 
 bed-time of the older children. What are these 
 boys and girls to do, and what is their mother to 
 do? 
 
 It is perfectly in her power to go Monday eve- 
 ning to a progressive euchre party, on Tuesday 
 
344 
 
 How to Live 
 
 evening to a mothers' meeting, on Wednesday even- 
 ing to Mrs. Jones' party, on Thursday evening to 
 the regular prayer-meeting, on Friday evening to 
 the theatre, and on Saturday evening she may, with 
 her husband, return the Fillebrowns' call. 
 
 On his part, her husband may go out to " the 
 store " every evening but Saturday, with such in- 
 terruptions as are made necessary by the lodges, 
 the " committee," the prayer-meeting, the caucus, 
 and the visits of his customers from the country. 
 
 If, with or without consideration, father and 
 mother do take these courses, whoever leaves the 
 children last will say, " Now be good children, be 
 careful with the lamp, be sure you do not sit up 
 too late, and, Jane, I wish you would give the baby 
 her drops when you go to bed." 
 
 The children will then follow the example of 
 their parents as well as they can. Tom and Dick 
 will roam the streets with the other boys who have 
 like liberty, and make such acquaintanceship as 
 Satan or any other power may suggest, in the 
 stables, saloons, and mock-auction rooms. Jane 
 and Olivia will do likewise, as far as they dare and 
 can, — they will perhaps go across and sit on the 
 door-steps with Fanny and Matilda, till the time of 
 their parents' return approaches. 
 
 After ten years the general verdict of the neigh- 
 bors will be surprise that, considering Mr. and Mrs. 
 Jones were such truly excellent people, their chil- 
 dren should have " turned out " so wretchedly. 
 
 On the other hand, it is quite possible for Mrs. 
 
How to Deal with one's Children 345 
 
 Jones to look this matter of companionship with 
 her children fairly in the face, once for all. She 
 may say, " These children are bone of my bone and 
 blood of my blood. Their life is my life. They 
 will, probably, be more like me in tastes, in dis- 
 positions, and in faculties, than any other people 
 in the world. I choose them for my life-compan- 
 ions. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, 
 in joy or in sorrow, they and I will rough along 
 together." 
 
 This resolution will, at first, cost Mrs. Jones some 
 serious self-denials. If she is living in the town 
 where she grew up, it will separate her widely 
 from " the other girls." That separation, however, 
 really came the day she was married, and she 
 promised then, with a good deal of solemnity, that 
 she would meet it and all that it involved. 
 
 Because she makes this resolution, to take the 
 case named in our concrete instance, she does not 
 go to the progressive euchre party Monday even- 
 ing. She stays at home, and the children are 
 with her. They are with her, of course. They al- 
 ways have spent their evenings with her. They hate 
 to go anywhere else, or to be anywhere else. In 
 a household to which my memory runs back, as I 
 write, she places a central lamp on a large table, 
 as soon as supper is done ; the children, perfectly 
 by system, draw up their chairs to the table, and 
 she provides for them her stores of entertainment : 
 dominoes, checkers, chess men, backgammon- 
 boards, games of this and that, such as have accu- 
 
346 How to Live 
 
 mulated for years. Each child has a pencil ready 
 cut, and a sheet of paper to draw upon, as cer- 
 tainly as he would have had bread or milk at sup- 
 per. In these days it is easy to add a box of 
 water-colors or of colored crayons. For the little 
 children she has all the simpler arrangements of 
 the kindergarten : the clay for modelling, the cut 
 paper for weaving. It is no burden to her, but a 
 pleasure, to oversee the evening's entertainment, 
 varied a hundred fold, which takes care of itself 
 where such provision is made for it; she becomes 
 the right hand of each boy and girl, more than 
 guide, more than philosopher, more than friend. 
 She has her reward. For those children grow into 
 a passionate love for her. They know how young 
 she is, and how perfect is her sympathy with them. 
 And every word she has to speak to them of warn- 
 ing, of advice, of request or command is sure to tell. 
 
 She has made herself their companion, and has 
 made them hers. 
 
 As we live it is not always so easy for a father 
 to do exactly the same thing in the same way. 
 
 But let him remember, as this mother did, that 
 the children are bone of his bone, blood of his 
 blood, that his life is theirs. Let him be on the 
 lookout for chances to have them with him, and to 
 interest them in his affairs. 
 
 James Mill, the author of the " History of In- 
 dia" and first editor of the Westminster Review, 
 was a man of letters. Literature, or the writing of 
 books, was his business. 
 
How to Deal with one's Children 347 
 
 If there is any business which is supposed to 
 separate a father from his children, it is this. How 
 often it is said to a boy, " Don't disturb your 
 father, because he is writing." 
 
 But Mill never said so. He sat at one end of 
 the study table, his boy sat at the other. The boy 
 studied his Latin, and if he did not know how to 
 read a sentence, he asked his father, and his father 
 told him. On the other hand, if the father had a 
 list of generals or of ships to copy, I do not doubt 
 he pushed it across the table, and told the boy to 
 copy it. That is the way in which John Stuart 
 Mill was trained ; and I have not observed in all 
 the machinery of our generation, high schools, in- 
 termediate schools, preparatory, second primary, 
 or third secondary schools, any way which has im- 
 proved on that specimen of training for literature 
 and literary work. 
 
 The great advantage of farm work, as a school 
 for the training of men, is that it admits so many 
 chances for the father and his sons to be together. 
 It is "we" who do it; the boy rides the horse 
 while the father holds the plow, or the little boy 
 drops the potatoes while a bigger boy and the 
 father cover them and make the hills. 
 
 The Chautauqua system shows no finer result 
 than when a father comes with his daughter and 
 his son for the diplomas which they have won 
 together, by reading in the same course for four 
 years. 
 
 " Where there 's a will there 's a way." And the 
 
348 How to Live 
 
 father who will remember that he has a better 
 right to his son, and a nearer, than any school- 
 board or school-master, will be on the lookout for 
 good occasions for companionship. 
 
 " George, I am going out with Mr. Tapeandrod 
 to measure the lines where they are going to make 
 the new reservoir. You can come with us." 
 
 If the boy belongs to a high-pressure regulation 
 school of the seventh power, he will say, " Father, 
 I am very sorry, but we have to present to-morrow 
 a map of Italy drawn from memory and colored, 
 with all the names we can remember written in." 
 
 It is precisely at this point that the intelligent 
 father knows how to have his own way, without 
 appearing to interfere with the discipline of the 
 school. He does not give way, however. He takes 
 the boy with him, and the boy enters into his life. 
 Because the boy is his boy, the boy goes with him 
 about his business. If it is necessary, they both 
 get out of bed an hour earlier than usual the next 
 morning, and the father shows the boy how to 
 stretch the paper for the map, how to mix his 
 tints, how to measure his parallels and meridians. 
 The principle again is Companionship, just as far 
 as companionship is possible. He enters into his 
 boy's pursuits, and his boy enters into his. 
 
 All this does not mean that the business of edu- 
 cation or any business of the house is carried on 
 by what we call in New England " a caucus." The 
 regulation of education and the regulation of all 
 the affairs of the family are to be made by the 
 
How to Deal with one's Children 349 
 
 father and the mother. If they are sensible people, 
 they will explain, particularly to the elder children, 
 their reasons for making this or that decision. But 
 they do this that it may be the easier for the chil- 
 dren to adapt themselves to the decision, and they 
 must not give the lower house any reason to think 
 that it has a veto on the upper house ; or that if 
 the two houses disagree, the arrangement pro- 
 posed will not go into effect. It is hardly neces- 
 sary to discuss here the reasons for this statement. 
 It is enough to say that in action no executive 
 office should ever be intrusted to a large board. 
 The executive office must be in the hands of one 
 person. And, in this very case, the husband would 
 not consult with the wife nor the wife with the 
 husband, unless in simple truth, and not in meta- 
 phor, the husband and wife were really one. 
 
 But if they are to explain the reasons to the 
 children, there must be some reasons to explain. 
 They must not be running for luck. They must, 
 in the essential things, as we have seen in other 
 papers of this series, have certain determinations. 
 It does not follow, even, that these determinations 
 are the same for one child as for another, but we 
 must know what we are about. 
 
 Here is Harry, for instance, who evidently has a 
 facility for language, but is slow in mathematics 
 and quite indifferent to outward nature. Most 
 school-masters will want to let that boy run where 
 he runs easily, and to " ease-off " as far as they 
 can on the natural history and on his mathematical 
 
350 How to Live 
 
 studies. But other teachers, especially those of 
 the variety, too large, who like to make school dis- 
 agreeable, will want to press him on the lines where 
 he works with difficulty, to develop his dormant 
 activities on those sides, and in a word, to do what 
 they can to restore the balance which nature has 
 left unadjusted. 
 
 Now there is a great deal to be said on each side, 
 and you must make your decision for each sepa- 
 rate child whom God gives you. But none the less 
 must you make it. When you have made it you 
 must hold to it long enough to give to it a reason- 
 able trial. " Go not from house to house." Spare 
 the boy or girl, in after life, the miserable reflection 
 that he or she was made the victim of every sys- 
 tem of education which happened to come up in 
 the period of childhood and youth. 
 
 There will be found scattered through Mrs. But- 
 ler's * reminiscences and other writings, many sug- 
 gestions as to education, which are worth note. 
 She says somewhere, rather bitterly, that women 
 are in general, of nature, only too well disposed to 
 turn from topic to topic, from one occupation to an- 
 other, and in general to look superficially on that 
 which they study. She says that in the arrange- 
 ment of women's schools this tendency has been 
 acknowledged and yielded to, so that a girl is en- 
 couraged, or directed, to study a little French, a 
 little Italian, a little Latin, a little grammar, a little 
 arithmetic, a little music, a little drawing, a little 
 
 1 Mrs. Frances Anne Kemble Butler. 
 
How to Deal with one's Children 351 
 
 painting, — in short, a little of almost everything 
 which can be named. On the other hand, she says, 
 the average boy who receives the best education 
 is kept sternly at his Latin, Greek, and mathe- 
 matics, and thus gains, at the very outset, the 
 habit of concentration which in itself gives him 
 strength for whatever he has to do in life. This 
 remark, which was made forty years ago, could 
 not be so broadly made now as it was then. For 
 in the better schools for women there is much 
 more concentration than there was in the old- 
 fashioned "ladies' seminary; " and the more im- 
 portant schools for boys are, on the other hand, 
 yielding on this very point, and give the boys a 
 choice in a much wider range than the three 
 studies which she indicates. But the remark is 
 worth citing, because it probably indicates the 
 side on which danger lies. 
 
 We should never forget that we send these chil- 
 dren to school, not so much to learn facts as to 
 learn how to learn them. Of course there are 
 some central facts which they must learn : as that 
 three times three is nine, and that a b spells ab. 
 But the principal business of education is to start 
 boy and girl with aptitude, desire, and strength to 
 follow, each in the right way, the line of life which 
 he or she may have to follow. It is somewhat 
 risky to give them " eleven weeks of botany," 
 " eleven weeks of entomology," " eleven weeks of 
 geology," " Spanish in six lessons," "Italian in 
 six lessons," " French in six lessons," if we mean 
 
352 How to Live 
 
 that they shall gain, in young life the persistent 
 power of enduring to the end to which only does 
 victory come. 
 
 Fathers and mothers must remember what Mr. 
 Hamerton says vulgar parents are apt to forget. 
 It is this : that a child may be born to you of 
 tastes, faculties, and consequent predispositions 
 entirely unlike your own. So far as these matters 
 depend on descent, it frequently happens that a 
 child inherits qualities from a grandfather or great 
 grandfather which do not appear in the generations 
 between. Now if this happens, your problem is 
 entirely different from what it is with a mother 
 who has a daughter just like herself, or when a 
 father has a son who shares all his tastes and 
 habits, and falls directly into his concerns. One 
 often sees parents who are puzzled in the problem 
 thus presented to them, and quite at loss how to 
 meet it. But as soon as you have found out that 
 there is such a difference in " make-up" as has 
 been described, the problem is much easier. " Put 
 yourself in his place " is the rule which applies 
 here, as it applies in every other point in Christian 
 ethics. The whole matter is very well discussed in 
 Mr. Hamerton's essay on " Fathers and Sons," — 
 an essay which closes with these words : — 
 
 " The best satisfaction for a father is to deserve 
 and receive loyal and unfailing respect from his son. 
 
 "No, this is not quite the best, not quite the 
 supreme satisfaction of paternity. Shall I reveal 
 the secret that lies in silence at the very bottom of 
 
How to Deal with one's Children 353 
 
 the hearts of all worthy and honorable fathers? 
 Their profoundest happiness is to be able them- 
 selves to respect their sons." 
 
 Are we not, indeed, always wishing to enlarge 
 the range of home-life and to lift its plane so that 
 the prospect may be more extensive ? We are glad 
 to have a new picture on the walls, a new book on 
 the shelves, and in any way to get more extensive 
 outlook upon this world and all other worlds. Now 
 what addition to the life of a home can be equal to 
 this of a new person gaining in resources every 
 day, who has faculties of observation and, indeed, 
 methods of life which were wholly unknown to us 
 before? Here is your daughter, who has brought 
 into the house from the Virginia creeper two or 
 three great beasts which you hate to look upon. 
 They are dirty, you think them ugly, and to you 
 they are in every sense detestable. She pets them 
 as you would pet canary birds. Now there is a 
 very great temptation to you to say that she shall 
 not have these filthy things in her room. You do 
 not like them, therefore she shall not like them. 
 That is the very simple logic. But really this is 
 simply the logic of that father whose two ears 
 vibrate to two different key-notes ; who says, there- 
 fore, that all music is detestable, and his children 
 shall not learn to sing or play the violin or the 
 piano. 
 
 If the children have an ear for music, if, as has 
 been said in another paper of this series, they are 
 fond of it so as to be willing and strong to conquer 
 
 23 
 
354 How to Live 
 
 the difficulties and do the work required, you must 
 encourage them to do so, whether your ear is 
 accurate or no. And in exactly the same way and 
 for exactly the same reason you must tolerate 
 Ellen's tastes, with her caterpillars, her butterflies, 
 her eggs, her cocoons, and all the rest of it. You 
 must loyally put yourself in her place, as far as 
 you can, help her as far as you can, and encourage 
 her. Let her have all the joy of sympathy and 
 never make her think she is a rebel. You can 
 help her in a thousand ways. And on her part, 
 she must learn to persevere to the end, to hold on 
 to that which she begins upon, to do neatly, 
 thoroughly, and steadily what she does at all. 
 She is to feel also, that these are no matters of 
 hap-hazard, to be begun to-day, and forgotten to- 
 morrow. Remind yourself, also, every day, that 
 the boy has an individual existence of his own. 
 Do not group him with "the children" or "the 
 boys," but grant to him, as a separate being, what 
 that being needs. This remark includes a difficult 
 duty. It is that father and mother recollect how they 
 felt themselves at ten years or at twelve years, — 
 and overcome the very natural habit of making the 
 children younger or less capable than they really 
 are. 
 
 There is a capital little treatise by Mr. Jacob 
 Abbott, " Gentle Measures in the Management of 
 the Young," which contains a great deal of practi- 
 cal suggestion, which inexperienced parents will 
 do well to consider, digest, and remember. Much 
 
How to Deal with one's Children 355 
 
 of the same philosophy, all based on a simple and 
 intelligent religion, will be found in the Franconia 
 books and the Rollo books. It is the fashion to 
 laugh at these books now, but it will be long be- 
 fore Young America has better reading. It is in 
 one of the Franconia books that the rule is laid 
 down for family education, which really applies in 
 all legislation and in all life : " If you grant, grant 
 cheerfully, — if you refuse, refuse finally." This 
 means that your children are to understand that you 
 have not given your directions thoughtlessly, and 
 that importunity, or what they would call " teasing," 
 is not going to change the decision. As you watch 
 the children on a hotel piazza in summer, in their 
 intercourse with their mothers, you can tell in a 
 minute whether the mothers live by this rule or do 
 not. One set of children will expect to carry their 
 points by making fuss enough about them, while 
 the other set will accept the inevitable at once, and 
 make their arrangements accordingly. This latter 
 set, it may be said in passing, are not only the bet- 
 ter children of the two, but they are in fact, the 
 happier; they get a great deal more out of life. 
 
 It is to be observed, however, that the two parts 
 of Mr. Abbott's rule belong together. If you 
 mean to refuse finally in this case, you ought to 
 grant liberally in that. And this is from no 
 wretched plan of barter. It is not that you say, " I 
 bought the right to forbid your swimming to-day 
 by letting you go fishing yesterday." That is all 
 very wretched and mean. But you do want to feel 
 
356 How to Live 
 
 yourself, and you want your children to feel, that on 
 the whole you have great confidence in them. To 
 speak very seriously, you know they are children 
 of God and that you can trust them very largely. 
 If they feel that — because you have granted lib- 
 erally — they will also feel, when the refusal comes, 
 that you have reason for the refusal, and that they 
 must assent to it. It is very important that they 
 should understand that it is not a matter of whim. 
 
 In all this serious discussion of principles it must 
 be remembered that every hour is going to bring 
 up what seem to be abnormal or exceptional cases. 
 The tide does not rise on the beach without con- 
 stant backward flow of separate waves and storms 
 of spray — drops blown right and left in every con- 
 ceivable direction. Mr. Emerson's great law, 
 therefore, should never be forgotten. It is the 
 same law which many a nice old grandmother has 
 laid down for many a care-worn young mother 
 terrified by the infinite requisitions of her first 
 baby. " Dear child," the old lady says, and says 
 very wisely, " you must get along as well as you 
 can." Mr. Emerson uses almost the same words 
 in one of his rather celebrated aphorisms. The 
 authority for the statement is easily found and re- 
 membered. For if you really trust the Holy Spirit, 
 He will teach you in that same hour what you 
 shall say and what you shall speak. 
 
 The present help of a good God has everything 
 to do with the education of children, if we loyally 
 trust to it. 
 
How to Deal with one's Children 357 
 
 Dr. Francis Wayland had in his study, on the 
 morning of a college examination day, an anxious 
 mother who had brought her son from home to be 
 entered at Brown University. She was " weeping 
 and wailing " about the probable dangers to which 
 she must leave him in his college life, when Dr. 
 Wayland, who was the president of the college, 
 took his turn in the conversation. 
 
 " Madam," said he, " do you suppose God Al- 
 mighty has forgotten your boy ? " 
 
 She said with some sobs that she did not. 
 
 "Nor do I," said he. "Thus far he has edu- 
 cated his boy with you, and now he proposes to 
 educate him without you." 
 
 Any serious man or woman, who will recollect 
 how many valuable lessons he has learned and how 
 many permanent blessings he has received for which 
 he cannot find that any human forethought pro- 
 vided, will be ready to accept Dr. Wayland's lesson. 
 
 We will lay down such general principles as we 
 can; from hour to hour we will keep our eyes 
 open to do as well as we can. 
 
 And at the same time we will acknowledge that 
 a good God is caring for us and our children, and 
 will order for them some things which we could 
 not devise. 
 
358 How to Live 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 HOW TO REMAIN YOUNG 
 
 IT was very early intimated in these papers that, 
 if they were properly wrought out, each one of 
 them would prove necessary to every other. The 
 careful reader has observed that, in any practical 
 rules for life given in any one of them, it is taken 
 for granted that he who is to apply that rule has 
 applied the others. That is to say, so far as a 
 system of life is suggested here, or the mere skele- 
 ton of a system, each part is necessary to each 
 other. It is not pretended that any part of the 
 system will stand alone. 
 
 The suggestion was made, in caucus, that in 
 this series of papers one chapter should be de- 
 voted to instructions " how to grow old." So 
 soon as this scheme was announced to a person 
 who has proved herself a wise counsellor of our 
 time, she said that that chapter must be comple- 
 mented by the chapter which the reader now has 
 in hand : " How to Remain Young." 
 
 It is to be taken for granted that no one ap- 
 proaches our discussion of this question with any 
 expectation of profit, unless he has fairly applied 
 our previous directions. It is supposed, for in- 
 stance, that he has accustomed himself, through 
 
How to Remain Young 359 
 
 life, to sleep regularly, to sleep well, and to sleep 
 enough. It is supposed that he is trained as a 
 total abstainer from intoxicating liquors, and that 
 in general he has his physical appetites under 
 sharp and hard control. It is supposed that he 
 takes regular exercise in the open air every day 
 of his life. It is supposed that he has formed 
 many personal habits the importance of which is 
 not less than these now named, which have been 
 discussed in earlier papers; it is supposed that 
 these habits are indeed a second nature to him 
 now, so that obedience to them does not require 
 a separate effort of the will, but follows as a mat- 
 ter of course, as if it were by native impulse. 
 Granted these conditions, it is not so hard for 
 people to remain young as sceptics say. 
 
 I. The writer of these lines once placed in the 
 hands of a venerable lady, who at seventy years of 
 age was one of the youngest people in the circle 
 of her friends, the questions proposed in that 
 amusing game which is called " Moral Photog- 
 raphy." In this game you ask your friends to 
 write, promptly and without deliberation, the 
 answers to twenty questions about their tastes; 
 such questions as, "What is your favorite flower?" 
 "Who is your favorite poet?" "Who is your 
 favorite hero ? " On the list which I gave to my 
 venerable friend was the question, "What is your 
 favorite amusement?" to which she replied imme- 
 diately, writing, I may say, in utter blindness, 
 " Hearing young people talk." 
 
360 How to Live 
 
 All her friends knew that this was true. All the 
 young people of the neighborhood knew it. They 
 knew that they were never snubbed when they 
 poured out before her their plans and hopes. 
 They knew that she would be interested when 
 they told her the story of last night's achieve- 
 ments, or yesterday's failures. If they asked ad- 
 vice, they knew that she could put herself in their 
 place. The consequence was that there was a 
 group of them, every afternoon, sitting around 
 her as she knitted in her chair, in the corner of 
 her cheerful and hospitable parlor. So far as 
 they were concerned, they had counsel, encour- 
 agement, and sympathy from one of the most 
 accomplished women of her time. And what con- 
 cerns us now is that she gained in that daily com- 
 munion with people whose bodies were not worn 
 out, and whose minds had not tried all the leading 
 experiments, the power to look out on the world 
 with eyes that were fresh and young, and to listen 
 with ears that were quick to apprehend. 
 
 The first precept is to keep much with the 
 young. For this, you must meet them half-way. 
 " Tom told me that you picked his birds for him 
 yesterday. Did not you hate to? " This was the 
 question put to Tom's aunt. Her answer was, 
 " Yes ! I hated to ; but I did not let Tom know 
 it. I like to walk with him and I like to have 
 him walk with me, and I did not mean as little 
 a thing as a drop of blood on my fingers should 
 deprive me of that pleasure." 
 
How to Remain Young 361 
 
 II. If one is to maintain this intercourse with 
 the young, he must in certain things live in their 
 life. What are those things to be? Do not make 
 the mistake of selecting for your common life with 
 them those occupations or amusements where 
 your declining physical strength contrasts only 
 against their boundless physical vigor. Do not 
 try to pull as good an oar as your young friend, 
 or to play tennis as well as he, or to shoot as 
 many squirrels, or to walk as far. Remember 
 that funny passage which I quoted from Mr. 
 Hamilton, of the contrast between the cow and 
 the antelope. There are plenty of other things 
 where we, who have the advantage of them in 
 years, also have the advantage of them in facility. 
 
 First among these is reading. Other things 
 being equal, a person of sixty reads to much 
 more advantage than a person of twenty. He 
 runs his eye over the page more rapidly, he skips, 
 which is to say he selects, more wisely, he rejects 
 nonsense more absolutely, and he knows the 
 meanings of words and understands unexplained 
 allusions more surely. Take care, then, to keep 
 up a line of reading, or perhaps more than one, 
 which will interest your young companions. You 
 will find very soon that you cannot force them to 
 read your favorite books by any expression of 
 your admiration. On the whole, every genera- 
 tion writes its own books, and you and I must 
 not struggle too hard against this law. Thus I 
 have long since given up trying to make my 
 
362 How to Live 
 
 young friends read Wordsworth, or, as I have said, 
 " Sartor Resartus." Fifty or sixty years ago 
 they moved all the young life of the English read- 
 ing world. And now all literature is so full of 
 the spirit which thus came in that the young 
 people find the original masters a little common- 
 place and slow. Do not try, then, to make the 
 young people read your books, but loyally and 
 sympathetically select certain lines in which you 
 will read the books of to-day, and keep more than 
 even, as you can, with your young friends. I 
 knew a charming woman who was not above keep- 
 ing jam and fruits in her pantry, and a box of 
 good French bonbons upon her table, because 
 she fancied that these carnal inducements tempted 
 boys and girls to look in and see her, perhaps not 
 knowing that they were tempted, on their way 
 home from school. Try that experiment on a 
 high grade. Take care that you have lying about 
 one or more of the very latest and freshest maga- 
 zines. For many years I had on my study table 
 a basket full of little pictures, riddle-cards, or- 
 namented envelopes, and such little toys, for the 
 children of my acquaintance to pick over. These 
 young people will come for explanation and in- 
 struction freely enough, just as soon as they find 
 that you are willing to give either, and that you 
 are really well up with the feeling, movement, and 
 thought of the day. 
 
 Oddly enough, young people who are just pass- 
 ing from childhood to manhood or womanhood, 
 
How to Remain Young 363 
 
 are generally for a few years very conservative. 
 What they know, which is not much, they have 
 learned chiefly from text-books at school, which 
 are, naturally enough, generally a few years be- 
 hind the times. Now to cut loose from these 
 acquisitions, which have cost them so much, and 
 which seem to them much more important than 
 they are, is very terrible to them, and you will 
 almost always find that, in serious talk about the 
 problems of the day, you are rather in advance of 
 their speculations. You are willing to swim out 
 into the sea, while they still have their sports upon 
 the beach, and are quite willing to paddle there. 
 
 III. Dr. James Jackson, one of the Nestors of 
 medical science in America, himself a wise and 
 useful counsellor of men till he was well-nigh 
 ninety, said that at sixty-five years of age a man 
 in good health is at the prime of his life. This is 
 probably true, though people do not generally 
 think so. Dr. Jackson said that at forty-five the 
 curve of a man's physical power began to decline. 
 Probably he might, in many instances, have fixed 
 that period earlier still. On the other hand, every 
 man gains in experience with every year, so long 
 as his memory serves him, and he gains with every 
 year the advantages, almost incalculable, which 
 result from doing those things by habit and of 
 course, which inexperienced people have to do by 
 constant will and effort. What Dr. Jackson called 
 " the curve of experience " is therefore always ris- 
 ing, — and, for many years of earthly life, the 
 
364 How to Live 
 
 man does what he does with more ease, though 
 he has not so much force with which to do it. 
 This is because he knows better how it should be 
 done. Now in a certain dim way, young people 
 are conscious of the truth of this law, even in the 
 midst of all that abounding physical strength and 
 unmeasured hope which in another paper I called 
 the omnipotence of seventeen. 
 
 To make the best of the power thus gained by 
 experience, we must use it unconsciously. We 
 must not be thinking of ourselves all the time. 
 Indeed, the less we think of ourselves the better, in 
 this matter as in most others. If I am to remain 
 young, I am to do so by virtue of certain infinite 
 qualities, which because they are infinite do not 
 change, which belong to me as a living child of a 
 living God. Now I share these qualities with Him, 
 and indeed with all men and women. Let me 
 make the best of them, then ; and let me refrain 
 from much bother or care about the special cir- 
 cumstances which surround me as an individual. 
 For if I fall to talking or thinking a great deal 
 about my appetite, my health, my sleep, my food, 
 my house, my clothes, or in general my belongings, 
 these are all things changeable from their very 
 nature, and belonging to that declining curve of 
 life which marks the increasing feebleness of the 
 physical man. By thinking of them or by talking 
 of them, I compel my young companions to leave 
 their own tropical land of exuberant life, that they 
 may go with me exploring a frozen and desolate 
 
How to Remain Young 365 
 
 region to whose habits they are not bred, and of 
 whose ways they know nothing. It is a great deal 
 better for me to join them, as I can, among their 
 palm trees and oranges and bananas and pome- 
 granates and roses, than it is for me to induce 
 them to poke about with me in the short summer 
 of Arctic exploration with such canned tomatoes 
 and pemmican as we can carry in our haversacks. 
 
 IV. But nobody ever forgot himself who had to 
 remember to forget himself. You must push the 
 little John Jones or Matilda Skimpole, who is read- 
 ing this paper, quite out of the way and think of 
 somebody larger, better, and less changeable ; and 
 you do this, not by saying, " I will push John Jones 
 out of the way," but by saying, " I will find the 
 something which is larger." 
 
 And here it is to be observed that as we advance 
 in life we have a better chance to observe outward 
 nature, and to study her methods and laws, than we 
 have even when we are young. " Nature always 
 gives us more than all she ever takes away." This 
 is John Sterling's way of saying that with every 
 day — and much more with every year — we en- 
 ter into the heart of nature, feel what is going on 
 in the infinite world of life, and sympathize with its 
 processes. 
 
 All this matter of experience helps us. For 
 with every additional observation you are the bet- 
 ter able to make the generalizations which unite 
 or harmonize all nature's processes. If you have 
 collected and pressed sea-weeds on the beach in 
 
366 How to Live 
 
 Nantucket in August, you will be all the more in- 
 terested in the fronds and leaves of ice which form 
 themselves upon your window-panes in the frosts of 
 January in Minnesota. There is no need of being 
 a professional naturalist. You may make yourself 
 a specialist if you will, but I should say it was quite 
 as well not to be a specialist. You want to see 
 how life runs through every part, and whatever 
 you know of life's triumphs in one way will help 
 you. The most interesting thing to me in Goethe's 
 little book on " Morphology," which is yet so great 
 a book, is that the observations made in it are the 
 observations which any one could make who had 
 the charge of what we call an old-fashioned gar- 
 den. I mean that there is nothing which requires 
 special instruments. There is no work with the 
 microscope, for instance. There is not even the 
 aggregation of a long series of careful observations, 
 noted down with mechanical care, and kept for 
 comparison. But there is, and that is what inter- 
 ests you, the habit of a man who never looked at 
 a thing without looking at the whole of it. He 
 handled a rose or a buttercup or an acorn as you 
 would handle your baby. He loved it and did not 
 mean to forget it, and never did forget it. And 
 when he found to-day some sport or trick in one 
 of his flowers which he had never noticed before, 
 he remembered another sport or trick which he 
 did notice ten years ago in some garden or forest, 
 and he connected the two. 
 
 All this does not mean that your study of nature 
 
How to Remain Young 367 
 
 is to be shallow or superficial. Precisely what I 
 would advise people to do, as they grow older, is 
 to select the side of natural science which interests 
 them most, and to try some " sub-soiling." Since 
 you were at school all modern life and thought 
 has been at work re-adjusting the conditions of 
 natural science. The fruit is all ready for you to 
 taste ; take it and eat it. Do not leave it like the 
 show fruit at a Horticultural Exhibition, but have 
 the good of it yourself. All these observers and 
 speculators have been at work for you. I heard 
 with delight, two years ago, of an old friend of 
 mine, who was living very happily and freshly 
 somewhere between eighty and ninety, who had 
 sent for some of the best school-books and cyclo- 
 pedias, that she might study the geography of 
 America. She said that when she went to school 
 they had the States of Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, 
 and Louisiana, west of the old thirteen, and the 
 rest was all the " Indian Territory" or the " Great 
 American Desert." Now that she had grandsons 
 in Montana and Alaska, I suppose, and grand- 
 daughters very likely in Idaho or in' Texas, she 
 wanted to know how to place them. And she 
 did not satisfy herself with any hand to mouth 
 provision. 
 
 My advice is well enough illustrated by this 
 story. If, for instance, you are fond of a garden 
 and have a garden, do not satisfy yourself with 
 carrying it on as you did thirty years ago. Take 
 the best gardening journal you can find, and study 
 
368 How to Live 
 
 it carefully. Send for the best books it refers you 
 to, and read them. " Determine," as we have said 
 so often, that in some one point at least that gar- 
 den shall be in the forefront. In something it shall 
 be a better garden than it could have been thirty 
 years ago. This means that because you have all 
 the minor disadvantages of being thirty years older, 
 you will have all the great advantages which belong 
 to your age. 
 
 I have spoken particularly of the study of nature 
 to illustrate the occupation by which you are to 
 keep yourself from thinking about yourself. It is 
 the best illustration, because life in the open air is 
 in itself so healthy and necessary, and also because 
 the American habits, particularly of the large 
 towns, drift so badly into life shut up in what are 
 almost prisons. The truth is that no life has 
 much chance for health or youth in which you 
 are not daily an hour or two in the open air, and 
 the more the better. But I do not mean that the 
 illustration, though it is a good one, is to suggest 
 the only form of the special avocation which you 
 are to take up, so as to feel that you are in the 
 front rank with the people of to-day. Albert 
 Gallatin took to studying the Indian languages ; I 
 remember a dear friend, who, at seventy, sent for 
 the best teacher of water color, and began on that 
 fascinating study. Look back on your life and see 
 where your dropped stitches are. Take up some 
 one of them. It may be some puzzle in history 
 which has been left for you to work out. It may 
 
How to Remain Young 369 
 
 be some obscure matter in literature, which you 
 can make interesting to yourself and instructive to 
 other people. Or there is some bit of science, 
 which you had to pass by when you were driving 
 the mills to do twenty-four hours' work in a day, 
 and now you have the leisure to attend to it. 
 Simply the rule is, select some one specific inter- 
 est which you will follow regularly, at least for one 
 hour a day, and in which you will be the equal or 
 the leader of all others. 
 
 And here is a reason why, as it seems to me, it 
 is a pity for men in advancing life wholly to " quit 
 business," as the familiar phrase is. Dr. Jackson's 
 instruction was this : " After a man is sixty-five, he 
 should not force himself to his duty." A doctor 
 should so arrange his work as not to be forced 
 to go out at night after that age. A lawyer 
 should satisfy himself with the consultations he 
 can have in his office, and with such other work as 
 he wants to do. A civil engineer must no longer 
 undertake a service which compels him to be in 
 the saddle six hours a day. If this advice is true, 
 an active business man should not, after he is 
 sixty-five, take the executive direction of the work 
 in hand in his establishment. But his value as a 
 counsellor is never greater than it is now. 
 
 We make a great mistake in America when we 
 lay our older men on the shelf while they are 
 still in their prime as counsellors. Benjamin Frank- 
 lin was sent to France as a minister when he was 
 seventy years old, and the best work he did for 
 
 24 
 
37° How to Live 
 
 his country, he did between his seventy-first and 
 seventy-eighth years. The State of New York 
 had an absurd statute which removed Chancellor 
 Kent from the bench because he was sixty- 
 five. After that time he wrote and published his 
 " Commentaries," a book recognized by every 
 lawyer and statesman as one of the most important 
 books in the study of our jurisprudence. So 
 much good did the country gain from one of the 
 frequent absurdities of New York legislation. In 
 England, Lord Palmerston and Mr. Gladstone are 
 recent instances, well remembered, of the force 
 which statesmen gain, almost by the law of geo- 
 metrical progression, from their memory of the 
 experiments which have succeeded and the ex- 
 periments which fail, — from what I called organic 
 connection with the national life of the last two 
 generations. 
 
 The truth is that the old analogies and some of 
 the old saws deceive us in our social conditions of 
 to-day, in which life is longer, and the human 
 frame in better order generally, than it was a 
 hundred years ago. Perhaps the lower races of 
 mankind, and the worst fed orders of society, do 
 not show much improvement in the passage of 
 centuries. But in the class of men and women 
 from which leaders are drawn, from which come 
 teachers, authors, law-givers, inventors, or, in gen- 
 eral, directors of society, these people are on the 
 average in better condition at seventy than their 
 ancestors were at sixty. They have a better chance 
 
How to Remain Young 371 
 
 for life, they have ten years more experience by 
 the measure of time; and by the measure of 
 amount they have a hundred times more. One 
 might not take the risk of conducting a great war, 
 with a Count Von Moltke at the head of one's 
 armies, when he is over eighty years old. But so 
 far as intellectual force goes, and immense expe- 
 rience, with the knowledge of men and certainty 
 what they will do, — so far as these go, the Em- 
 peror William has been wise in trusting his affairs 
 to Bismarck, though Bismarck be counted such a 
 very old man. Bismarck is no older at eighty 
 than was Richelieu at three score. 
 
 V. To resume very briefly our directions, he 
 who is to remain young is to think of himself very 
 little, to maintain the laws of health which he has 
 learned, to associate largely with young people, to 
 live much in the open air, and in some daily pur- 
 suit to try to keep even with the best inquiry of 
 his time. All this requires stern and firm moral 
 force. It requires, as has been said of many other 
 duties in these papers, resolution and determina- 
 tion, which belong only to sons and daughters of 
 God. If they mean to succeed in remaining 
 young, — if, for instance, they mean to carry out 
 such injunctions as have been here given, — they 
 must maintain their intimacy with Him. Their 
 daily affairs must be largely among those matters 
 which do not change, which are the same to-day 
 as they were when the sons of God first shouted 
 for joy. Such realities there are, and one need 
 
372 How to Live 
 
 not go far to see them. They are as easily found 
 by the dwellers in the cabin last built on a ranch 
 in Montana as they are in any palace in Euclid 
 Avenue, in Piccadilly, or in Rome. The man or 
 woman who finds these eternal realities, and lives 
 in them largely, remains, as a child of God should 
 do, forever young. 
 
Duty to the Church 373 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 DUTY TO THE CHURCH 
 [A letter from Randall Ely to Wallace Bishop.] 
 
 Sheridan City, Montana, Dec. 9, 1895. 
 
 My dear Wallace, — We are blocked in by 
 a first heavy storm. I am ready for it, and it 
 may snow as long as it wants to, for all me. 
 Among other excellent results, the snow gives me 
 a chance to write to you my long-promised long 
 letter. 
 
 What you say in both your last notes interests 
 me, not to say amuses me. For you are, literally, 
 just where I was here, nine years ago, though 
 you are only five hundred miles from your base, 
 which is Chicago, and I am nearly two thousand 
 from mine, which is New Haven. You are in a 
 lumber region; I am in a mining region. You are 
 seeing civilization begin ; I saw it begin. You are 
 nine years later in this business. Behold, as the 
 Frenchmen say, all the difference. 
 
 And now you want to know what you are to do 
 about the Church. That is just the question I had 
 to answer when I came here. 
 
 This place was wholly broken down. The old 
 company had blown up. They had sunk a lot of 
 
374 How to Live 
 
 money, literally; and, virtually, had never made 
 one cent. Their agents and engineers had hoped 
 to feather their own nests, and had not even done 
 that. They had gone away. There were a few 
 wretched cabins and shanties, in which perhaps 
 two hundred poor creatures hung round, really 
 because they did not know where to go to, — some 
 of them because they had some sort of property 
 here which they could not sell. 
 
 As to morals, — I do not say religion, — as to 
 decency even, or deference to any social standard, 
 there was no such thing, and never had been. 
 Your old joke, about the Laccadive islands, was 
 true here, "As for manners, they had none, and 
 their customs were very filthy." 
 
 One of the women put it to me once, in a word. 
 " Before your people came here," said she, " it 
 was Hell." And really it was. 
 
 I should be loath to say that the men in charge 
 before me planned the ruin of the men and women 
 here. But I cannot see that they planned their 
 good. And, I tell you, Wallace, there is eternal 
 truth in what Byron makes Satan say: 
 
 " He that bows not to God — has bowed to me." 
 
 These men — gentlemen, if you please — said 
 to themselves, consciously or unconsciously, " The 
 Company has employed us to make silver here, 
 to open these shafts and to get out this ore. Sil- 
 ver we will make, if we can. On week-days we 
 will work for the Company. BUT, Sundays are 
 
Duty to the Church 375 
 
 not the Company's. Sundays are ours, — for our- 
 selves. Sundays we will do as we choose, and 
 the pick-men, and the mule-boys, and their chil- 
 dren and their wives may do as they choose." 
 
 And if anybody had said that all these people 
 were going to the dogs, the gentlemen in charge 
 would have replied, " That is no concern of ours ; 
 we are here to make silver for the Company." 
 
 Well, I did not look at it in that way; and I 
 am glad to see that you do not. I am in the 
 same boat with these "people." If they go to the 
 bottom, I shall go to the bottom. And certainly I 
 do not think I shall save my soul if I sit by and 
 see them lose theirs. I had therefore the same 
 question to ask which you are asking. 
 
 Well, the organized Church of Christ, whether 
 at Rome, at Princeton, at Baltimore, or at Middle- 
 town did not do much to help me. But it 
 did something. In fact it did more than I sup- 
 posed it would do at the beginning. There was a 
 dear, dried-up little fellow — twice as old as I am 
 — who came round on a little burro he had, 
 about once in six weeks, and held a meeting 
 Sundays. Afterwards, as soon as I gave any 
 signal, I found no lack of fellows among our- 
 selves, most of them good fellows, who were 
 willing to lend a hand. 
 
 I came here two or three weeks before my wife 
 did. The plan was that I should make ready for 
 her. As the second Sunday came on I heard 
 that this Elder Breen was to hold service. The 
 
376 How to Live 
 
 " keeper " of the property, who had been in charge 
 through the interregnum, told me this rather 
 timidly, because he was not sure that he should 
 have given the permission. 
 
 But I relieved him there, and told him that 
 Elder Breen would be my guest. And when 
 Saturday noon came, I sent down a boy and a 
 mule to meet the Elder and bring him directly to 
 my cabin. It was but poor hospitality, for we had 
 to make our own coffee, and fry our own pork. 
 But it showed good will, and the old man and I 
 have been good friends from that day. It ap- 
 peared very soon, as I tell you, that the people 
 in charge before me had not cared for him. And 
 he thanked the Lord very heartily that my heart 
 was warmer. 
 
 Well, I put the Elder through with all the 
 honors. I played the flute in those days, and I 
 took my flute to the shop, and played one part of 
 the hymn tune while he sang another. And then, 
 having conferred with him, I announced that there 
 would be a Sunday-school, and that it would begin 
 that day. And then and there it began. 
 
 They sent me, well, I guess, fifty volumes, — 
 not what I should have chosen, but much better 
 than nothing. I told that quiet-looking Nadur 
 boy whom you remember, — the same who drove 
 the day we went to the Ledges, — I told him that 
 he must be librarian. They had sent record 
 books and forms, and Jason lent out the books and 
 kept them carefully. The men got interested and 
 
Duty to the Church 377 
 
 used to bring in what was left of the books they had 
 picked up on the trains. I wrote home, and made 
 them clear their shelves for me. It was a wretched 
 collection of books; but it was a library, — and, 
 on the whole, it did not do so much harm as 
 equal allowances of poker would have done. 
 
 But the " Library " had not been intrusted to us 
 without conditions. We had to maintain a Sunday- 
 school, if we meant to have their Sunday-school 
 Library. And I told Marcus that he must take 
 hold ; Julia knew that she must. Mrs. Stevens, as 
 soon as she came, was all ready. And whenever 
 any boy, or girl came for books, Jason was coached 
 to say that if they had our books, they must enroll 
 themselves as pupils in the Sunday-school. To 
 tell the truth, they were willing enough. The old 
 owners had never shown any positive interest in 
 the Eternities. They did nothing directly for the 
 morals or the life, indeed, of these people. But 
 nobody in America has dared, as yet, to cut in 
 upon Sunday. So there was no work in the shafts 
 or in the furnace on Sunday ; and it was rather a 
 slow day to most of them. Card-playing? Yes, 
 no end of it. Prospecting, hunting, — but no 
 regular work. And the idea of a meeting at the 
 carpenter-shop — call it Sunday-school or call it 
 caucus — was not unpopular. 
 
 " Unpopular " is the only word. I mean that 
 without any definite religious conviction which 
 expressed itself in words, there was more than a 
 willingness to see the Sunday-school opened. It 
 
378 How to Live 
 
 was rather the intention of the community that it 
 should succeed. 
 
 Now, do you know, Wallace, I believe that it 
 was rather an advantage to the "movement" that 
 we had nobody of pronounced ecclesiastical train- 
 ing among us. I mean that none of us had ever 
 done this thing before. And none of us had any 
 right way of which he was sure. There was no- 
 body to be dubbed "Elder" or "Reverend" 
 or "Parson" or "Deacon." "We" were simply 
 the agent, and the cashier, and the freight master, 
 whom these men and women had had to do with 
 Saturday, and would have to do with Monday. 
 
 "Also, especially," as my old German master 
 would have said, no one of us would have been 
 selected as a Sunday-school teacher in the First 
 Presbyterian Church in Ne-w Wittenburg, or in the 
 Second Methodist Church in Epworth. So that 
 each of the other fellows whom you could most 
 rely upon for any public-spirited enterprise 
 laughed when he found that he must be a Sunday- 
 school teacher. 
 
 For me, I said squarely to the little crew of us 
 who organized the thing, that I should only make 
 a Bible lesson ridiculous. But I would have a 
 class on the Constitution of the United States. I 
 said that there was religion enough in it, if only a 
 man could " distil it out." And I said that I be- 
 lieved more men and women from the teamsters' 
 families and the shaft-men would come to my class 
 after the second Sunday, than if I taught about 
 
Duty to the Church 379 
 
 the book of Deuteronomy, of which, indeed, I 
 knew nothing. 
 
 And I remember that Mrs. McGregor told the 
 company what Freeman Clarke said to her. He 
 had bidden her take a class in his Sunday-school. 
 She had said that she did not know enough. To 
 which he replied, that if she had thought she 
 knew enough he would not have asked. " But I 
 suppose," said he, " that you could read the Swiss 
 Family Robinson to a class." Of course she had 
 to confess she could. " Do that," said Dr. Clarke. 
 " If you can entertain for an hour eight little street 
 children who have little enough love in their lives, 
 they will learn by the object lessons that some- 
 body loves them, and they will have their first 
 lesson in bearing each other's burdens." 
 
 And, in point of fact, Mrs. McGregor did begin 
 with the Swiss Family Robinson, with those Finn 
 children, — nine or ten of them. "The tempest 
 had now lasted eight days," — what a happy be- 
 ginning ! 
 
 No, none of us knew much about theology. 
 Indeed, as to our religion, as the old joke says, 
 we had none to speak of. But we did mean that 
 that camp should have more life in it, and that it 
 should be a better place to live in. 
 
 The first experiment we tried, after the begin- 
 ning with the library, was the music. Tisdale 
 undertook that, and Janet. And they made the 
 people understand that they really wanted a crowd 
 to come. It was rather hard for the rest of us, at 
 
380 How to Live 
 
 first, to keep our classes up in face of their com- 
 petition. Before the thing had gone far, we had 
 to leave the whole carpenter-shop to them ; and I 
 fitted up the attic over our offices for the other 
 classes of the school. But this was not popular, 
 and it ended in the music class having its meeting 
 after the other school was over, so that a good 
 many of our classes lapped over and went to them. 
 
 Tisdale used to talk like an oracle about this. 
 " All music is religious," he would say. " Music 
 is the first handmaid of religion." He had some- 
 thing he quoted from Collins's odes which we used 
 to chaff him about. Practically, he would say, in 
 a mining camp or in a forecastle, you can get 
 more people to sing together than to do anything 
 else together. "And TOGETHER," he would 
 say, with one of his grand gestures, "TO- 
 GETHER, as the Dominie says, is the central 
 word." 
 
 So he was very tolerant when they began, as to 
 what they sang. A good many of them were old 
 soldiers, and they would sing, " Marching through 
 Georgia," and " John Brown's body." But the 
 handful of women, not to say some of the men, 
 knew the words of familiar hymns, and all of them 
 soon caught on to the Sankey rhythms and ca- 
 dences, the time and the airs. Tisdale made an 
 old Welsh smelter we had, named Jones, dig to 
 the bottom of his blue chest, and exhume a violin 
 which by this time had neither bridge, nor bow, 
 nor strings, nor key-board. But Tisdale sent down 
 
Duty to the Church 381 
 
 to Cheyenne City for these, and the next Sunday 
 Jones appeared with his fiddle and I with my flute. 
 Tisdale said he would order jews-harps for the 
 crowd, if any one would volunteer. He said jews- 
 harps were the fit instruments for the Psalms of 
 David and Asaph, and could hang on the willows 
 when we were not practising. In fact we never had 
 any. But the fiddle and the flute gave courage for 
 other instruments, and Tom, Dick, and Harry did 
 what they could. 
 
 All this did no end of good, in bringing men and 
 women together on a decent basis. Drinking men 
 and teetotalers, Americans and foreigners, the 
 office-clerks and the shaft-hands would sit side by 
 side, holding the same music-book. If the thing 
 had been forced, nothing would have been more 
 absurd than to see Carruthers, the cashier, sitting 
 on the same bench with old Cesar the black man 
 from the stables. But, really, Cesar's was the best 
 voice among the basses, while Carruthers directed 
 from that bench. And when they took the same 
 book, of course, and unconsciously, I, who was 
 nothing but a high private, felt that the kingdom 
 of God had come. 
 
 Oh dear ! If you could only have seen how we 
 astonished the dear old Elder by our first per- 
 formance. He was not to arrive until eleven 
 o'clock. He had stayed at the Crossing, where 
 the old shaft was begun, with Flinders, who was my 
 man in charge there. He had some sort of meet- 
 ing in Flinders's shed, and then Flinders brought 
 
382 How to Live 
 
 him up to us. Well ! the dear old saint did not 
 expect the music of the spheres. He and I could 
 grind through Antioch and Benevento. But from 
 the people — why, we had had no books, and he 
 expected nothing. But this time, when he and Flin- 
 ders came within hearing, there was the sound of 
 many waters. The Hallelujah Chorus, it may have 
 been. We did not stop when they came in. And 
 the old man, as we all called him (forty-eight years, 
 in fact), may well have imagined that he was on one 
 of the outside benches of the Paradise The place 
 was crowded already; and I remember that so 
 many people came that we had to carry the two 
 carpenter's chests which made the pulpit out of 
 doors, and the people sat under the shade of what 
 the Elder was pleased to call a " green bay-tree." 
 (I remember that afterwards in some double patent 
 revised version I found that this was a terebinth- 
 tree.) 
 
 Well, that was our first full service, and the 
 fame of it went far and wide; wherever a burro 
 could climb that week, the word went that we had 
 had a real meeting at the " hollow," with a fiddle 
 and sackbut and real cornet ; and that there was a 
 " lib'ry " there, and first-rate fixings in general. I 
 soon found that whether I meant it or not, we 
 should have a larger concourse the next Sunday 
 than we had had. But I was not frightened now 
 we were all in for it. I sent word to all the other 
 camps that we wanted them to come over, and to 
 the men whom I could rely upon, whether foremen 
 
Duty to the Church 383 
 
 or pick-men, I sent personal word that we should 
 rely on them to help us through, whether in the 
 way of prayer or exhortations. Before the Elder's 
 Sunday came round again things were running as 
 regularly as an inclined railway. And although 
 the old man came eight times in the year till he 
 froze to death in that awful blizzard, we came to 
 think that our own meetings were quite as profit- 
 able as his. 
 
 When the first winter came, I took care that our 
 second ore-shed should be cleaned out, and we 
 planked up the sides with one window in each side, 
 so that we need not sit in pitchy darkness. And 
 this served us for our meeting-house till we built 
 this nice little shebang which we have. I made 
 the company order two large stoves for me at St. 
 Louis. To tell you the whole truth, I think we got 
 along better without a minister. Whenever we did 
 not have one, we had no talk about heresy. 
 Truly yours, 
 
 Randall Ely. 
 
384 How to Live 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 DUTY TO THE STATE 
 
 The Young Citizen 
 
 What can young people do for good citizenship 
 and public spirit? 
 
 I am afraid that the question first makes people 
 think of elections and primary meetings, votes and 
 voters. 
 
 To consider such matters first or chiefly would 
 be a very narrow view of a very important matter. 
 
 The truth is that all our American institutions 
 rest on the passion for freedom and free thought 
 in every man and woman. This passion took 
 form in English life as long ago as Alfred ; it 
 came to America with the very best of the English- 
 men of the Puritan age ; it is all wrought in with 
 all the American arrangements for the State, and 
 with most of the American arrangements for the 
 Church. Good citizenship in America means the 
 maintenance of this central idea of personal free- 
 dom and personal duty. It involves the right of 
 private judgment and the duty of private judg- 
 ment, and the American constitutions all rest on 
 the presumption that almost all citizens will insist 
 on the right and discharge the duty. 
 
Duty to the State 385 
 
 Good citizenship means the determination of 
 each man to do his own duty to the State. He 
 will not be led by a boss. He will not be ordered 
 by any lord, feudal or ecclesiastical. He will stand 
 for his own rights, and for the equal rights of 
 every other man. And this is as true of women 
 as of man. In this view, the inability of woman 
 to vote becomes, in comparison, unimportant, so 
 large is woman's opportunity to discredit and de- 
 stroy feudal or ecclesiastical control of individual 
 opinion, whether attempted by fashion, by the 
 Church, or by whatever outside tyranny. 
 
 The first, second, and last duty of every good 
 citizen, man or woman, is to level up the people 
 whom they can act upon. Let them highly re- 
 solve that each one of them shall vote, act, live, 
 move, and have a being as an independent child 
 of an Infinite God. Not one person in the body 
 political shall be a slave. And no baron or squire 
 or knight of the shire shall enslave one of them. 
 No overseer with a whip, no boss with a list of 
 followers, no liquor dealer with an unpaid bill, no 
 ecclesiastic with threats of hell, no chief of Tam- 
 many or head centre of a lodge shall enslave 
 them. To maintain and to enlarge the individ- 
 ual's passion and his right to think for himself, 
 to say what he thinks, and to do what he says, is 
 the first duty of the young American. 
 
 Simply, the first duty of the young American is 
 to keep the People up to its work. The People 
 
 25 
 
386 How to Live 
 
 must be able to carry forward the great responsi- 
 bilities of sovereignty which devolve upon the 
 People ; the People must not fall backward ; the 
 People must go forward. And this cannot be un- 
 less every man, woman, and child who has a con- 
 science is personally enlisted in the duty of keeping 
 the People up to its duty and destiny. 
 
 In comparison with this necessity pressing on 
 every man, woman, and child, the special cares of 
 an election are the merest trifles. The result of 
 an election, indeed, really depends on what the 
 People is or is not. The election infallibly goes 
 well when the People of a region has been well 
 trained for the duty it has in hand ; and almost in- 
 fallibly the election goes ill in a region where the 
 People has not been so trained. That is to say, 
 in one instance you get good candidates offered 
 by all parties, and you therefore have a successful 
 election. In the other instance, you probably 
 have bad candidates offered by all parties, or 
 whatever the candidates, you are almost sure of 
 a bad selection. The real work is not the fussy 
 work of caucuses and committees; it is done in 
 advance in the training of the People. 
 
 It follows then for young men or young women 
 making the arrangements of life, that they must 
 determine how and where they will serve the 
 commonwealth ; how and where they will serve it 
 every day. 
 
 There is a certain danger to the young American 
 if he rests too much upon the impression which he 
 
Duty to the State 387 
 
 gains from literature. And in practice, I find 
 myself saying to boys, " You are not to be an 
 English duke, living on his estates in the country," 
 or to a girl, " You are not to be a Lady Bountiful, 
 carrying a bottle of sherry in a basket to a peas- 
 ant's cottage, and followed by a servant with a 
 pair of blankets." Why, there is not a duke within 
 three thousand miles of you, and there is not a 
 peasant any nearer ! It is really an important part 
 of your education that you should know your own 
 country. You must understand America. I may 
 add it is a very difficult part. Books, as I have 
 said, do not help you much. The newspapers help 
 you very little. They are, almost without excep- 
 tion, provincial and local. You will have to learn 
 for yourselves. By far the best thing which a boy 
 gets in college is his acquaintance with com- 
 panions from distant States, possibly from Mexico 
 and Canada. Young people especially should re- 
 collect this, and by system acquaint themselves 
 with all sorts and conditions of men. Together, 
 which is the central word of Christianity, is the 
 central word of a Commonwealth or Republic. 
 Let us never forget that what we call a Christian 
 Commonwealth is what the Saviour of Men called 
 the Kingdom of God. Of that kingdom the cen- 
 tral principle is, that the children of God shall 
 bear each other's burdens. If they must do this, 
 why, of course, they must learn each how his 
 brother lives, — nay, what his brother is. 
 
 In a small village, or a country town, till its 
 
388 How to Live 
 
 population comes to ten or twenty thousand, some 
 of the important details in this matter take care of 
 themselves. Generally speaking, though with cer- 
 tain exceptions, everybody knows everybody. All 
 the children in the same neighborhood go to 
 school together. There are no very sharp or hard 
 social distinctions, and practically every one knows 
 how everybody else lives. Now the difficulty of 
 finding out how other people live is the first diffi- 
 culty in the study of citizenship. 
 
 Even in a small country town, however, there is 
 apt to be one place for observation and for work 
 which needs special attention of people who care 
 about citizenship. Almost infallibly in some out 
 of the way corner, perhaps three or four miles from 
 the centre, there is a precinct of shanties or broken- 
 down houses, dirty, hateful, and every way neg- 
 lected, inhabited by a set of half outlaws whom 
 " nobody knows." They are outside the pressure 
 of all public opinion. Such a place is generally 
 known by some slang name, such as " hell corner," 
 or the " devil's den." In extreme cases, you shall 
 read that the inhabitants of the neighborhood, with 
 a certain indignation which they think righteous, 
 move upon such a place, warn out the inhabitants, 
 and burn their houses down. But this is a very 
 crude way of handling such an evil; you move the 
 place, but do not cure the wound. Now the first 
 thing to be done towards a cure is that the good 
 citizens of that place shall learn all about this 
 corner. They must find out who these squatters 
 
Duty to the State 389 
 
 are, how they live there, and why they live there. 
 They must take the same interest in them which 
 they take in some mission Sunday-school to which 
 they contribute in India, and they must know 
 much more about the detail. 
 
 In larger towns, the difficulty is to find how 
 people live who are close by you. Here the week- 
 day life of the churches ought to give a good 
 opening. It is a very good thing when an intelli- 
 gent leader in the community brings down his own 
 magic lantern to the vestry of a church to enter- 
 tain fifty or sixty errand-boys, cash-boys, hostlers, 
 newsboys, and others who would be a little apt to 
 be loafing on street corners, if he and people like 
 him were not making their acquaintance. It is a 
 very good thing when a professor in a college, 
 perhaps the best read man in town, makes a 
 regular business in visiting in their houses all the 
 members in his Bible class. It will prove, very 
 likely, before a year is over that such teachers have 
 learned quite as much as they have taught. 
 
 I do not mean that there is any mechanical 
 school, or formal organization, by which the people 
 of a great city can learn what is so hard to know, 
 how their neighbors live. As with all other 
 learning, the secret is in this, you must want to 
 know. There is no catechism to teach the method. 
 You must always go a little more than half way, 
 and then the social gulfs will bridge themselves, 
 the broken bits in your mosaic will of themselves 
 fuse together. 
 
39° How to Live 
 
 With such a beginning, you can go forward. 
 You are able now to teach and to learn, and you 
 are not well engaged unless you are doing both. 
 Suppose you are a visitor on the staff of some 
 charity organization. If you keep your eyes open, 
 and your ears open, you will have learned quite as 
 much before the winter is over from this family 
 which you are to care for, as you have taught to 
 them. Among other things, you will have learned 
 the lesson that money is not the most important 
 commodity in the world. A little money may go 
 a great way, used as it should be. 
 
 But money without tenderness or sympathy, 
 when money is mere alms-giving, is of so little use 
 that critics have a very good right to say that it is 
 of none. If it only brings into the house so much 
 bread and milk and meat which tide along wretched 
 physical life for two days or four days or six, it is 
 hard to say that money is of any use at all. As 
 Rufus Ellis said so well, " You do a man no good 
 unless you make him better." 
 
 Bear this in mind then in such " visiting," that 
 it is yourself which you take into the house. If 
 you go to teach, expect to be taught ; if you mean 
 to give, expect to receive ; if you hope to lead, be 
 willing to be led. " Give and take" is the rule, or 
 it embodies the principle. 
 
 But young man or young woman who does seek 
 to be of use thus to people in more unfortunate 
 life, is soon terribly tested. There is absolutely 
 no romance in the matter. There is less romance 
 
Duty to the State 391 
 
 in it in any Atlantic American city than anywhere 
 else in the world. For here the poor people you 
 would help are probably separated from you, as 
 they are in daily occupation. Bishop Phillips 
 Brooks used to say that Philadelphia had an ad- 
 vantage over most American cities, because the 
 narrow streets were mixed up with the broad ones, 
 and the people with the largest means lived within 
 easy touch of people with the smallest. It used 
 to be said of Paris before the days of " elevators," 
 that there was a real social advantage in the 
 pecuniary arrangement by which people paid a 
 small rent if they lived a hundred feet from the 
 sidewalk, while they were yet living close to richer 
 families who lived in lower stories of the same 
 house. 
 
 Easy communication between people in different 
 degrees of prosperity is in itself a minor advantage. 
 But suppose it do not exist. Where there is a 
 will, there is a way, and I should be sorry to believe 
 that I have any readers who cannot find an Italian 
 fellow-citizen, if they want to talk Italian. If we 
 want to " touch elbows with the rank and file," we 
 can do so. " Some of my neighbors tell me that 
 they have so many pears that they cannot tell 
 what to do with them." Judge Thomas said this 
 to me one day, and he added, " I have a great 
 many in my own orchard, and if I send them to 
 the right places, I do not find that they come back 
 to me." 
 
 I hope, however, that no reader will be misled 
 
392 How to Live 
 
 by this illustration which, for mere convenience, I 
 have taken from the physical relief of the poor in 
 cities. To suppose that that form of charity is the 
 first or chief duty of a public-spirited citizen is 
 wholly un-American. The truth is, that in some 
 towns, quite large, there is no poverty of that sort. 
 In many towns there is very little, and we are 
 making it less and less all the time. There is " not 
 poverty enough to go round," if we mean to rely 
 on the physical relief of the very poor for our 
 training in public spirit. It will not happen to 
 one in twenty of the readers of these lines that his 
 duty to society is with the starving or the naked. 
 Very likely he would not know how to deal with 
 them if his duty were there. The truth is, that 
 each of us needs a great deal from each other. 
 Let the reader ask himself how much he needs 
 from the people around him. The richest man 
 and woman both need a great deal. And all these 
 " great deals " will not and cannot be supplied 
 without that steady toning up of all social life to 
 which the gospel sends us. Looking back on life, 
 — if I may speak of my own work, — I think God 
 has let me be of much more use to one or two Japa- 
 nese gentlemen of high rank and fortune than I 
 ever was to any Italian beggar. In finding out 
 your place to take hold then, in finding where 
 your apostleship is to send you, dismiss at once 
 this Old World notion that only those people are 
 poor who have not good clothes. Remember 
 that everybody is poor; that it is fortunate for 
 
Duty to the State 393 
 
 you and me that it is so; that you and I are as 
 poor as the rest of them. It is because each of us 
 needs something that each of us, without a trace 
 of condescension, should find his place and do his 
 share. 
 
 No man or woman can reject such duty and 
 retain any sense of honor. Look around you in 
 the place where you live, and see how much has 
 been done in the past for you which you are en- 
 joying to-day. Pioneers have broken the ground ; 
 wise men have made plans, and strong men have 
 carried them out, — all that you may go and come 
 with the comforts you enjoy. In my own home, 
 the city of Boston, the wealth in common of the 
 people, the amount of property which has been 
 invested for the common good, is estimated at two 
 hundred and fifty millions of dollars. The annual 
 interest on this at four per cent is ten million dol- 
 lars, which represents the annual cost of the com- 
 forts which I, and those like me, enjoy, in the social 
 order of that town, wholly apart from such service 
 as is paid for by the annual taxation. This is not 
 an exceptional case, but it is a good, convenient 
 illustration of what would be found true in every 
 American State, so large has always been the pro- 
 vision made in the past for the future. 
 
 In mere decency and honor I must do my share 
 in handing down such a future as that to those who 
 come after me. I will not drink at such a foun- 
 tain, and sully the water for those who follow 
 me, or let other people sully it. I am bound in 
 
394 How to Live 
 
 honor to keep high the social life of a city so 
 endowed, that God may find the children as well 
 off as were their fathers. 
 
 I should hope that any young man or young 
 woman might approach social duties with some 
 sense of the varied acts of friendship, due from 
 each to all, which a republic demands. When you 
 open a club for working girls, when you arrange 
 a Christmas tree, when you go to some chapel 
 to teach a boy arithmetic, or to the industrial 
 schools to teach drawing or cooking or sing- 
 ing, or to make an evening pass with some 
 glimpse of life higher than what the streets have 
 to offer, — you are working out your share of 
 the citizen's duty to the State. You have your 
 hand then in a great political problem — the great- 
 est of all. Short-sighted people will ask you 
 whether you ever went to a " primary meeting," 
 as they call it; and how you can pretend to be a 
 good citizen unless you have been there. I cer- 
 tainly think that young men will learn some things 
 they had better know, if they should go there, 
 and that the primary may be improved by their 
 presence. But he has a very fair answer who can 
 say, " The night you were at your primary, I was 
 teaching German boys to read English. " You and 
 I have a more pressing duty in the making good 
 citizens than we have in offering good candidates. 
 This we ought to do ; but we ought not to leave 
 the other undone. You never find, when an elec- 
 tion is over, that the distress of defeat hangs over 
 
Duty to the State 395 
 
 the moral and peaceful and intelligent communities. 
 Republican government works well enough with 
 them. It is in your " Five Points," it is in your 
 " Bloody Fifth," and your " Black Fortieth," that 
 come in the fraud and the fighting which make 
 those men despair of a democracy, who have 
 done nothing to make things better. And, as 
 always, the remedy is a larger dose of applied 
 Christianity. The " Bloody Fifth " and the " Black 
 Fortieth " are to be purified and ventilated by 
 the hand-to-hand contagion of the Golden Rule, 
 of the Good Samaritan, of Christian love. It is 
 true that your working girls' clubs, your Sun- 
 day-school missions ; what you do for fine arts ; 
 what you do for health and hospitality and 
 the beauty of the town; your Christmas trees, 
 your free library, your Christian Union and 
 Associations, and your Christian church which 
 inspires and dominates all of these, — it is here 
 that they are looking and tending. And you are 
 much more closely engaged in the duty of a citi- 
 zen to the State, when you are at work in this 
 hand-to-hand affair, than you are when you are 
 delivering a speech before a caucus, or writing a 
 political article for a review. 
 
 And, as we saw, we are not to consider the 
 " Bloody Fifth" or the "Fighting Fortieth" 
 alone. All human society is to be made divine, 
 the finest as the coarsest. That is our business. 
 Euclid and Michigan Avenues, the Fifth Avenue 
 and Columbia Heights need divine life as well as 
 
396 How to Live 
 
 any Italian or Chinese colony. Does not every 
 morning newspaper show that the duty and dif- 
 ficulty of the hour spring from a certain jealousy 
 which people try to excite between men of small 
 incomes and men of large incomes? What have 
 you who read, or I who write, done to allay that 
 jealousy, or to prove that it is unfounded? It is 
 but a few days since I heard a foreman in a 
 gigantic corporation, when he was asked why 
 they had no strikes among the thousands of men 
 in their employ. His proud answer was, " Our 
 first and constant effort is to put no men in the 
 lead who do not understand the workmen and sym- 
 pathize with them, and I think the men know and 
 trust their leaders." There is a bit of applied 
 Christianity which the reader and I may well take 
 to heart. We shall do well, wherever we are, if we 
 keep in view an ideal as noble as that, and bring 
 society to act upon it. 
 
 It is, of course, impossible, in a paper like this, 
 to try to assign to any reader the detail of such 
 social duty which he is to follow. But this is clear 
 enough. Each of us, in making his own choice, 
 as each of us must, is to remember this intimacy of 
 man with man, and woman with woman, touches 
 close on the immediate questions of government. 
 It touches them, because it gives the suffrage to 
 men, and takes it from slaves. You make men 
 respect themselves. They refuse, at that moment, 
 to take this bribe for their vote, or to follow that 
 
Duty to the State 397 
 
 banner, or, which is as bad and more mean, they 
 refuse to escape a tax, or to stay away from an 
 election. Your republic is no longer ruled by an 
 oligarchy, say of one third of the citizens. Men 
 who respect themselves insist on giving themselves 
 to the better policy of the city, of the State or the 
 nation. And it is not one vote which such a man 
 gives, or two. It is his moral power, his intel- 
 lectual ''direction, which is uplifting all the time 
 the thought and will of those who are around him. 
 The great issue goes to an intelligent and con- 
 scientious jury, — the men and women who have 
 highly determined that there shall be no class of 
 drudges, and no stinking slums, omnipotent in 
 appointing that high tribunal. 
 
 THE END 
 
MAR 9 1900 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 006 748 867 2 
 
 
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