第12章 LETTER IX

LONDON,April 14,O.S.1747.

DEAR BOY:If you feel half the pleasure from the consciousness of doing well,that I do from the informations I have lately received in your favor from Mr.Harte,I shall have little occasion to exhort or admonish you any more to do what your own satisfaction and self love will sufficiently prompt you to.Mr.Harte tells me that you attend,that you apply to your studies;and that beginning to understand,you begin to taste them.This pleasure will increase,and keep pace with your attention;so that the balance will be greatly to your advantage.You may remember,that I have always earnestly recommended to you,to do what you are about,be that what it will;and to do nothing else at the same time.Do not imagine that I mean by this,that you should attend to and plod at your book all day long;far from it;I mean that you should have your pleasures too;and that you should attend to them for the time;as much as to your studies;and,if you do not attend equally to both,you will neither have improvement nor satisfaction from either.A man is fit for neither business nor pleasure,who either cannot,or does not,command and direct his attention to the present object,and,in some degree,banish for that time all other objects from his thoughts.If at a ball,a supper,or a party of pleasure,a man were to be solving,in his own mind,a problem in Euclid,he would be a very bad companion,and make a very poor figure in that company;or if,in studying a problem in his closet,he were to think of a minuet,I am apt to believe that he would make a very poor mathematician.There is time enough for everything,in the course of the day,if you do but one thing at once;but there is not time enough in the year,if you will do two things at a time.The Pensionary de Witt,who was torn to pieces in the year 1672,did the whole business of the Republic,and yet had time left to go to assemblies in the evening,and sup in company.Being asked how he could possibly find time to go through so much business,and yet amuse himself in the evenings as he did,he answered,there was nothing so easy;for that it was only doing one thing at a time,and never putting off anything till to-morrow that could be done to-day.This steady and undissipated attention to one object is a sure mark of a superior genius;as hurry,bustle,and agitation are the never-failing symptoms of a weak and frivolous mind.When you read Horace,attend to the justness of his thoughts,the happiness of his diction,and the beauty of his poetry;and do not think of Puffendorf de Homine el Cive;and,when you are reading Puffendorf,do not think of Madame de St.Germain;nor of Puffendorf,when you are talking to Madame de St.Germain.

Mr.Harte informs me,that he has reimbursed you of part of your losses in Germany;and I consent to his reimbursing you of the whole,now that Iknow you deserve it.I shall grudge you nothing,nor shall you want anything that you desire,provided you deserve it;so that you see,it is in your own power to have whatever you please.

There is a little book which you read here with Monsieur Codere entitled,'Maniere de bien penser dans les Ouvrages d'Esprit,'written by Pyre Bonhours.I wish you would read this book again at your leisure hours,for it will not only divert you,but likewise form your taste,and give you a just manner of thinking.Adieu!