I beg leave to relate to you a few circumstances respecting the conduct
of a young friend of mine in this city, and to request your own remarks
and advice on the occasion. Should any other person similarly situated,
be disposed to receive benefit from the advice, I shall be much
gratified, and my design more than answered.
This young friend to whom I allude, has been till within a few years,
under the watchful eyes of very attentiv parents; from whom he received
much better advice and much more of it, than the generality of parents
in this city are wont to bestow on their children; they taught him to
regard truth with a steady attachment; in short his education, till
their deaths, was such as might with propriety have been called rigidly
virtuous. Since that instructiv period, he has been under the guidance
of no one but himself; his former associates with whom he grew up, and
for whom he still feels a degree of schoolmate attachment, are almost
universally debauched characters. The force of example is great, and let
it be mentioned to his honor, that in general he has had sufficient
virtue to resist their importunities, and to follow a line of conduct
directly contrary to the one they would gladly have marked out for his
pursuance. He possesses many of the social virtues, and is warmly
attached to the amiable part of the female world. This attachment has
preserved him from the fashionable vices of the age, and given him a
relish for domestic happiness, which I think he will never lose. A young
gentleman so capable of making himself agreeable to good and virtuous
characters, ought not, in my opinion, to indulge himself in any
practices, that shall tend in the least to depreciate his general merit.
The practices I would mention, are few and not very considerable; still
I think he should dismiss them entirely, or at least not indulge them to
his disadvantage. He sings a _good song_, and he knows it tolerably
well; he is often urged into company on that account; he can make
himself agreeable withal, and is really a _musical companion_; he pays
so much attention to _learning_ and _singing songs_, that he has but
little leisure time on his hands; he reads part of the day, but he reads
principally _novels_ or _song books_. I would not be understood to
consider _singing songs_ as criminal; far from it; I am often delighted
with a song from him; but the query with me is, whether he ought not to
devote part of the time which he now employs about what may be called
genteel trifling, to the improvement of his mind in a manner that may be
of lasting benefit to him; I wish you to giv him your advice, and direct
him what books to read. He has another _fault_, which, altho it
originates in the benevolence of his disposition, may still be called a
fault. He has a very susceptible heart, and opens it with a generous
freedom, so much so that he sometimes forgets himself, and opens it
where he ought not to do. A stranger with a specious outside might
easily impose on him. I just throw out these hints, that he may be on
his guard against those whose business it is to deceive. There are
several smaller faults dependant upon, or rather consequent to, those I
have mentioned, which I at first intended to have enumerated, but if the
first are amended, the others will forsake him of course.
_The_ ANSWER.