By the description you have given of your young friend, it appears that
he is rather _trifling_ and _inconsiderate_ than _profligate_. His
faults are, _his spending too much time in learning and singing songs_;
and too _much frankness of heart_, which exposes him to impositions. But
you have not, Sir, informed me whether he was _bred to business_; and by
his character, I judge that he was not. He has had good precepts indeed;
but of how little weight are precepts to young people! Advice to the
young sometimes does good; but perhaps never, except good habits have
been previously formed by correct discipline in manners, or by a
mechanical attention to honest employments. The truth is, advice or
serious council is commonly lavished where it does no good, upon the
young, the gay, the thoughtless; whose passions are strong, before
reason begins to have the smallest influence. I am young myself, but
from the observations I have hitherto made, I venture to affirm, that
grave advice never yet conquered a passion, and rarely has restrained
one so as to render a sprightly youth, in any degree serious. How should
it? Instructions are transient; they seldom touch the heart, and they
generally oppose passions that are vigorous, and which are incessantly
urging for indulgence.
I have ever thought that advice to the young, unaccompanied by the
routine of honest employments, is like an attempt to make a shrub grow
in a certain direction, by blowing it with a bellows. The way to
regulate the growth of a vegetable is to _confine_ it to the proposed
direction. The only effectual method perhaps is to keep young persons
from childhood busy in some employment of use and reputation. It is very
immaterial what that employment is; the mind will grow in the direction
given it at first; it will bend and attach itself to the business, and
will not easily lose that bent or attachment afterwards: The mind _will_
attach itself to something; its natural disposition is to pleasure and
amusement. This disposition may be changed or overcome by keeping the
mind, from early life, busy in some useful occupation, and perhaps by
_nothing else_. Advice will not produce the effect.
I suspect, Sir, that your young friend has been bred a trifler; that he
has had money to support him without the labor of acquiring it; that he
has never been anxious about his future subsistence. If so, his
education must be pronounced erroneous. Whether worth twenty pounds or
twenty thousand, it should make no difference in his attention to
business while young. We are the creatures of habit; a habit of
_acquiring_ property should always precede the _use_ of it, otherwise it
will not be used with credit and advantage. Besides, business is almost
the only security we have for moral rectitude and for consequence in
society. It keeps a young person out of vicious company; it operates as
a constant check upon the passions, and while it does not destroy them,
it restrains their intemperance; it strengthens the mind by exercise,
and puts a young person upon exerting his reasoning faculties. In short,
a man bred to business loves society, and feels the importance of the
principles that support it. On the other hand, mankind respect him; and
whatever your young friend may think of the assertion, it is true that
the ladies uniformly despise a man who is always dangling at their apron
strings, and whose principal excellence consists in singing a good song.
If, Sir, your friend is still so young, as to undergo the discipline of
a professional or other employment, his habits of trifling may be
changed by this means; but if he is so far the gentleman as to disdain
business, his friends have only to whistle advice in his ears, and wait
till old age, experience, and the death of his passions, shall change
the man.
Accept of my thanks, Sir, for this communication, and be assured that my
opinion on any subject of this kind will always be at your service.