Yes. Do not be afraid to cultivate the artistic. It is a card thrown to
the discard, but one which you cannot regret. Do not have too many. A
jumble of pictures is not what you want, but a few good ones. Only beware
lest a craze for expensive pictures overtake you, which would interfere
with your more definite object. If, however, your career lies in the line
of the artistic, the purchase and collection of fine pictures come well
within the golden things passed by our touchstone. Many men get a craze
after the futile,--a hobby it is usually called; and they will dissipate
great amounts of energy in collecting such things as postage-stamps,
post-marks, or some other object of little use, and at great expense of
time and money.
If you allow such things to distract your attention from your object, you
may lose it entirely, just as you lose sight of something in the hands of
a conjurer who has succeeded in directing your attention to something of
momentary interest. In this connection it is well to say that the habit of
spending must be avoided. Let a large expenditure be a circumstance. You
can afford, however, to spend money on charities even to the point of
dissipation. It is a cultivation of the heart. It might prove a career;
and so, before your object is chosen, you approach it, as a possibility,
afterward, as a card for the discard, in either case creditable.
There are other classes of desires which appeal to the sensuous and
sensual nature of man. Among these can be reckoned a taste for opium or
morphine, a taste for women, or for those kinds of literature and drama
which appeal to the sensuous nature. All these desires are like
drunkenness, in that no one is the better off for gratifying them.
Arguments of all sorts will be brought forward by men who have yielded to
these desires; but, while convincing the one who is eager to be convinced,
they are all of the negative sort,--they try to prove there is no reason
why they should not. Our touchstone will not pass any such arguments:
there must be positive reason why you should do a thing, otherwise do not
do it.
This may seem Puritanical, but let's be Puritans to a certain extent. Play
no games that are not distinctly winning games. There is a winning game to
be played. Why, then, play a game which is neither a winning nor a losing
game? It never gave me any pleasure to gamble with a machine or with
cards, because I know these to be losing games. The plan of the game is
always laid out so that the balance of chance is slightly against the
player, sometimes considerably against the player, else why should the
game be started?
We are left better off in no respect after all these desires are
gratified. We are poorer in money, in pocket, in self-respect, and often
in virtue.
We could go on so indefinitely through the list of all sorts of desires,
but I have only touched upon a few of the more crucial ones to show how
the touchstone should be applied; and even then results are crude, and
would be of little help to you in fixing on a low scale of expenditure.
They may, however, give you some ideas which will seem to guide you when
you come to meet the problems for yourself.
And now we come back to the original question, whether you really want a
pony. There are several really good ones in the stable that you can use.
You are to be away a large part of the year, and you have never made half
the use which you might have of your opportunities to ride.
I am, nevertheless, enclosing a check for the amount necessary to
purchase your pony, because at your age I took a trip through the Rocky
Mountains, which awakened in me a new desire for riding. It has proved my
greatest ally in the severe strains to which the pursuit of my object has
subjected me to, and because your ancestors have always kept their iron
constitutions into extreme old age by almost daily rides, and because the
sense of ownership of a horse may awaken in you the love and knowledge of
the animal, and may accomplish a similar happy result.
Yours very truly,
UNCLE JOSH.