If any would avoid the disappointment of ignorance and the alarms of the foolish, let him learn to look with unamazed expectancy at what will appear on the ocean of Society. Do not look in men for the qualities you want to find, or for qualities you imagine they ought to have, but look with unexpectant eyes for what you can find. Do not expect perfection, but a few good points only, and be glad if you find them, and be tolerant of what is absent. Of him of this way of thinking it may be said, as was said of Charles Lamb: "He did not merely love his friends in spite of their errors, he loved them errors and all." Whoever remains under the delusion that nations and men possess only special qualities, and not all qualities in different stages of development, will hate them foolishly, praise them without reason, and will never know men. But whoever understands the trend of things in this ever-changing, uncontrollable world, where "Our fate comes to us from afar, Where others made us what we are," will utter the prayer of Sadi, the Persian poet: "O God! have pity on the wicked, for Thou hast done everything for the good in having made them good." A prayer worth remembering. CHAPTER XLV. IDEAS FOR THE YOUNG There are people who live many years and never grow old. We call them "young patriarchs." Limit not the golden dreams of youth, which, however, would be none the worse for a touch of the patriarch in them. There is sense in youth, and it will assimilate the experience of age if displayed before rather than thrust upon it. Youth should be incited to think for itself, and to select from the wisdom it finds in the world. Then the question comes--what is safe to take? That is the time for words of suggestion. Every one has read of the fox, who seeing a crow with a piece of cheese in her bill, told her "she had a splendid voice, and did herself an injustice by not singing." The credulous crow began a note, dropped the piece of cheese, with which the fox ran away. This trick is always being played. Among young persons there are a great number of crows. A youth is given a situation where advancement goes with assiduity. A fox-headed comrade or clerk below him tells him his "work is beneath his talents, and he ought to get something better." Discontent breeds negligence. He loses his place, when the treacherous prompter, whom he took to be his friend, slips into his situation, and finds it quite satisfactory.