The American Union SpeakerPhilbrick, John D. (John Dudley)
General
The American Union Speaker
Philbrick, John D. (John Dudley)
Recitations
Such is the force of well-regulated industry that a steady and vigorous
exertion of our faculties, directed to one end, will generally insure
success. Would you, for instance, be rich? Do you think that single point
worth the sacrifice of everything else? You may then be rich. Thousands
have become so, from the lowest beginnings, by toil, and patient diligence,
and attention to the minutest articles of expense and profit. But you must
give up the pleasures of leisure, of mental ease, of a free, unsuspicious
temper. If you preserve your integrity, it must be a coarse-spun and vulgar
honesty. Those high and lofty notions of morals which you brought with you
from the schools, must be considerably lowered, and mixed with the baser
alloy of a jealous and worldly-minded prudence. You must learn to do hard,
lf not unjust things; and as for the nice embarrassments of a delicate and
ingenuous spirit, it is necessary to get rid of them as fast as possible.
You must shut your heart against the Muses, and be content to feed your
understanding with plain household truths. In short, you must not attempt
to enlarge your ideas, or polish your taste, or refine your sentiments, but
must keep on in one beaten track, without turning aside either to the right
or to the left. "But you say, I cannot submit to drudgery like this; I feel
a spirit above it." 'Tis well, be above it then; only do not repine that
you are not rich.
Is knowledge the pearl of price in your estimation? That, toy may be
purchased by steady application, and long solitary study and reflection.
Bestow these, and you shall be learned. "But," says the man of letters,
"what a hardship is it, that many an illiterate fellow, who cannot construe
the motto of the arms on his coach, shall raise a fortune and make a
figure, while I have little more than the common conveniences of life!" Was
it, then, to raise a fortune, that you consumed the sprightly hours of
youth in study and retirement? Was it to be rich that you grew pale over
the midnight lamp, and distilled the sweetness from the Greek and Roman
springs? You have then mistaken your path, and ill employed your industry.
"What reward have I then, for all my labor?" What reward! A large,
comprehensive soul, well purged from vulgar fears, and perturbations, and
prejudices; able to comprehend and interpret the works of man,--of God; a
rich, flourishing, cultivated mind, furnished with inexhaustible stores of
entertainment and reflection; a perpetual spring of fresh ideas, and the
conscious dignity of superior intelligence. Good Heaven! What other reward
can you ask besides!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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