We cannot render it in kind; but perhaps in the fulness of time it may become our noblest duty to aid another as we have ourselves been aided, and to transmit to him an invaluable treasure, the tradition of the intellectual life. LETTER II. TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO LIVED MUCH IN FASHIONABLE SOCIETY. Certain dangers to the intellectual life--Difficult to resist the influences of society--Gilding--Fashionable education--Affectations of knowledge--Not easy to ascertain what people really know--Value of real knowledge diminished--Some good effects of affectations--Their bad effect on workers--Skill in amusements. The kind of life which you have been leading for the last three or four years will always be valuable to you as a past experience, but if the intellectual ambition you confess to me is quite serious, I would venture to suggest that there are certain dangers in the continuation of your present existence if altogether uninterrupted. Pray do not suspect me of any narrow prejudice against human intercourse, or of any wish to make a hermit of you before your time, but believe that the few observations I have to make are grounded simply on the desire that your career should be entirely satisfactory to your own maturer judgment, when you will look back upon it after many years. An intellectual man may go into general society quite safely if only he can resist its influence upon his serious work; but such resistance is difficult in maturity and impossible in youth. The sort of influence most to be dreaded is this. Society is, and must be, based upon appearances, and not upon the deepest realities. It requires some degree of reality to produce the appearance, but not a substantial reality. Gilding is the perfect type of what Society requires. A certain quantity of gold is necessary for the work of the gilder, but a very small quantity, and skill in applying the metal so as to cover a large surface, is of greater consequence than the weight of the metal itself. The mind of a fashionable person is a carefully gilded mind. Consider fashionable education. Society imperatively requires an outside knowledge of many things; not permitting the frank confession of ignorance, whilst it is yet satisfied with a degree of knowledge differing only from avowed ignorance in permitting you to be less sincere. All young ladies, whether gifted by nature with any musical talent or not, are compelled to say that they have learned to play upon the piano; all young gentlemen are compelled to affect to know Latin. In the same way the public opinion of Society compels its members to pretend to know and appreciate the masterpieces of literature and art. There is, in truth, so much compulsion of this kind that it is not easy to ascertain what people do really know and care about until they admit you into their confidence.