There are many kinds of labor. Some which are no less useful than others, are almost exclusively mental. You may make your own selection from a very wide range of employments, all, perhaps, equally important to society. _But something you must do._ Even if you happen to inherit an ample fortune, your health and happiness demand that you should labor. To live in idleness, even if you have the means, is not only injurious to yourself, but a species of fraud upon the community, and the children,--if children you ever have,--who have a claim upon you for what you can earn and do. Let me prevail with you then, when I urge you to set out in life fully determined to depend chiefly on yourself, for pecuniary support; and to be in this respect, independent. In a country where the general rule is that a person shall rise,--if he rise at all,--by his own merit, such a resolution is indispensable. It is usually idle to be looking out for support from some other quarter. Suppose you should obtain a place of office or trust through the friendship, favor, or affection of others; what then? Why, you hold your post at uncertainties. It may be taken from you at almost any hour. But if you depend on yourself alone, in this respect, your mountain stands strong, and cannot very easily be moved. He who lives upon any thing except his own labor, is incessantly surrounded by rivals. He is in daily danger of being out-bidden; his very bread depends upon caprice, and he lives in a state of never ceasing fear. His is not, indeed, the dog's life, '_hunger_ and idleness,' but it is worse; for it is 'idleness with _slavery_;' the latter being just the price of the former. Slaves, are often well _fed_ and decently _clothed_; but they dare not _speak_. They dare not be suspected even to _think_ differently from their master, despise his acts as much as they may;--let him be tyrant, drunkard, fool, or all three at once, they must either be silent, or lose his approbation. Though possessing a thousand times his knowledge, they yield to his assumption of superior understanding; though knowing it is they who, in fact, do all that he is paid for doing, it is destruction to them to _seem as if they thought_ any portion of the service belonged to themselves. You smile, perhaps, and ask what all this tirade against slavery means. But remember, there is slavery of several kinds. There is _mental_ slavery as well as bodily; and the former is not confined to any particular division of the United States.