"As to his love affairs, provided the girl of his choice be virtuous, and tolerably pretty--though neither very rich nor very intelligent--see that you don't strike off at a tangent, and, like one of your own stupid cattle, run counter to his will. If you do, it will only hasten what you wish to prevent--or render a marriage certain, which the young couple thought sufficiently doubtful. Besides, your opposition might spoil a poor girl's reputation; and I have always found that imputations of a certain class, upon a man, are like marks left upon the sand within a tide-mark; but to a woman--a lovely, helpless woman--they adhere like a limpit to the rock. Besides this, Dick, I am certain the most powerful impression of moral rectitude you can imprint upon his heart would be like a pistol fired from a cock-boat, compared to the glorious and irresistible broadside of a seventy-four, when you contrast its influence upon his actions with the delightful and conquering emotions of love and esteem which he entertains for an amiable woman. Don't preach to me, Dick, for I know when the devil, the world, and the flesh, war against our better principles, and when early instructions, counsels, and all that sort of things, are fairly run down and drop astern, why, if a fellow just think for a moment of the beautiful being, whose soul is as pure as the blue sea on a summer day--if he just think of her--or of her last words, '_Don't forget me!_'--belay! is the word--about goes the helm--head round from the lee-shore of inconsistency, and he is again quietly moored in the fair-way of virtue. "When he begins to shape into manhood, _Discretion_ is the watchword; and whatever he or others may think of his abilities, let him douse _Presumption_, and stow it below, hoist a _desire to please_ at the fore-top, place _Perseverance_, at the helm, and _Civility_ and _Moderate Ambition_ upon the watch. People say they like a plain-spoken, honest fellow, who says what he thinks. But it is all a fudge. Just speak in the jack-blunt manner which they praise respecting themselves, and, mark me, they will march off to another tune. Let any man practise this for a time, and he will soon be hated by every soul on board. I don't mean to advise dissimulation; but a man can get enemies enough without making them; therefore, where he has no good to say of a person, though they may have injured him, let him hold his tongue.