have
no business in the society to which you aspire. You are an exacting,
conceited fellow.
5. WHAT ARE YOU GOOD FOR?--Are you a good beau, and are you willing to
make yourself useful in waiting on the ladies on all occasions? Have
you a good set of teeth, which you are willing to show whenever
the wit of the company gets off a good thing? Are you a true,
straightforward, manly fellow, with whose healthful and uncorrupted
nature it is good for society to come in contact? In short, do you
possess anything of any social value? If you do, and are willing
to impart it, society will yield itself to your touch. If you
have nothing, then society, as such, owes you nothing. Christian
philanthropy may put its arm around you, as a lonely young man, about
to spoil for want of something, but it is very sad and humiliating
for a young man to be brought to that. There are people who devote
themselves to nursing young men, and doing them good. If they invite
you to tea, go by all means, and try your hand. If in the course of
the evening, you can prove to them that your society is desirable, you
have won a point. Don't be patronized.
6. THE MORBID CONDITION.--Young men, you are apt to get into a morbid
state of mind, which declines them to social intercourse. They
become devoted to business with such exclusiveness, that all social
intercourse is irksome. They go out to tea as if they were going
to jail, and drag themselves to a party as to an execution. This
disposition is thoroughly morbid, and to be overcome by going where
you are invited, always, and with a sacrifice of feeling.
7. THE COMMON BLUNDER.--Don't shrink from contact with anything but
bad morals. Men who affect your unhealthy minds with antipathy, will
prove themselves very frequently to be your best friends and most
delightful companions. Because a man seems uncongenial to you, who
are squeamish and foolish, you have no right to shun him. We become
charitable by knowing men. We learn to love those whom we have
despised by rubbing against them. Do you not remember some instance of
meeting a man or woman whom you had never previously known or cared
to know--an individual, perhaps, against whom you have entertained
the strongest prejudices--but to whom you became bound by a lifelong
friendship through the influence of a three days' intercourse? Yet,
if you had not thus met, you would have carried through life the idea
that it would be impossible for you to give your
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