ic
performance, that the tradition of sound thinking and great doing is
perpetuated from age to age. Hoogstraten, who was a pupil of Rembrandt,
asked him many questions, which the great master answered thus:--"Try to
put well in practice what you already know; in so doing you will, in
good time, discover the hidden things which you now inquire about." That
answer of Rembrandt's is typical of the maturest teaching. How truly
friendly it is; how full of encouragement; how kind in its admission
that the younger artist _did_ already know something worth putting into
practice; and yet, at the same time, how judicious in its reserve! Few
of us have been so exceptionally unfortunate as not to find, in our own
age, some experienced friend who has helped us by precious counsel,
never to be forgotten. 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 s