will not only
deserve, but enjoy my truest affection.

LETTER VII

LONDON, March 27, O. S. 1747.

DEAR BOY: Pleasure is the rock which most young people split upon: they
launch out with crowded sails in quest of it, but without a compass to
direct their course, or reason sufficient to steer the vessel; for want
of which, pain and shame, instead of pleasure, are the returns of their
voyage. Do not think that I mean to snarl at pleasure, like a Stoic, or
to preach against it, like a parson; no, I mean to point it out, and
recommend it to you, like an Epicurean: I wish you a great deal; and my
only view is to hinder you from mistaking it.

The character which most young men first aim at, is that of a man of
pleasure; but they generally take it upon trust; and instead of
consulting their own taste and inclinations, they blindly adopt whatever
those with whom they chiefly converse, are pleased to call by the name of
pleasure; and a man of pleasure in the vulgar acceptation of that phrase,
means only, a beastly drunkard, an abandoned whoremaster, and a
profligate swearer and curser. As it may be of use to you. I am not
unwilling, though at the same time ashamed to own, that the vices of my
youth proceeded much more from my silly resolution of being, what I heard
called a man of pleasure, than from my own inclinations. I always
naturally hated drinking; and yet I have often drunk; with disgust at the
time, attended by great sickness the next day, only because I then
considered drinking as a necessary qualification for a fine gentleman,
and a man of pleasure.

The same as to gaming. I did not want money, and consequently had no
occasion to play for it; but I thought play another necessary ingredient
in the composition of a man of pleasure, and accordingly I plunged into
it without desire, at first; sacrificed a thousand real pleasures to it;
and made myself solidly uneasy by it, for thirty the best years of my
life.

I was even absurd enough, for a little while, to swear, by way of
adorning and completing the shining character which I affected; but this
folly I soon laid aside, upon finding berth the guilt and the indecency
of it.

Thus seduced by fashion, and blindly adopting nominal pleasures, I lost
real ones; and my fortune impaired, and my constitution shattered, are, I
must confess, the just punishment of my errors.

Take warning then by them: choose your pleasures for yourself, and do not
let them be im