e the case during our joint lives; for, considering the
difference of our ages, in the course of nature, you will hardly have
acquired experience enough of your own, while I shall be in condition of
lending you any of mine. People in general will much better bear being,
told of their vices or crimes, than of their little failings and
weaknesses. They, in some degree, justify or excuse (as they think) the
former, by strong passions, seductions, and artifices of others, but to
be told of, or to confess, their little failings and weaknesses, implies
an inferiority of parts, too mortifying to that self-love and vanity,
which are inseparable from our natures. I have been intimate enough with
several people to tell them that they had said or done a very criminal
thing; but I never was intimate enough with any man, to tell him, very
seriously, that he had said or done a very foolish one. Nothing less than
the relation between you and me can possibly authorize that freedom; but
fortunately for you, my parental rights, joined to my censorial powers,
give it me in its fullest extent, and my concern for you will make me
exert it. Rejoice, therefore, that there is one person in the world who
can and will tell you what will be very useful to you to know, and yet
what no other man living could or would tell you. Whatever I shall tell
you of this kind, you are very sure, can have no other motive than your
interest; I can neither be jealous nor envious of your reputation or
fortune, which I must be both desirous and proud to establish and
promote; I cannot be your rival either in love or in business; on the
contrary, I want the rays of your rising to reflect new lustre upon my
setting light. In order to this, I shall analyze you minutely, and
censure you freely, that you may not (if possible) have one single spot,
when in your meridian.

There is nothing that a young fellow, at his first appearance in the
world, has more reason to dread, and consequently should take more pains
to avoid, than having any ridicule fixed upon him. It degrades him with
the most reasonable part of mankind; but it ruins him with the rest; and
I have known many a man undone by acquiring a ridiculous nickname: I
would not, for all the riches in the world, that you should acquire one
when you return to England. Vices and crimes excite hatred and reproach;
failings, weaknesses, and awkwardnesses, excite ridicule; they are laid
hold of by mimics, who, though very c