your leaving it for a
philosophical retirement among your friends and your books. Statesmen and
beauties are very rarely sensible of the gradations of their decay; and,
too often sanguinely hoping to shine on in their meridian, often set with
contempt and ridicule. I retired in time, 'uti conviva satur'; or, as
Pope says still better, ERE TITTERING YOUTH SHALL SHOVE YOU FROM THE
STAGE. My only remaining ambition is to be the counsellor and minister of
your rising ambition. Let me see my own youth revived in you; let me be
your Mentor, and, with your parts and knowledge, I promise you, you shall
go far. You must bring, on your part, activity and attention; and I will
point out to you the proper objects for them. I own I fear but one thing
for you, and that is what one has generally the least reason to fear from
one of your age; I mean your laziness; which, if you indulge, will make
you stagnate in a contemptible obscurity all your life. It will hinder
you from doing anything that will deserve to be written, or from writing
anything that may deserve to be read; and yet one or other of those two
objects should be at least aimed at by every rational being.

I look upon indolence as a sort of SUICIDE; for the man is effectually
destroyed, though the appetites of the brute may survive. Business by no
means forbids pleasures; on the contrary, they reciprocally season each
other; and I will venture to affirm, that no man enjoys either in
perfection, that does not join both. They whet the desire for each other.
Use yourself, therefore, in time to be alert and diligent in your little
concerns; never procrastinate, never put off till to-morrow what you can
do to-day; and never do two things at a time; pursue your object, be it
what it will, steadily and indefatigably; and let any difficulties (if
surmountable) rather animate than slacken your endeavors. Perseverance
has surprising effects.

I wish you would use yourself to translate, every day, only three or four
lines, from any book, in any language, into the correctest and most
elegant English that you can think of; you cannot imagine how it will
insensibly form your style, and give you an habitual elegance; it would
not take you up a quarter of an hour in a day. This letter is so long,
that it will hardly leave you that quarter of an hour, the day you
receive it. So good-night.

LETTER CXCVIII

LONDON, March 8, 1754

MY DEAR FRIEND: A great and unexpected event has