Advice to a Young Man

Remember, my son, you have to work.

Whether you handle a pick or a pen,

a wheel-barrow or a set of books,

digging ditches or editing a paper,

ringing an auction bell or writing funny things,

you must work.

If you look around you will see the men

who are the most able to live the rest of their days without work

are the men who work the hardest.

Don’t be afraid of killing yourself with overwork.

It is beyond your power to do that on the sunny side of thirty.

They die sometimes,

but it is because they quit work at six in the evening,

and do not go home until two in the morning.

It’s the interval that kills, my son.

The work gives you an appetite for your meals;

it lends solidity to your slumbers;

it gives you a perfect and grateful appreciation of a holiday.

There are young men who do not work,

but the world is not proud of them.

It does not know their names;

even it simply speaks of them as “old so-and-so’s boy”.

Nobody likes them;

the great, busy world doesn’t know that they are there.

So find out what you want to be and do,

and take off your coat and make a dust in the world.

The busier you are, the less harm you will be apt to get into,

the sweeter will be your sleep,

the brighter and happier your holidays,

and the better satisfied will the world be with you.