Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford | Page 7

'He who will not work shall not eat.' Yet, so strong is the propensity to be thought '_gentlemen_'; so general is this desire amongst the youth of this formerly laborious and unassuming nation; a nation famed for its pursuit of wealth through the channels of patience, punctuality, and integrity; a nation famed for its love of solid acquisitions and qualities, and its hatred of everything showy and false: so general is this really fraudulent desire amongst the youth of this now '_speculating_' nation, that thousands upon thousands of them are, at this moment, in a state of half starvation, not so much because they are too lazy to earn their bread, as because they are too proud! And what are the _consequences_? Such a youth remains or becomes a burden to his parents, of whom he ought to be the comfort, if not the support. Always aspiring to something higher than he can reach, his life is a life of disappointment and of shame. If marriage befal him, it is a real affliction, involving others as well as himself. His lot is a thousand times worse than that of the common labouring pauper. Nineteen times out of twenty a premature death awaits him: and, alas! how numerous are the cases in which that death is most miserable, not to say ignominious! Stupid pride is one of the symptoms of madness. Of the two madmen mentioned in Don Quixote, one thought himself NEPTUNE, and the other JUPITER. Shakspeare agrees with CERVANTES; for, Mad Tom, in King Lear, being asked who he is, answers, 'I am a tailor run mad with pride.' How many have we heard of, who claimed relationship with noblemen and _kings_; while of not a few each has thought himself the Son of God! To the public journals, and to the observations of every one, nay, to the '_county-lunatic asylums_' (things never heard of in England till now), I appeal for the fact of the vast and hideous _increase of madness in this country_; and, within these very few years, how many scores of young men, who, if their minds had been unperverted by the gambling principles of the day, had a probably long and happy life before them; who had talent, personal endowments, love of parents, love of friends, admiration of large circles; who had, in short, everything to make life desirable, and who, from mortified pride, founded on false pretensions, have put an end to their own existence!
24. As to DRUNKENNESS and GLUTTONY, generally so called, these are vices so nasty and beastly that I deem any one capable of indulging in them to be wholly unworthy of my advice; and, if any youth unhappily initiated in these odious and debasing vices should happen to read what I am now writing, I refer him to the command of God, conveyed to the Israelites by Moses, in Deuteronomy, chap. xxi. The father and mother are to take the bad son 'and bring him to the elders of the city; and they shall say to the elders, This our son will not obey our voice: he is a glutton and a drunkard. And all the men of the city shall stone him with stones, that he die.' I refer downright beastly gluttons and drunkards to this; but indulgence short, far short, of this gross and really nasty drunkenness and gluttony is to be deprecated, and that, too, with the more earnestness because it is too often looked upon as being no crime at all, and as having nothing blameable in it; nay, there are many persons who pride themselves on their refined taste in matters connected with eating and drinking: so far from being ashamed of employing their thoughts on the subject, it is their boast that they do it. St. Gregory, one of the Christian fathers, says: 'It is not the quantity or the quality of the meat, or drink, but the love of it that is condemned;' that is to say, the indulgence beyond the absolute demands of nature; the hankering after it; the neglect of some duty or other for the sake of the enjoyments of the table.
25. This love of what are called 'good eating and drinking,' if very unamiable in grown-up persons, is perfectly hateful in _a youth_; and, if he indulge in the propensity, he is already half ruined. To warn you against acts of fraud, robbery, and violence, is not my province; that is the business of those who make and administer the law. I am not talking to you against acts which the jailor and the hangman punish; nor against those moral offences which all men condemn; but against indulgences, which, by men in general, are deemed not only harmless, but meritorious; but which the observation of my whole life