Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1862-12-03
Hints on Mental Culture.

This is a busy world never deem your
self superior to what Bacon calls the wis
dom of business" If your pursuits take
you somewhat aside from the practical
affairs of life-if you are poet. scholar,
an artist-it is the more necessary that
you should keep yourself wide awake
when you deal with tradesman or look
into your accounts for it is popular no
ton that poets, scholars, and artists can
be very easily cheated; and therefore
more people try to cheat them than they
do ordinary mOrtals. Even among the in
ferior races, the more creature IS likely
to he preyed upon, the more wary and
vigilant Nature designs to be. Poet, be-
fore yOu sit down to surpass Paradise Lost,
be sure that you know the market price
of mutton you may not surpass Paradise
Lost but you will certainly have to pay
for your mutton Politician, before you
devote yourself 10 your country with the
ambition to excel Mr.. Pitt, see that your
servants don't cheat you; they cheated
Mr.. Pitt, and, in cheating him, made one
of those few dread humiliatiOns of his au-
gust life which brought tears to his proud
eyes, but no amendment in his weekly
bills. Perhaps the only thing in which,
o politician! you resemble Mr.. Pitt, is,
hat your servants may cheat you and if
you are not Mr.. Pitt, no friends will come
forward to humble you by paying your
debts Poet or politician. the more you
labor for Immortality, be the more on your
guard that your mortal career do not close
in the Queens Bench but especially if
you be professional man of letters, living
on the profits of your pen, let your pub
Usher know that you are as punctual and
scrupulous in the ful6lment of engage
ments as if he were dealing with formal
clerk in the city. No genius can afford
to dispense with loyalty and honor. 10y
atty and honor necessitate the attention
to business. Every man to whom you
make a promise that you will do such and
such work in a certain time, should rest
assured that your word is as firm as the
Rock of Gibralter Confidence is the first
principle of all business. -.
1t is a wonderous advantage to man.
in every pursuit or ayocation, TO secure an
adviser in a sensible woman In woman
there is at once subtle delicacy of tact,
and plain soundness of Judgment, which
are rarely combined to an equal degree in
man. A woman, if she be really your
friend, will have a sensitive regard for
your character, honor, repute. She will
seldom counsel you to do shabby thing,
for woman-friend always desires to be
proud of you. At the same time, her con-
stitutional timidity makes her more eau
tious than your male friend. She there
fore, seldom counsels you to do an impru-
dent thing. BY female friendships I
mean pure friendship-those in which
there is no admixture of the pas
sion of love, except in the married state
A mans best female friend is a wife of
good sense and good heart, whom he
loves, and who loves him. If he have
that, he need not seek elsewhere. But
suppose the man to be without such a
helpmate, female friendship he must still
have, or his intellect will be without a
garden, and there will be many an unheed-
ed gap even in its strongest fence. Bet
ter and safer, of course, such friendships
where disparities of fyears or circumstan-
ces put the idea of love out of the ques-
ton. Middle life has rarely this advan-
tage; youth and old ssage have. We may
have female friendships with those much
Younger than ourselves. Moliere's old
housekeeper was great help to his gen
ius; and Montaigne's philosophy takes both
a gentler and loftier character of wis
dom from the date in which he finds, in
Marie de Gournay, an adopted daughter,
certainly beloved by me-" the Horace of
essayists, with more than paternal love,
and involved in my solitude and retire |
ment. as one Of the best parts of my be- |
ing Female Friendship, indeed, is to |
man ''prfesidium ct dulce decus'- bul- |
wark, sweetener. ornament of his exist |
ence. TO his mental culture it is invalua- |
BILE; without it all his knowledge of hooks |
will never give him knowledge Of the |
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