The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1882-11-25
TRUE ADVICE.

BURDETT's ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN.
1t is well, my boy, to save some of
yourstrength for old age. Don't waste
it all, and don't use 1t all up In the
pleasures and tolls and fOllies OF
youth. Save some Of 1t. Save good
deal of it. In the expressive dialect
of Arkansaw, save up right smart
heap. and you can use it right peart
and still have right considerable
left for your old age. But save it
principally from your dissipation, my
boy. Save it by going to bed at ten
rather than by sitting up to drink
beer until haIf-past one. Too much
sleep is injurious, it is true, but then
fifteen hours sleep will harm you less
than six hours of wine supper. Go
slow on these things, my boy. and at
sixty you will have ten years off forty
five left in Drawn and blood and
brains.
But don't be 90 saving Of your
youthful strength that you will have
all of it left at sixty. Because you
won't. You may save it, but it won't
be there. 1t will waste by di4use.
Just now is the time when you must
work the hardest, hut as | told you
while ago, hard work won't hurt you.
Improve your time, my boy. Put
in every minute in honest hard work.
or tranquil meditation, or heathful
recreation, That IS all | ask you to
do. Oh, 'yOu believe you'll select
meditation as a profession" then, do
you? 1t strikes you that it is easy
wOrk,tO sit and think, eh? Now, my
boy, if you want smoothing easy, you
had much better stand and chop
wood. 1t isn't easy to think. We
don't think half as much as we want
to make people believe we do. In
fact. we don't think nearly so much
as we think we do. Busy thought
and aimles idleness are often very
similar in external appearance. Edi=
son, sitting before his fireleSS forge,
with his hands folded listIeSsly in his
lap, looking at nothing, may be APP
Uarently as idle, even idler, than the
man perChed on the end of a cotton
wood log, watching his cork bob lazily
in the yellow water of sluggish
creek. But the results are in one in
stance the telephone and the electric
light, and in the other the ague and
SOft-mOuthed sucker and catfish
four inches long. The one dreams
out marvellous inventions that thrill
the world with wonder and multiply
commercial activity, and gives them
to the eager, waiting world or at
least he sells them to Jay Gould and
Jay Gould sells them to the world
and the other contracts malaraI
fever and gives it to his family. 1t is
not easy to think we waste more
time than we use. and the hours slip
away so noiselessly and easily, we
don't know where they have gone.
| hayesOmetimes thought, TeIema
chus, if man could only have al
ways present with him some con-
staDt reminder Of the fight CT fine {;
if he could have in his room a great
hour glass, laden with just the equal
and exact sands Of life. If he could
every day watch the steadily drop-
ping grains, and knew that when
they all ran through, the last grain
would just complete his grave. If
when he closed his eyes he knew that
all night long the priceless grains ran
through, if in the silent hours of
darkness when he awake he could
hear Them dropping steadily as ~
drip, drip, drip of water clock. If
when he came in from journ' y he
2 could see how much of the sands of
his life had run out while he Journey
ed for pleasure or profit. If, some
times, he could stand before it and
watch the swift grains running away
with his life and he should feel that
alway, and alway, night and day,
i, sleeping and waking fasting or feast
ing, working or resting, wherever he
went or whatever he did, no faster.
no slower, steadily, pitilessIy, the
sands ran throsgh and always every
hour The life heap above fell away
8 and the grave heap Below pfled ug
and up. If he could realize that nc
e Thought or care, or skill or learning
p could make them run more slowly by
o and by, or ado one light grain to the
v measure meted out and sealed against
1t his life by the ineAOrahle fstes,
wonder how many of the Cropping he
would turn into gold by the alchemy
= of his industry?
Pshaw, my son, if you had such q
glass the novelty Of the thing would
wear away in thirty days. Some
night when you came in late from q
toilsome gameof"draw," )" so to speak
is or walking match around billiard