Now that you are to be soon a man of business,I heartily wish that you would immediately begin to be a man of method;nothing contributing more to facilitate and dispatch business,than method and order.Have order and method in your accounts,in your reading,in the allotment of your time;in short,in everything.You cannot conceive how much time you will save by it,nor how much better everything you do will be done.The Duke of Marlborough did by no means spend,but he slatterned himself into that immense debt,which is not yet near paid off.The hurry and confusion of the Duke of Newcastle do not proceed from his business,but from his want of method in it.Sir Robert Walpole,who had ten times the business to do,was never seen in a hurry,because he always did it with method.The head of a man who has business,and no method nor order,is properly that 'rudis indigestaque moles quam dixere chaos'.As you must be conscious that you are extremely negligent and slatternly,I hope you will resolve not to be so for the future.Prevail with yourself,only to observe good method and order for one fortnight;and I will venture to assure you that you will never neglect them afterward,you will find such conveniency and advantage arising from them.Method is the great advantage that lawyers have over other people,in speaking in parliament;for,as they must necessarily observe it in their pleadings in the courts of justice,it becomes habitual to them everywhere else.Without making you a compliment,I can tell you with pleasure,that order,method,and more activity of mind,are all that you want,to make,some day or other,a considerable figure in business.You have more useful knowledge,more discernment of characters,and much more discretion,than is common at your age;much more,I am sure,than I had at that age.Experience you cannot yet have,and therefore trust in the meantime to mine.I am an old traveler;am well acquainted with all the bye as well as the great roads;I cannot misguide you from ignorance,and you are very sure Ishall not from design.
I can assure you,that you will have no opportunity of subscribing yourself my Excellency's,etc.Retirement and quiet were my choice some years ago,while I had all my senses,and health and spirits enough to carry on business;but now that I have lost my hearing,and that I find my constitution declining daily,they are become my necessary and only refuge.I know myself (no common piece of knowledge,let me tell you),I know what I can,what I cannot,and consequently what I ought to do.
I ought not,and therefore will not,return to business when I am much less fit for it than I was when I quitted it.Still less will I go to Ireland,where,from my deafness and infirmities,I must necessarily make a different figure from that which I once made there.My pride would be too much mortified by that difference.The two important senses of seeing and hearing should not only be good,but quick,in business;and the business of a Lord-lieutenant of Ireland (if he will do it himself)requires both those senses in the highest perfection.It was the Duke of Dorset's not doing the business himself,but giving it up to favorites,that has occasioned all this confusion in Ireland;and it was my doing the whole myself,without either Favorite,Minister,or Mistress,that made my administration so smooth and quiet.I remember,when I named the late Mr.Liddel for my Secretary,everybody was much surprised at it;and some of my friends represented to me,that he was no man of business,but only a very genteel,pretty young fellow;I assured them,and with truth,that that was the very reason why I chose him;for that I was resolved to do all the business myself,and without even the suspicion of having a minister;which the Lord-lieutenant's Secretary,if he is a man of business,is always supposed,and commonly with reason,to be.
Moreover,I look upon myself now to be emeritus in business,in which Ihave been near forty years together;I give it up to you:apply yourself to it,as I have done,for forty years,and then I consent to 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 SHALLSHOVE 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.
