Part 12

Sleep and rest ensue, but ten to one the habit is formed for life.

The happy experiences of my life in money-lending, have been two instances where I offered loans which were not asked, and which proved to be bridges over the chasm of temporary misfortune, to the success awaiting a worthy woman and man. The really deserving rarely ask for loans.

I can imagine with what pleasure you would take a cheque from this letter, for the amount which would carry you through college.

Yet when you had finished your course, you would find so many things you wanted to do, and must do, the debt would become too heavy to lift, save by borrowing from some one else.

If not that, then you would impose upon the fact of our relationship, and on your belief that I had plenty of means without the amount you owed me: and so you would join the great army of good-for-nothings in the world.

There is one thing you must always remember:

No matter how close the blood tie between two beings, even twins, each soul comes into the world alone, and with a separate life destiny to work out.

If I have worked out my destiny to financial independence, that does not entitle you to a share of it. If it seems best for me to aid you, it is not because a blood tie makes it a duty. I grow to believe there is a sort of curse on money which is not earned, even when it is bestowed by father, on son or daughter.

It cripples individual development. Only when money is earned is it blest.

Regarding your future profession, I cannot agree with your idea that because you feel no particular love for any one calling, and have a halfway tendency toward several, that you will never be a success. Great geniuses are often consumed with a passion for some one line of study or employment, but there have been many great men who did not know what they were fitted to do until accident or necessity gave them an opportunity.

Success means simply concentration and perseverance.

Whether you decide to be a mechanic, a lawyer, a doctor, or a merchant, the one thing to do is to fix all your mental powers upon the goal you select, and then call all the forces from within and from without, to aid you to reach it.

It would, of course, be folly for you to select a profession which requires special talent. No matter how you might concentrate and apply yourself, you could never be a great poet, a great artist, or a great musician.

You have not the creative genius.

But law, medicine, mechanics, or mercantile matters, with your good brain and fair education, you could conquer.

You say you vacillate from one to another, like the wind which goes to the four points of the compass in twenty-four hours.

But you are very young, and this should not discourage you.

It would be well to think the four vocations over quietly, when alone, and sit down by yourself early in the morning asking for guidance. Then, when you feel you have made a decision, let nothing turn you from it.

Direct all your studies and thoughts to further that decision.

Think of yourself as achieving the very highest success in your chosen field, and work for that end.

You cannot fail.

If you desire light from without upon the best path to pursue, I would advise you to find a good phrenologist, and have a careful reading made of your head. Its formation and the development of its organs would indicate in what direction lay your greatest strength, and where you needed to be especially watchful.

But remember if your phrenologist tells you that you have a weak will, it does not mean that you must necessarily always have a weak will. It means that you are to strengthen it, by concentration. There is a great truth underlying phrenology, palmistry, and astrology; but it is ridiculous to accept their verdicts as final and unchangeable, and it is unwise to ignore the good they may do, rightly applied and understood.

I recall the fact that you were born in early June. I know enough about the influence of the planets upon a child born at that period to assert that you are particularly inclined to a Gemini nature--the twin nature, which wants to do two things at one time. You want to stay in and go out, to read a book and play tennis, to swim and sit on the sand. Later in life, you will want to remain single and marry, and travel and remain at home, unless you begin now to select one course of the two which are for ever presenting themselves to you, in small and large matters.

Whenever you feel yourself vacillating between two impulses, take yourself at once in hand, decide upon the preferable course, and go ahead. Dominate your astrological tendencies, do not be dominated by them. Dominate your weaknesses as exhibited by your phrenological chart, and build up the brain cells which need strengthening, and lessen the power of the undesirable qualities by giving them no food or indulgence.

It is a great thing to understand yourself as you are, and then to go ahead and make yourself what you desire to be.

When a carpenter starts to build a house, he knows just what tools and what materials to work with are his. If there is a broken implement, he replaces it with another, and if he is short of material he supplies it. But young men set forth to make futures and fortunes, with no knowledge of their own equipment.

They do not know their own strongest or weakest traits, and are unprepared for the temptations and obstacles that await them.