Advice to a Young Man (Excerpt)

Remember, my son, you have to work. Whether you handle a pick or a pen, a wheel-barrowor a set of books, digging ditches or editing a paper, ringing an auction bell or writing funnythings, you must work. If you look around you will see the men who are the most able to live the rest of their days without work are the men who work the hardest. Don't be afraid of killingyourself with overwork. It is beyond your power to do that on the sunny side of thirty. They die sometimes, but it is because they quit work at six in the evening, and do not go home until two in the morning. It’s the interval that kills, my son. The work gives you an appetite for yourmeals; it lends solidity to your slumbers, it gives you a perfect and grateful appreciation of a holiday.