ON THE MANAGEMENT OF MONEY. 91 



that which you need as a provision against the work-house. Youth is too 

 apt to exclaim, " Aut Caesar aut nullus." But that saying was only for a 

 Caesar ; and even for him it was not a wise one. To a Caesar there should 

 have been no Aut. Nemesis sighed " Aut nullus" when Caesar fell at the 

 feet of the marble Porapey. 



A daring trader hazards the halter if he says " Rothschild or nothing ; " 

 a philosopher will end as a charlatan if he says " Aristotle or nothing ; " a 

 gentleman who says " Sir Philip Sidney or nothing" is on the eve of be- 

 coming a blackleg. The safe maxim is this : " The highest I can be, but 

 on no account nullus." 



Let your first care be, then, independence. Without pecuniary inde- 

 pendence you are not even intellectually free ; with independence, even 

 though it be gained through some occupation which you endure as a drud- 

 gery, still, out of the twenty-four hours, there will be always some hours 

 for the occupation in which you delight. 



This observation applies in fullest force to aspirants in literature. It 

 is my cruel fate to receive no unfrequent communications from youths 

 whose calling is that of the counter, whose tastes are those of Parnassus ; 

 and the pitch of these unsolicited communications is invariably this : 



" I gain so many shillings a week by a vulgar and detestable trade ; but 

 I have a soul above buttons. Read the MSS. I inclose. Do you not think 

 there is some merit in them ? Could I not succeed as an author ? I ha\ < 

 had disadvantages to encounter so had Burns. I can not boast of a 

 scholastic education : I have had very little leisure to educate myself ; 

 still " et cetera, et cetera, all the et cetera involving the same question : 

 " As I am unfit to be an apprentice, am I not fit to be an author ? Not 

 having enough of human intelligence, perseverance, and energy to excel 

 as a hatter, a tailor, a butcher, a baker, may I not be a Walter Scott or a 

 Byron ? " 



Useless I solemnly warn all such contingent correspondents as may 



now be looming ominously among other unwelcome clouds that menace 



my few holiday hours- useless to apply to me. Be the specimen 



ius und'T diflieulties thus volunteered to my eye good, bad, or iiidifler- 



my an>wtT, as an honest man, am be only this, " ELdOptO the calling 



tha- you a something out of which you may extra- t indepmd- 



until you an- indr|M-ndrnt. (iive to that calling all your In-art, all your 



mind. If 1 w-iv hatter, or tailor, or hutchrr, or l>akT, 1 .should resolve 



to consider my railing the hest in the world, and d \ st of 



iny : Ind'-jM ud-uc- mu-- won, then he Byron or Scott if you can." 



