LETTER I

TO A YOUTH

12. You are now arrived at that age which the law thinks sufficient to
make an oath, taken by you, valid in a court of law. Let us suppose from
fourteen to nearly twenty; and, reserving, for a future occasion, my
remarks on your duty towards parents, let me here offer you my advice as
to the means likely to contribute largely towards making you a happy
man, useful to all about you, and an honour to those from whom you
sprang.

13. Start, I beseech you, with a conviction firmly fixed on your mind,
that you have no right to live in this world; that, being of hale body
and sound mind, you have _no right_ to any earthly existence, without
doing _work_ of some sort or other, unless you have ample fortune
whereon to live clear of debt; and, that even in that case, you have no
right to breed children, to be kept by others, or to be exposed to the
chance of being so kept. Start with this conviction thoroughly implanted
on your mind. To wish to live on the labour of others is, besides the
folly of it, to contemplate a _fraud_ at the least, and, under certain
circumstances, to meditate oppression and robbery.

14. I suppose you in the middle rank of life. Happiness ought to be your
great object, and it is to be found only in _independence_. Turn your
back on Whitehall and on Somerset-House; leave the Customs and Excise to
the feeble and low-minded; look not for success to favour, to
partiality, to friendship, or to what is called _interest_: write it on