"Perhaps not, because few have control of their own education.
Your parents have been too tender of you. They have not lessoned
you in that proper hardihood which leads to performance. That task
is before yourself, and you have shrunk from the first lessons."

"How, sir?"

"Instead of clinging to your Blackstone, you have allowed yourself
to be seduced from its pages, by such attractions as usually delude
boys. The eye and lip of a pretty woman--a bright eye and a rosy
cheek, have diverted you from your duties."

"But do our duties deny us the indulgence of proper sensibilities?"

"Certainly not--PROPER sensibilities, on the contrary, prescribe
our duties."

"But love, sir--is not love a proper sensibility?"

"In its place, it is. But you are a boy only. Do you suppose that
it was ever intended that you should entertain this passion before
you had learned the art of providing your own food? Not so; and the
proof of this is to be found in the fact that the loves of boyhood
are never of a permanent character. No such passion can promote
happiness if it is indulged before the character of the parties is
formed. I now tell you that in five years from this time you will
probably forget Miss Cooper."

"Never! never!"