STILL OLE SKOOL
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www.MySpace-Codes.usTHIS IS HOW I LIKE TO DRESS WHEN I GO OUT ON A DATE, SO IF YOU CAN'T HANG DON'T EVEN RANG
ADVICE TO THE YOUTH (by Mark Twain) [1835-1910]Being told I would be expected to talk here, I inquiredwhat sort of a talk I ought to make.They said it should be something suitable to youth &something didactic, (educational) instructive, orsomething in the nature of good advice.Very well. I have a few things in my mind which I haveoften longed to say for the instruction of the young; forit is in ones tender early years that such things willbest take root and be most enduring and most valuable.First, then, I will say to you, my young friendsand I sayit beseechingly,urgentlyAlways obey your parents, when they are present.This is the best policy in the long run, because if youdon't they will make you.Most parents think they know better than you do, and youcan generally make more by humoring that superstition thanyou can by acting on your own better judgment. Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any,also to strangers, and sometimes to others.If a person offend you and you are in doubt as to whetherit was intentional or not, do not resort to extrememeasures simply watch your chance and hit him with abrick.That will be sufficient.If you shall find that he had not intended anyoffense. Come out frankly and confess yourself in thewrong when you struck him; acknowledge it like a man andsay you didn't mean to.Yes, always avoid violence; in this age of charityand kindliness, the time has gone by such things. Leavedynamite to the low and unrefined.Go to bed early, get up early this is wise. Someauthorities say get up with the sun; some others say getup with one thing, some with another.But a lark is really the best thing to get up with. Itgives you a splendid reputation with everybody to knowthat you get up with the lark; and if you get up with theright kind of lark, and work at him right, you can easilytrain him to get up at half past nine, every time it is notrick at all.Now as to the matter of lying. You want to bevery careful about lying; otherwise you are nearly sure toget caught. Once caught, you can never again be, in theeyes of the good and the pure, what you were before.Many of young person has injured himselfpermanently through a single clumsy and ill finished lie,the result of carelessness born of incomplete training.Some authorities hold that the young ought not tolie at all. That, of course, is putting it ratherstronger than necessary; still, while I cannot go quite sofar as that, I do maintain, and I believe I am right, thatthe young ought to be temperate (moderate) in the use ofthis great art until practice and experience shall givethem that confidence, elegance, and precision which alonecan make the accomplishment graceful and profitable.Patience, diligence, painstaking attention to detailthese are the requirements; these, in time, will make thestudent perfect; upon these, and upon these only, may herely as the sure foundation for future eminence.Think what tedious years of study, thought, practice,experience, went to the equipment of that peerless(superior) old master who was able to impose upon thewhole world the lofty and sounding maxim(saying)that truth is mighty and will prevail? the most majestic(magnificent) compound fracture of fact which any of womanborn has yet achieved.For the history of our race, and each individualsexperience, are sown (publicize) thick with evidence thata truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well isimmortal.There is in Boston a monument of the man who discoveredanaesthesia; many people are aware, in these latter days,that that man didn't discover it at all, but stole thediscovery from another man. Is this truth mighty, andwill it prevail? Ah no, my hearers, the monument is madeof hardy material. But the lie it tells will outcast it amillion years.An awkward, feeble, leaky lie is a thing which you oughtto make it your unceasing study to avoid; such a lie asthat has no more real permanence than an average truth.Why, you might as well tell the truth at once and be donewith it. A feeble, stupid, preposterous lie will not livetwo years except it be a slander upon somebody.It is indestructible, then, of course, but that is nomerit of yours. A final word: begin your practice of thisgracious and beautiful art early begin now. If I hadbegun earlier, I could have learned how.Never handle firearms carelessly. The sorrow andsuffering that have been caused through the innocent outheedless (careless) handling of firearms by the young!Only four days ago, right in the next farmhouse to the onewhere I am spending the summer, a grandmother, old andgray and sweet, one of the loveliest spirits in the land,was sitting at her work, when her young grandson crept inand got down an old, battered, rusty gun which had notbeen touched for many years and was supposed not to beloaded, and pointed it at her, laughing and threatening toshoot.In her fright she ran screaming and pleading toward thedoor on the other side of the room; but as she passed himhe placed the gun almost against her very breast andpulled the trigger!He had supposed it was not loaded. And he was right--itwasn't. So there wasn't any harm done. It is the onlycase of that kind I ever heard of.Therefore, just the same, don't you meddle with oldunloaded firearms; they are the most deadly and unerring(certain) thing that have ever been created by man.You don't have to take any pains at all with them; youdon't have to have a rest, you don't have to have anysights on the gun, you don't have to take aim, even. No,you just pick out a relative and bang away, and you aresure to get him.A youth who can't hit a cathedral (church) at thirty yardswith a Gatling gun in three-quarters of an hour, can takeup an old empty musket and bag his grandmother every time,at a hundred.Think what Waterloo would have been if one of the armieshad been boys armed with old muskets supposed not to beloaded, and the other army had been composed of theirfemale relations.The very thought of it makes one shudder.There are many sorts of books; but good ones are the sortfor the young to read. Remember that.They are a great, unestimable, an unspeakable means ofimprovement.Therefore be careful in your selection, my young friends;be very careful; confine yourselves exclusively toRobertson Sermons, Baxter Saint Rest, the InnocentsAbroad, and works of that kind.But I have said enough, I hope you will treasure up theinstructions which I have given you, and make them a guideto your feet and a light to your understanding.Build your character thoughtfully and painstakingly uponthese precepts, and by and by, when you have got it built,you will be surprised and gratified to see how nicely andsharply it resembles everybody else