If I have worked out my destiny to financial independence, that does not ent.i.tle you to a share of it. If it seems best for me to aid you, it is not because a blood tie makes it a duty. I grow to believe there is a sort of curse on money which is not earned, even when it is bestowed by father, on son or daughter.

It cripples individual development. Only when money is earned is it blest.

Regarding your future profession, I cannot agree with your idea that because you feel no particular love for any one calling, and have a halfway tendency toward several, that you will never be a success. Great geniuses are often consumed with a pa.s.sion for some one line of study or employment, but there have been many great men who did not know what they were fitted to do until accident or necessity gave them an opportunity.

Success means simply concentration and perseverance.

Whether you decide to be a mechanic, a lawyer, a doctor, or a merchant, the one thing to do is to fix all your mental powers upon the goal you select, and then call all the forces from within and from without, to aid you to reach it.

It would, of course, be folly for you to select a profession which requires special talent. No matter how you might concentrate and apply yourself, you could never be a great poet, a great artist, or a great musician.

You have not the creative genius.

But law, medicine, mechanics, or mercantile matters, with your good brain and fair education, you could conquer.

You say you vacillate from one to another, like the wind which goes to the four points of the compa.s.s in twenty-four hours.

But you are very young, and this should not discourage you.

It would be well to think the four vocations over quietly, when alone, and sit down by yourself early in the morning asking for guidance. Then, when you feel you have made a decision, let nothing turn you from it.

Direct all your studies and thoughts to further that decision.

Think of yourself as achieving the very highest success in your chosen field, and work for that end.

You cannot fail.

If you desire light from without upon the best path to pursue, I would advise you to find a good phrenologist, and have a careful reading made of your head. Its formation and the development of its organs would indicate in what direction lay your greatest strength, and where you needed to be especially watchful.

But remember if your phrenologist tells you that you have a weak will, it does not mean that you must necessarily _always_ have a weak will. It means that you are to strengthen it, by concentration. There is a great truth underlying phrenology, palmistry, and astrology; but it is ridiculous to accept their verdicts as final and unchangeable, and it is unwise to ignore the good they may do, rightly applied and understood.

I recall the fact that you were born in early June. I know enough about the influence of the planets upon a child born at that period to a.s.sert that you are particularly inclined to a Gemini nature--the twin nature, which wants to do two things at one time. You want to stay in and go out, to read a book and play tennis, to swim and sit on the sand. Later in life, you will want to remain single and marry, and travel and remain at home, unless you begin _now_ to select one course of the two which are for ever presenting themselves to you, in small and large matters.

Whenever you feel yourself vacillating between two impulses, take yourself at once in hand, decide upon the preferable course, and go ahead. Dominate your astrological tendencies, do not be dominated by them. Dominate your weaknesses as exhibited by your phrenological chart, and build up the brain cells which need strengthening, and lessen the power of the undesirable qualities by giving them no food or indulgence.

It is a great thing to understand yourself as you are, and then to go ahead and make yourself what you desire to be.

When a carpenter starts to build a house, he knows just what tools and what materials to work with are his. If there is a broken implement, he replaces it with another, and if he is short of material he supplies it.

But young men set forth to make futures and fortunes, with no knowledge of their own equipment.

They do not know their own strongest or weakest traits, and are unprepared for the temptations and obstacles that await them.

I would advise you to call in the aid of all the occult sciences, to help you in forming an estimate of your own higher and lower tendencies, and in deciding for what line of occupation you were best fitted. Then, after you have compared the statistics so gathered with your own idea of yourself, you should proceed to make your character what you wish it to be.

This work will be ten thousand times more profitable to you than a mere routine of college studies, gained by running in debt.

To know yourself is far better knowledge than to know Virgil. And to make yourself is a million times better than to have any one else make you.

To Miss Elsie Dean

_Regarding the Habit of Exaggeration_

During your visit here with my niece, I became much interested in you.

Zoe had often written me of her affection for you, and I can readily understand her feeling, now that I have your personal acquaintance.

You have no mother, and your father, you say, absorbed in business, like so many American fathers, seems almost a stranger. Even the most devoted fathers, rarely understand their daughters.

Now, I want to take the part of a mother and write you to-day, as I would write my own daughter, had one been bestowed upon me with the many other blessings which are mine.

I could not ask for a fairer, more amiable, or brighter daughter than you, nor one possessed of a kinder or more unselfish nature.

You are lovable, entertaining, industrious, and refined.

But you possess one fault which needs eradicating, or at least a propensity which needs directing.

_It is the habit of exaggeration in conversation_.

I noticed that small happenings, amusing or exciting, became events of colossal importance when related by you.

I noticed that brief remarks were amplified and grew into something like orations when you repeated them.

I confess that you made small incidents more interesting, and insignificant words acquired poetic meaning under your tongue.

And I confess also that you never once wronged or injured any one by your exaggerations--save yourself.

Zoe often said to me, "Isn't it wonderful how Elsie's imagination lends a halo to the commonest event," and all your friends know that you have this habit of hyperbole in conversation.

Now, in your early girlhood, it is lightly regarded as "Elsie's way."

Later, in your maturity, I fear it will be called a harsher name.

When you come to the time of life that larger subjects than girlish pranks and badinage engage your mind, it will be necessary for you to be more exact in your descriptions of occurrences and conversations.

Besides this, there is the heritage of your unborn children to consider.

I once knew a little girl who possessed the same vivid imagination, and allowed it to continue unchecked through life. She married, and her son, to-day, is utterly devoid of fine moral senses. He is a mental monstrosity--incapable of telling the truth. His falsehoods are many and varied, and his name is a synonym of untruth. He relates, as truth, the most marvellous exploits in which he really never took part, and describes scenes and places he has never visited, save through the pages of some novel.

His lack of moral sense has blighted his mother's life, and she is wholly unconscious that he is only an exaggerated edition of herself.

I think, as a rule, such imaginations as you possess belong to the literary mind. I would advise you to turn your attention to story-writing, and in that occupation you will find vent for your romantic tendencies.

Meanwhile watch yourself and control your speech.

Learn to be exact.

Tell the truth in small matters, and do not allow yourself to indulge in seemingly harmless white lies of exaggeration.