Letter from L. R. J. to
- Location(s)
- Philadelphia
- Format
- Letter. 2 page(s) on 1 sheet(s).
- Letter
- Type
- Letter
- Language(s)
- English
- Physical Characteristics
- Unlined Paper
- Fragment
- Manuscript
- content
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5
very perfect automation, warranted to read, speak or work, but not to feel. What seek you in life for a resting place, when your mind takes a flight into the regions of the future? Is it wealth? I hope you do not covet riches for their own sake, but if you would have them, the proverb says, "take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves." Do you wish to acquire fame? Is it necessary to your happiness that the voice of multitudes shall call you great? Why, then, strive to be great, and that you mount to the heights which Ambition occupies, build your way up with little things, so that you may know every step which led you thither, and thus, when the oppor-tunity comes, you may be able to answer to its calls, "ready? aye ready". For instance, if you are a student, and it is to literature you look for the means of becoming known, you may look upon a line read without your having seized its sense, a thought passed by without you having seiz followed it out, as so many delays to your advancement; for even though you should see no present use for the knowledge you acquire, yet you should be prepared for the time when it will be needed, so that you may at once take advantage of it. Do you long for kindness and friendship, and love, from those who may chance to journey with you? Why, then, it rests with you to have all these; Smiles have always their reflections, and kind words and friendly deeds, are sure to reproduce themselves. Are you, my friend, subject to fits of melancholy the blues, "when you feel angry with yourself and every one else, and are almost determined that it is of no use trying to live, in such an ill-natured world? Just walk into the street, where you may chance to see some living assertion that there is some good left; or look
into some good book, where you may see that others have felt as you do, and have found comfort in looking out from the contemplation of their own real or imaginary causes of complaint, into some of the pleasant aisles which open up through the wilderness of life, and have found upon nearer approach, that there are indeed but few spots so dark, that no sun beam has found its way through them to warm into life, some flower or blade of grass. A word, a thought, a kind smile, a noble im-pulse, a friendly action, things in themselves "trifles light as air," seem then to me, to bear the same relation to great things, as the Alphabet to language; and when I see men listening with admiration when events announce themselves with the sound of the trumpet, while they disregard "the still, small voice;" I long to remind them of the answer of that clergyman; who, being asked, how he comes to alter his manner, from the loud, ranting style he had formerly used, replied, "When I was young, I used to think that it was the thunder which killed the people, but as I grew older, I found that it was the lightning; So I resolved to thunder less and lighten more". One more illustration, the cackling of a goose saved Rome; and though you should smilingly declare this effusion to be something upon the same order, I will not complain, if I shall have reminded you, that it would be wise to "Despise not the day of small things."
L. R. J.
253 22 Robt.
Part of Letter from L. R. J. to
“Letter from L. R. J. to”, Isaac Leeser Digital Repository, accessed September 20, 2024, https://judaicadhpenn.org/legacyprojects/s/leeser/item/66897