From a Letter to William H. Herndon.  Washington.  June 22, 1848

As to the young men.  You must not wait to be brought forward by the older men.  For instance, do you suppose that I should ever have got into notice if I had waited to be hunted up and pushed forward by older men?  You young men get together and form a “Rough and Ready Club,” and have regular meetings and speeches.  Take in everybody you can get.  Harrison Grimsley, L.A.  Enos, Lee Kimball and C.W.  Matheny will do to begin the thing; but as you go along gather up all the shrewd, wild boys about town, whether just of age or a little under age—­Chris. Logan, Reddick Ridgley, Lewis Zwizler, and hundreds such.  Let every one play the part he can play best,—­some speak, some sing, and all “holler.”  Your meetings will be of evenings; the older men, and the women, will go to hear you; so that it will not only contribute to the election of “Old Zach,” but will be an interesting pastime, and improving to the intellectual faculties of all engaged.  Don’t fail to do this.

From a Letter to William H. Herndon.  Washington, July 10, 1848

The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.  Allow me to assure you that suspicion and jealousy never did help any man in any situation.  There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed, too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury.  Cast about, and see if this feeling has not injured every person you have ever known to fall into it.

Letter to John D. Johnston.  January 2, 1851

Dear Johnston, Your request for eighty dollars I do not think it best to comply with now.  At the various times when I have helped you a little you have said to me, “We can get along very well now”; but in a very short time I find you in the same difficulty again.  Now, this can only happen by some defect in your conduct.  What that defect is, I think I know.  You are not lazy, and still you are an idler.  I doubt whether, since I saw you, you have done a good whole day’s work in any one day.  You do not very much dislike to work, and still you do not work much, merely because it does not seem to you that you could get much for it.  This habit of uselessly wasting time is the whole difficulty; it is vastly important to you, and still more so to your children, that you should break the habit.  It is more important to them, because they have longer to live, and can keep out of an idle habit before they are in it, easier than they can get out after they are in.