LETTER CIV

London, February 5, O. S. 1750

My dear friend:  Very few people are good economists of their fortune, and still fewer of their time; and yet of the two, the latter is the most precious.  I heartily wish you to be a good economist of both:  and you are now of an age to begin to think seriously of those two important articles.  Young people are apt to think that they have so much time before them, that they may squander what they please of it, and yet have enough left; as very great fortunes have frequently seduced people to a ruinous profusion.  Fatal mistakes, always repented of, but always too late!  Old Mr. Lowndes, the famous Secretary of the Treasury in the reigns of King William, Queen Anne, and King George the First, used to say,—­take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves.  To this maxim, which he not only preached but practiced, his two grandsons at this time owe the very considerable fortunes that he left them.

This holds equally true as to time; and I most earnestly recommend to you the care of those minutes and quarters of hours, in the course of the day, which people think too short to deserve their attention; and yet, if summed up at the end of the year, would amount to a very considerable portion of time.  For example:  you are to be at such a place at twelve, by appointment; you go out at eleven, to make two or three visits first; those persons are not at home, instead of sauntering away that intermediate time at a coffeehouse, and possibly alone, return home, write a letter, beforehand, for the ensuing post, or take up a good book, I do not mean Descartes, Malebranche, Locke, or Newton, by way of dipping; but some book of rational amusement and detached pieces, as Horace, Boileau, Waller, La Bruyere, etc.  This will be so much time saved, and by no means ill employed.  Many people lose a great deal of time by reading:  for they read frivolous and idle books, such as the absurd romances of the two last centuries; where characters, that never existed, are insipidly displayed, and sentiments that were never felt, pompously described:  the Oriental ravings and extravagances of the “Arabian Nights,” and Mogul tales; or, the new flimsy brochures that now swarm in France, of fairy tales, ’Reflections sur le coeur et l’esprit, metaphysique de l’amour, analyse des beaux sentimens’, and such sort of idle frivolous stuff, that nourishes and improves the mind just as much as whipped cream would the body.  Stick to the best established books in every language; the celebrated poets, historians, orators, or philosophers.  By these means (to use a city metaphor) you will make fifty per cent.  Of that time, of which others do not make above three or four, or probably nothing at all.