Nathan Dane Urner

“ Stop, first, and understand the value of money—the importance of never being without some money, even if a very little.
Stop, next, and understand that money is nothing in itself alone, but valuable and powerful only in what it will purchase and can purchase. A pure love of it for itself, and not for what it represents, develops a loathsome disease—the disease of miserliness.
Stop short of envying the rich, even if penniless yourself. A philosophical reflection as to the causes of your bad 40 fortune, together with a resolve to mend it by a more enlightened course, is your only remedy. ”

“ Stop, rather, and fortify your uprightness on the broad grounds, “that honesty is not only the deepest policy, but the highest wisdom; since however difficult it may be for integrity to get on, it is a thousand times more difficult for knavery to get off.” ”

“ Stop on the threshold of a temptation to distort the truth. Plausibility in lying is an art in which but few can earn distinction.
Stop before disputing a fact, however distasteful, that can be proved by statistical evidence. Figures are not apt to lie, save on gas-metres.
Stop before adhering to an error through a mistaken sense of shame. “Who acknowledgeth his error showeth an increase of wisdom; who stubbornly adhereth 25 to what hath been disproved confesseth himself a fool.”
Stop short of the conceit that irresistibility with the fair sex depends on good-looks alone. ”

“ Stop on the verge of suicidal despair as a result of your first lovers’ quarrel. This is but the pepper-sauce of passion, the curry of courtship, the horse-radish of happiness, without which that crowning reflection, the kiss-gilt, teardrop-rainbowed making-up were banished forever from Love’s golden feast!
Stop, in a general way, before making love for the fun of the thing. There is no meaner, more reptilian creature in society than the professional male flirt.
Stop before yielding an iota to the allurements 38 of a notorious coquette. ”

“ Stop long enough in one vocation to give 11 it a fair trial. Jacks-of-all-trades—men who are studying law in the morning, counter-hopping after dinner, peddling soap to-day, starting a bank to-morrow—are seldom successful.
Stop, and ponder deeply, before becoming that pitiable object, a professional office-seeker. Rather sink your independence of thought and action at once by marrying for money, or toadying upon a rich relative. ”

“ Even a hypocritical assumption of a morality that you do not always practice is preferable to self-exposure in this regard.
Stop before correcting them in the presence of outsiders. The self-respect of a little child, once wounded to the quick, is long in healing; and some consideration is due, moreover, to the outsiders.
Stop before punishing a child when influenced by anger. The punishment then ceases to be corrective, and is only resentful; whereas the helplessness of the child should of itself evoke but magnanimity. ”

“ Stop, howsoever tempted, at the allurements of roguery, embezzlement, rascality, and satanic suggestions of every description. If you must be a cutpurse let it be on the broad highway, pistol in hand, dime-novel at heart, and the gallows in sight.
Stop, if contemplating a political career, and distinctly settle this question in your mind: Am I to boss the party, or is the party to boss me? There is nothing like avoiding a confusion of ideas. ”

“ Stop before permitting your admiration of an actress, or ballet dancer, to glide into a master passion. Disenchantment, if desired, is mostly within easy reach, and you can console yourself with the reflection that there is far more beauty off the stage than on it.
Stop short of making love at all, if you are not of an affectionate disposition; or, when too late—that is, when married, love will be likely to stop short of you. 39
In Money Matters. ”

“ Stop, however, yet shorter of the vulgar, pigheaded notion that money, even by the ton-weight, can be everything without moral or intellectual backing. If this were so, wealth would be more glorious than wisdom, which happily, it is not. ”

“ Stop before disclaiming all love for music, or suggesting the banjo or bagpipe as your favorite instrument, should she dote on the opera, sing divinely and be a piano-pounder of no mean ability in her own person. ”

“ Stop short of the error that billiards in public is a wholly innocent diversion, when candid reflection must convince you to the contrary. The associations are mostly the reverse of refined, the gambling principle is necessarily involved, and say what you will, non-success is ever attended by a sense of exasperation. ”

“ Stop, if beginning as a dry-goods clerk, before imagining yourself a silent partner in the concern, with your four dollars 12 a week as its chief investment. Self-respect is one thing, unmitigated, idiotic asininity another. ”

“ Stop, however, before emulating the spendthrift any more than the miser. If there is never any love for the scheming parsimony of the one, neither is there ever any gratitude for the thoughtless largesse of the other.
Stop, and reflect well, before borrowing money under any circumstances. To an honest man, indebtedness is ever a double torture—self-torture in the haunting possibility of not being able to keep his word, and the torture of 42 imagining what, in that case, will be thought of him. ”

“ As the alcoholic habit has been likened to an enchantress, a circean witch, so the opium habit is a dream-woman, the sorceress of a phantom 69 realm, elysian at first, but changing at last into a horror-haunted sphere that appals the spirit while it tortures and consumes the frame.
Stop before applying yourself to excessive gymnastics as a relaxation, if a horse-car conductor or a letter-carrier. Variety is the spice of life. ”

“ Stop short of thinking that marriage and settlement in life can acquit you of the tenderness and reverence due your parents, even if they are well-to-do. It is a moral obligation which, contracted at your birth, should cease not even with their death, but live on and on, an evergreen of the memory, an amaranth of the heart. ”

“ Stop before taking mildness and retirement of manner for a want of resolution or courage. True greatness in anything is seldom self-celebrating, and it is as true as proverbial that “still waters run deep.” ”

“ Stop, dead, before borrowing money that you are not sure of being able to repay. As for the man who borrows without the intention to repay, he is even worse than a professional thief, and as fully deserving of social ostracism. ”

“ Stop before depreciating anything the dear creature does, or tries to do. Eagerly demand another song, even if the screech of her first has ruined your tympanum, call her verses divine, if they are no better than Tennyson’s latest senility, swear that her favorite 32 scent is yours, even if ’tis musk or garlic, and build, build as with a wand, the shining edifice of love! ”

“ Money-loving as they are, the majority of those whose good opinion is worth having are personally honest at the core.
Stop short of being dazzled by mere business success, irrespective of questionable or dangerous methods by which it may have been achieved. Unless the means shall have justified the result, there can be no praiseworthy success. ”

“ Many eminent men, the reverse of hard-hearted, have conscientiously 44 adopted this rule, but whether it is the best, as the world goes, is a question.
Stop before compromising with such a rule by offering as a gift that which is entreated as a loan. This is the course usually pursued by the eminent men alluded to above; but such a proffer is always humiliating, and often insulting.
Stop before running in debt, even for groceries or beer, for that for which you can pay on the spot. It is a pernicious habit that must steadily engender looser and looser notions about money matters. ”

“ To attempt the rôle of a railroad magnate, for instance, when you have the soul of a licensed fish-vender, or the manipulation of a government loan with hardly enough capital for a fruit-stand, would be more ambitious than wise.
Stop before adopting rigorous and unbending methods that, under a change of fortune, can be quoted against you to your disadvantage. Thus, to never lend money, on principle, when prosperous, but be perfectly willing to borrow 85 it when broke, might subject you to unpleasant comment. ”

“ Stop short of concealing the fact from your wife, if she is falling unconsciously into slovenly and unkempt personal habits when only in your presence. Let her but comprehend that this is a wifely neglect that has driven many a husband into neater but unscrupulous feminine society, and speedy amendment must follow. ”

“ Stop before cultivating a hoarding spirit, and remember that, logically, as between 41 the miser and the spendthrift, the latter has the best of the bargain. For, while the spendthrift has the selfish satisfaction of squandering his fortune in his own person, the miser is the dupe of his own self-denial, for the benefit of others who come after him. ”

“ Stop before adopting honesty as your standard merely on the immorally aphoristic grounds of its being the best policy. True integrity should stand on its merits, win or lose; whereas any 45 shrewd rascal would be honest on occasion, if satisfied that he would make by it. ”

“ Stop far short of any indulgence that can affect your general reputation. “The two most precious things this side the grave,” says Lacon, “are our reputation and our life; the most contemptible whisper may deprive us of the one, the weakest weapon of the other.” ”

“ Pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon, if possible, but to make a dead set for the Presidency and bring up as a police-court janitor, or coroner’s assistant, is apt to prove discouraging.
Stop, even if rich, before entering upon pleasure as a business. Few constitutions can long stand the racket, ennui is the result, and premature death its bourne. ”

“ Stop, if she be intellectual, and study up to an equality with her tastes, should you be her inferior. Then scientific discussions, with poetry as a side-dish, may gradually lead up to the delicious desideratum of two hearts that beat as one. ”

“ A millionaire may be “shabby-genteel” and retiring to excess, whereas professional scoundrels are often notorious for a fashionable exterior and distinction of bearing “as to the manner born.”
Stop on the verge of taking dress and ornament as a sure indication of a woman’s character or station. You might regret mistaking a quietly-attired unadorned heiress for a shirt-maker in distress; or a fourth-class pawnbroker’s wife, beringed and bediamonded from bang to belt, for a sorceress of fashion. 57
Stop before judging people disparagingly by their eccentricities. ”

“ In Recreation. Stop before making a regular business of any form of diversion, which then ceases to be either recreative or relaxing, and but adds to the tissue-waste that should be restored.
Stop, next, and consider that recreation, in its literal and best sense, is something more than relaxation. More than to merely loosen, slacken and remit, to recreate is to revive, reanimate, recuperate and build up afresh. ”

“ Stop before impugning self-seeking motives to a good deed that redounds to the doer’s advantage. Even if partly premeditated to this end, the result, if humanitarian in its general influence, is not the less useful and noble.
Stop before judging a man solely by his errors or misfortunes. ”

“ Stop before despising in another the demonstrativeness that you would despise in yourself. The babble of the brook is as natural as the stillness of the pool and temperamental differences are always to be considered. ”

“ Stop before entering the ministry, if without religious convictions, a sacrilegious scoffer, and morally depraved.
Stop on the ragged edge of the fallacy that your place, or any man’s cannot be filled by another. When men die, as they all must, are their places not always filled? ”

“ Stop on the dizzy verge of mistaking an excessive and painstaking courtesy for a genuine and heartfelt interest. It should rather put you on your guard.
Stop short of the old-time cynicism of regarding 62 every man as a rascal until he shall have afforded proofs to the contrary. Such a wholesale distrust of human nature is creditable to neither the head nor the heart. ”

“ A poet, for instance, may indulge in long hair, without necessarily being an æsthete or a cowboy; the habit of talking to one’s-self is no proof of a guilty conscience; and absent-mindedness in many forms has accompanied the possession of exceptional capacity. ”

“ Stop short of despising public spirit in others, or eliminating it from your own calculations. The most insignificant pot-house politician is of more worldly use than the most gifted misanthrope. No amount of selfish seclusion or isolation can absolve one from his duty of fellowship. ”

“ Stop short of disparaging the charity that methodizes and calculates its smallest alms. There is an enlightened self-interest 63 that relieves more real distress than all the off-handed gratuities that are bestowed. ”

“ Stop, and remember that an ill-considered angry word may, on the breath of hearsay, become a winged seed, from which shall spring a poisonous upas growth, whose deadly influence could not have been dreamed of at its inception. ”