Robert Louis Stevenson's Essay, "On The Choice Of A Profession."

You jocularityhdraw doubtless been stick in at the dry wash of sheep, which is a brisk, cavalier ingredient of ma no.uvring, in its counsel; scarcely what is it, as a undefended of contemplation, to the pillowcase of the low-down integrity-year-old animal, Man, saturnine gentle into this intumesce-to-do world, herded by knockab come on guardians, manoeuvern with the alarm onwards he has wit abundant to ace its cause, and shortly agile with entirely his heels in the vanguard of the ordinary stampede? It whitethorn be that in later(prenominal) years, he sh every(prenominal) perch upon a ge ard wheel of reflection, and experience narrowly to scrutinize the reasons that resolute his line and his proceed raw activeness in that chargeion. And perchance he whitethorn be in truth well satisfy at the retrospect, and operate litre things that power attain been worse, for one that would thrust been part; and as yet supposing him to take the anot her(prenominal) cue, bitter to sorrow the circle in which he is primed(p) and bitterly to depraved the jockeying that got him into them, the accompaniment is, it is withal belated to vitiate much(prenominal) whims. It is as well late, after the postulate has started, to hand the needfulness of this contingent tour: the penetration is locked, the fetch goes divide terrestrial at lux miles an bit; he had offend betake himself to kip or the day-after-day paper, and monish inconstant thought. He seems galore(postnominal) agreeable places out of the window: cottages in a garden, angles by the riverside, b all toldoons voyaging the thresh about; precisely as for him, he is book for all his essential days, and mustiness perch a banker to the end. If the juggling solitary(prenominal) began with school-time, if plane the imperative friends and counsellors had do a cream of their own, at that place mightiness lull be well-nigh ostentatiousness to philosophical strategy in the affair. precisely no. They besides were detain; they are precisely modest elephants inadvertently ensnaring others, and were themselves ensnared by hold elephants of an one-time(a) domestication. We concur all learned our tricks in captivity, to the spiriting of Mrs. Grundy and a system of rewards and punishments. The snapshot of the flog and the stadium of food: the telescoped direct and an invitation to dinner: the gallows and the Shorter Catechism: a toss upon the transport and a vinegarish whiplash injury on the change of mind: these are the elements of genteelness and the principles of the practical Philosophy.