On the Conduct of Life

William Hazlitt
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William Hazlitt (1778-1830), an English writer and critic, is considered to be one of the
greatest essayists of the English language. He was intimately acquainted with many of the
most famous writers of the Romantic Age.

The following piece has been extracted from a letter that Hazlitt wrote to his son when the
latter joined boarding school. It contains many gems of wisdom and common sense that hold
good, even today, for both children and adults.
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My Dear Little Fellow,

You are now going to settle at school, and may consider this as your first entrance into the
world. As my health is so indifferent, and I may not be with you long, I wish to leave you
some advice (the best I can) for your conduct in life, both that it may be of use to you, and as
something to remember me by. I may at least be able to caution you against my own errors, if
nothing else.

As we went along to your new place of destination, you often repeated that "you durst say
they were a set of stupid, disagreeable people, "meaning the people at the school. You were
to blame in this. It is a good old rule to hope for the best. Always, my dear, believe things to
be right, till you find them the contrary; and even then, instead of irritating yourself against
them, endeavour to put up with them as well as you can, if you cannot alter them. You said,
"You were sure you should not like the school where you were going." This was wrong.
What you meant was that you did not like to leave home. But you could not tell whether you
should like the school or not, till you had given it a trial. Otherwise your saying that you
should not like it was determining that you would not like it. Never anticipate evils, or,
because you cannot have everything exactly as you wish, make them out worse than they are,
through more spite and wilfulness.

You seemed at first to take no notice of your school-fellows, or rather to set yourself against
them, because they were strangers to you. They knew as little of you as you did of them; so
that this would have been a reason for their keeping aloof from you as well, which you would

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have felt as a hardship. Learn never to conceive a prejudice against others, because you know
nothing of them. It is bad reasoning, and makes enemies of half the world. Do not think ill of
them, till they behave ill to you; and then strive to avoid the faults which you see in them.
This will disarm their hostility sooner than pique or resentment or complaint.

I thought you were disposed to criticize the dress of some of the boys as not so good as your
own. Never despise any one for anything that he cannot help -- least of all, for his poverty. I
would wish you to keep up appearances yourself as a defence against the idle sneers of the
world, but I would not have you value yourself upon them. I hope you will neither be the
dupe nor victim of vulgar prejudices. Instead of saying above -- "Never despise any one for
anything that he cannot help" -- I might have said, "Never despise any one at all"; for
contempt implies a triumph over and pleasure in the ill of another. It means that you are glad
and congratulate yourself on their failings or misfortunes. The sense of inferiority in others,
without this indirect appeal to our self-love, is a painful feeling, and not an exulting one.

You complain since, that boys laugh at you and do not care about you, and that you are not
treated as you were at home. My dear, that is one chief reason for your being sent to school,
to inure you betimes to the unavoidable rubs and uncertain reception you may meet with in
life. You cannot always be with me, and perhaps it is as well that you cannot. But you must
not expect others to show the same concern about you as I should. You have hitherto been a
spoiled child, and have been used to have your own way a good deal, both in the house, and
among your play-fellows, with whom you were too fond of being a leader: but you have a
good-nature and good sense, and will get the better of this in time. You have now got among
other boys who are your equals, or bigger and stronger than yourself, and who have
something else to attend to besides humouring your whims and fancies, and you feel this as
repulse or piece of injustice. But the first lesson to learn is that there are other people in the
world besides yourself. There are a number of boys in the school where you are, whose
amusements and pursuits (whatever they may be) are and ought to be of as much
consequence to them as yours can be to you, and to which therefore you must give way in
your turn. The more airs of childish self-importance you give yourself, you will only expose
yourself to be the more thwarted and laughed at. True equality is the only true morality or
true wisdom. Remember always that you are but one among others, and you can hardly
mistake your place in society. In your father's house, you might do as you pleased: in the
world, you will find competitors at every turn. You are not born a king's son to destroy or
dictate to millions: you can only expect to share their fate, or settle our differences amicably

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with them. You already find it so at school; and I wish you to be reconciled to your situation
as soon and with as little pain as you can. [...]

I observe you have got a way of speaking of your school fellows as "that Hoare, that Harris,"
and so on, as if you meant to mark them out for particular reprobation, or did not think them
good enough for you. It is a bad habit to speak disrespectfully or others: for it will lead you to
think and feel uncharitably towards them. Ill names beget ill blood. Even where there may be
some repeated trifling provocation, it is better to be courteous, mild, and forbearing, than
captious, impatient, and fretful. The faults of others too often arise out of our own ill-temper;
or though they should be real, we shall not mend them, by exasperating ourselves against
them. Treat your playmates as Hamlet advises Polonius to treat the players "according to your
own dignity, rather than their deserts." If you fly out at everything in them that you
disapprove or think done on purpose to annoy you, you lie constantly at the mercy of their
caprice, rudeness or ill-nature. You should be more your own master. [...]

You are, I think, too fond of reading as it is. As one means of avoiding excess in this way, I
would wish you to make it a rule, never to read at meal-times, nor in company when there is
any (even the most trivial) conversation going on, nor ever to let your eagerness to learn
encroach upon your play-hours. Books are but one inlet of knowledge; and the pores of the
mind, like those of the body, should be left open to all impressions. I applied too close to my
studies, soon after I was of your age, and hurt myself irreparably by it. Whatever may be the
value of learning, health and good spirits are of more.

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