"
Soon after he asked, "Why he blew in his soup?" and was told, "To
cool it." Whereupon he rushed on the man with a club and slew him as a
liar. The ramifications of truth in varying emergencies are infinitely
subtile and complicated, and often demand the very nicest care
in distinguishing. Good advice, when empirically taken and rashly
followed, is as an eye in the hand, sure to be put out the first thing
on trying to use it. "Advice costs nothing and is good for nothing,"
it is often said. But that depends on the quality of the advice, on
the circumstances, and on what kind of persons impart and receive the
counsel. Advice given with earnestness and wisdom, and applied with
docility and discrimination, may cost a great deal and be invaluable.
Competence and aptness, or folly and heedlessness, make a world of
difference. The great difficulty in regard to the fruitfulness of
advice is the universal readiness to impart, the usual unwillingness
to accept it. We give advice by the bucket, take it by the grain. For
these reasons the world is yet surfeited with precept and starving for
example: and the applicability is by no means exhausted of the
fable of Brabrius, who tells how when an old crab said to her child,
"Awkward one, walk not so crookedly!" he replied, "Mother, walk you
straight, I will watch and follow.
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