to give it vent.  Do not fear, for instance, to spend your time and earnings on electrical apparatus or studies and experiments in physical science.  If you have a fondness and desire for teaching or philosophy or accounting or trade, try to find out the essential requisites of the particular one which interests you, and follow up and acquire all the attainments which may be found useful.  If you wish to enter politics or the lecture field, learn to speak and collect and classify your ideas when you are speaking and before people.

Let me summarize briefly the points that I have just covered.

You are now working for a definite object.  You have money enough to do more than you want to do at present; but, if you learn habits expensive enough to spend the whole of it, you are going to be hard up when your expenses increase, as they will if you marry or assume greater responsibilities.  Therefore, it is necessary for you to practise self-denial and deny yourself wisely.  We have seen that self-denial of some sort is necessary to everybody who have not fixed their habits, and by that I mean fixed their habits to such an extent that no change in their circumstances will induce them to lead a more expensive life.  It becomes obvious that those who have fixed their habits on economical and praiseworthy lines will not only be the wealthiest, but will be the people who enjoy the most freedom.  It is to them that wealth is a real blessing; and it is they who make their wealth a blessing to others, always keeping in mind the personal equation.

It is therefore up to you to choose habits and fix them, so they will bring about the best result, and thus conduce to your happiness, the merit of your actions, and the use of your money.  How, then, among all the opportunities which arise shall you choose, how tell which ones of the luxuries to which you have been accustomed you shall discard?

We have several times spoken of the touchstone we were seeking, one that will tell what actions are good and what bad, which desires to fulfil and which to deny.  We have now reached something pretty close to our definition.  Gratify those which contribute toward the success of the object you have in mind:  deny yourself those which are detrimental to it, and which do not tend directly or indirectly toward its accomplishment.

We wish to attain the attitude of mind of a Stoic toward the first class of desires, and that of a spendthrift almost toward the second.  For example, keep your personal comfort well in bounds, and train yourself to disregard it entirely; otherwise, you may say farewell to freedom.