A few observations made in reply to the above, difficult to understand epistle; occupied the morning of this day.
Dear Sir,
I have just read your observations on the question I proposed yesterday, and as I do not fully comprehend your conclusion, if you came to any decision on the point, or you did not fully understand the question; and as I believe the subject is not fully exhausted, I deem it no mark of disrespect to make a feeble attempt at further elucidation that you may have my views and understand more clearly my object in requesting your ideas on the subject, and wherein I wished to have them more explicitly stated.
Desire may, as you have stated, be defined a wish to obtain an object not in possession, at the time passion is acting in full force. Now, when an object is placed before us, which we wish to enjoy, it makes no difference what the object be. Love, Wealth, Honor, or Distinction, or any of the low sordid view, in all cases we act on the same principle, whether the action be good or bad. But if we follow the dictates of will or desire in which or under the government of which , are we likely to be the best and safest conducted through life, both are not equally safe guides; consequently, one must be preferable. My ideas tell me that will should control us in everything and hold a tight tein over desire. We may desire to be wealthy, and if we follow that desire uncontested by any other passion, it will be every case prove its own destruction, because we should take every means in our power, however disgraceful, in order to accomplish our desired object, which would lead us into inextricable difficulties. Yield yourself up to desire and you will be case on a tempestuous ocean without compass or rudder. - Suppose I meet a man whom I know to have a vast amount of money by him. I desire to be affluent in circumstance and am satisfied that individual has the very thing after which I am seeking and on which all my happiness depends. Now if you permit desire to have its unbridled sway, you will take the life of that man or contrive some other way to satisfy your inclination, but adopt what plan you may it will be unjust and improper because if you seek his life you violate the laws of God and man and lay yourself liable to lose your own. Here you not only cause pain to your individual self but to many others. But if you take will as the conductor, all will be well, for though you may desire as much as before, your will will say to desires, " You must wait until I have honestly gained by laudable means thouse things after which you seek." You will say, I must follow the road of justice, my fellow man must live as much as I. I will not deviate from the path of rectitude.
You desire to see your friends, but circumstances deprive you of this pleasure. - Now suppose at this moment some of them arrive and this is made known to you. Desire solicits you to embrace them immediately. But as you was hastening to perform this delightful office of embracing, someone should tell you that an immediate recognition under present circumstances would be fatal to your friend - would you go or would you not? Most certainly you would postpone the happy moment until the safe and proper period should arrive. But if desire should govern, it would lead to destructive consequences, and deprive you of the very happiness it had induced you to seek. Will must govern or we continually run into difficulties and dangers. Nine-tenths of all the moral evils prevalent in society are attributable to giving desire the rule, all vice arises from this cause, Gambling, Stealing and Robing, when once accomplished, do not yield satisfaction; and the misery caused thereby is not confined to the actor. Let success attend any moral crime and you are never free from its consequences. The laws of my country have violated moral obligations, disregarded respectability, destroyed peace and happiness, fled forever not only from me but from others. All because desire has governed the will.
Desire is notwithstanding all-important, it is the stimulus, the promoter of all our actions, urging us on to the accomplishment of every object; not only urges us, but it supports us under every discouragement and is the cause of all our diligent perseverance in every undertaking, without it we should be miserably idle, indifferent, wretched creatures. All it wants is a superior to confine it within its proper bounds and give it a proper direction and that regulator is the will, combined with equitable reason. The subject is of importance to every individual, a just understanding of it concerns all, a proper distinction between will and desire, should be made and every child who can understand the parental voice should be taught from infancy to make a discrimination and act accordingly. It most certainly requires a discrimination to be made in these two passions by all who have the care of youths, because it is of the first importance that they be taught to control desire by a mandate issued by the proper and legitimate authority, the will. Having made these few observations on this important subject, I will wait to hear again what you may be pleased to offer in reply.
Respectfully yours,
Geo. F. Wilson
A.D. Gage
The day has passed away in much anxiety of mind, fear, and oppression. Called this morning to give relief to a small child in a state of the most severe agony from suppression of urine, and I am apprehensive of a fatal result being the consequence, as it is attended with long standing and habitual costive state of the bowels. I have no catheter, which places me in an unpleasant situation and calculated to act injuriously. These a man should have if he could get them, but I have not yet had time to earn enough to purchase them. I would recommend to you as soon as you get sufficient to spare from the necessaries of life, that it be applied to purchasing those materials wanted in the execution of whatever business you are engaged in, particularly such as are often used in its prosecution. I have indeed spent an uneasy day; thoughts of home with all its fascinations have rolled with sadness over the mind. When a man is far from the place of his nativity, moments will come when he will think of those intimacis formed in the days of amusement and to him they will seem to increase in splendor as he receded from them, and those amusements he may afterwards engage in will not seem half so fascinating or pure, nay they will be insipid and tasteless. There are many endearing associations connected with the days of childhood, and the beginning of youthful pleasure, and the place where these halcyon times have been spent and it requires a long time before we can be convinced that our present situation or amusements are half so delightful. Yet, though we are thus partial to the place of, and people in, our native country, every portion of the globe will produce others equlaly good. And time will endear them to us by long and familiar intercourse. It requires time to form new acquaintances or friends whom we can esteem or in whom we can trust as confidants. Indeed confidentials should be few and received with great circumspection because, while they are capable of affording much benefit in relieving the mind and imparting information of importance, they are at the same time capable of doing you incalculable injury, not only in a pecuniary point, but in mind and reputation as they possess your ideas, notions, and intentions on the various subjects you may have contemplated. It is much the best, as well as the most, safe course to follow to have one to whom you fully reveal your intentions. We soon, when in a strange situation, merely from first interview or first sight, have a partiality for certain individuals. But our first impression may be erroneous on longer acquaintance. But today I have, for the first time, had a few moments conversation with the Moravian Minister of this place and am so favorably impressed with his noble and elevated mind that I cannot avoid guessing at his character. He is a man of elevated views and lively disposition, well versed in human nature and the motives that lead to certain actions. He is not censorious nor a meddler in others business, scorns to stoop to low and sordid acts, an admirer of wealth for the purpose of enjoyment and improvement. He is not go great in hypocritical piety as many of his profession and I think views religion calculated to produce peace, amity, and lvoe here in this world, as well as to prepare us for the next. He is honest and industrious, a lover of good order, kind to the afflicted and suffering, ready to be obliged or to oblige, grateful for favors conferred. Indeed I admire the man and hope the future intimacy may confirm my anticipation. It is I.C. Jacobson. Night closed her sable curtain but does not shroud me in peace or hust the tumult in my breast. I ask again the question, Why am I more unhappy than others? Is the source of my uneasiness to be found recorded in the haunts of vice? Have I ever left the pleasant and admired road of virtue, that I should wander in darkness and despair? Here I will declare that none of these have ever contaminated my mind. I have always viewed them with disgust. And I am not conscious of ever willfully doing a human or living being injustice. Yet I will admit that I have many times erred and repented sorely for those errors. And in every instance they have arose from attending too much to the demands of desire instead of the will which has induced many times to make and act on calculations that my means did not warrant and could not sustain. Some of these calculations or undertakings were caused by violent opposition and a determination of some that my object should not be accomplished, and my disposition would suffer no laudable undertaking to fall because an individual, more able in resources intended it so, and indeed I must say I never was foiled in these attempts. But the unpleasant reflections arise from a knowledge they were in many instances abandoned as soon as I had leveled the opposing cause. And I myself was the sufferer in a pecuniary point, as well as in mind, and what now produces the most incessant remorse is that those who gave me assistance are not rewarded according to their deserts or expectations. Here again I must say, avoid a source of so much disquietude, never for any consideration raise expectations that can never be realized, not only in your own mind, but in the minds of others. It is imprudent, it is unwise, it is unjust. I now see and feel that I have acted in these instances from improper motives and consequently advice you to avoid all sources of disturbance to your minds when the warm temperament of youth shall have cooled down to solemn reflection, so that a retrospection on your past life will in every instance be pleasant.