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Stevenson, Robert Louis
On the choice of a
profession
ON THE
CHOICE OF A PROFESSION
ON THE CHOICE OF A
PROFESSION
BY
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS
1916
5581
5?
First Impression, October, 1916.
Second Impression, October, 1916.
THE original manuscript of this
essay lay for years in a bundle
of old papers, and was always
assumed to be the " Letter to a Young
Gentleman Who Proposes to Em-
brace the Career of Art." Recently,
however, a closer examination re-
vealed it to be a hitherto unpublished
piece of work, and for a while I was
greatly mystified as to its origin and
the reason for its suppression. Its
general character, the peculiar quality
of the paper, even the handwriting
itself all went to show it was com-
posed in Saranac in the winter of
1887-88. But why had it been sup-
pressed ?
Then in the dim, halting way things
recur to one, I began to recall its
5
history. It had been adjudged too
cynical, too sombre, in tone, too out of
keeping with the helpful philosophy
always associated with R. L. S. In-
stead of assisting the Young Gentle-
man it was thought to be only too
likely to discourage and depress him.
Thus it was laid aside in favour of
the other essay on the Career of Art.
Whether we are right in publishing
it now is for the public to decide.
We seem to be going against the
wishes of the author, who had
evidently been content to leave it in
oblivion; yet on the other hand it
appears wrong to keep so fine an
effort, and one so brilliant and
grimly humorous from the many who
would find pleasure in it. After all,
there are others to be considered
besides Young Gentlemen; and per-
haps with these warned away we
6
shall incur no reproach from the
general lovers of literature, but on
the contrary gain their support and
commendation in the course we have
taken.
LLOYD OSBOURNE.
ON THE CHOICE OF A
PROFESSION
YOU write to me, my dear sir,
requesting advice at one of
the most momentous epochs
in a young man's life. You are
about to choose a profession; and
with a diffidence highly pleasing at
your age, you would be glad, you say,
of some guidance in the choice.
There is nothing more becoming
than for youth to seek counsel; noth-
ing more becoming to age than to be
able to give it; and in a civilization,
old and complicated like ours, where
practical persons boast a kind of
practical philosophy superior to all
others, you would very naturally
9
expect to find all such questions
systematically answered. For the
dicta of the Practical Philosophy, you
come to me. What, you ask, are the
principles usually followed by the
wise in the like critical junctures ?
There, I confess, you pose me on the
threshold. I have examined my own
recollections; I have interrogated
others; and with all the will in the
world to serve you better, I fear I
can only tell you that the wise, in
these circumstances, act upon no prin-
ciples whatever. This is disappoint-
ing to you; it was painful to myself;
but if I am to declare the truth as I
see it, I must repeat that wisdom has
nothing to do with the choice of a
profession.
We all know what people say, and
very foolish it usually is. The ques-
tion is to get inside of these flourishes
and discover what it is they think
10
and ought to say: to perform, in short,
the Socratic Operation. The more
ready-made answers there are to any
question, the more abstruse it be-
comes; for those of whom we make
the enquiry have the less need of
consideration before they reply. The
world being more or less beset with
Anxious Enquirers of the Socratic
persuasion, it is the object of a Liberal
Education to equip people with a
proper number of these answers by
way of passport; so they can pass
swimmingly to and fro on their
affairs without the trouble of think-
ing. How should a banker know his
own mind ? It takes him all his
time to manage his bank. If you
saw a company of pilgrims, walking
as if for a wager, each with his teeth
set; and if you happened to ask them
one after another: Whither they
were going ? and from each you were
II
to receive the same answer: that
positively they were all in such a
hurry, they had never found leisure
to enquire into the nature of their
errand: confess, my dear sir, you
would be startled at the indifference
they exhibited. Am I going too far,
if I say that this is the condition of
the large majority of our fellow-men
and almost all our fellow-women ?
I stop a banker.
" My good fellow," I say, " give me
a moment."
" I have not a moment to spare,"
says he.
" Why ?" I enquire.
" I must be banking," he replies.
" I am so busily engaged in banking
all day long that I have hardly leisure
for my meals."
" And what," I continue my in-
terrogatory, " is banking ?"
" Sir," says he, " it is my business."
12
" Your business ?" I repeat. "And
what is a man's business ?"
" Why," cries the banker, " a
man's business is his duty." And
with that he breaks away from me,
and I see him skimming to his avoca-
tions.
But this is a sort of answer that
provokes reflection. Is a man's busi-
ness his duty ? Or perhaps should
not his duty be his business ? If it is
not my duty to conduct a bank (and
I contend that it is not) is it the duty
of my friend the banker ? Who told
him it was ? Is it in the Bible ? Is
he sure that banks are a good thing ?
Might it not have been his duty to
stand aside, and let some one else
conduct the bank ? Or perhaps
ought he not to have been a ship-
captain instead ? All these perplex-
ing queries may be summed up under
one head: the grave problem which
13
my friend offers to the world: Why
is he a Banker ?
Well, why is it ? There is one
principal reason, I conceive: that the
man was trapped. Education, as
practised, is a form of harnessing with
the friendliest intentions. The fellow
was hardly in trousers before they
whipped him into school; hardly done
with school before they smuggled him
into an office; it is ten to one they
have had him married into the bar-
gain; and all this before he has had
time so much as to imagine that
there may be any other practicable
course. Drum, drum, drum; you
must be in time for school; you must
do your Cornelius Nepos; you must
keep your hands clean; you must go
to parties a young man should
make friends; and, finally you must
take this opening in a bank. He
has been used to caper to this sort
of piping from the first; and he joins
the regiment of bank clerks for pre-
cisely the same reason as he used
to go to the nursery at the stroke of
eight. Then at last, rubbing his
hands with a complacent smile, the
parent lays his conjuring pipe aside.
The trick is performed, ladies and
gentlemen; the wild ass's colt is
broken in; and now sits diligently
scribing. Thus it is, that, out of
men, we make bankers.
You have doubtless been present
at the washing of sheep, which is a
brisk, high-handed piece of manoeu-
vring, in its way; but what is it, as a
subject of contemplation, to the case
of the poor young animal, Man,
turned loose into this roaring world,
herded by robustious guardians, taken
with the panic before he has wit
enough to apprehend its cause, and
soon flying with all his heels in the
c 15
van of the general stampede ? It
may be that in after years, he shall
fall upon a train of reflection, and
begin narrowly to scrutinize the
reasons that decided his path and his
continued mad activity in that direc-
tion. And perhaps he may be very
well pleased at the retrospect, and
see fifty things that might have been
worse, for one that would have been
better; and even supposing him to
take the other cue, bitterly to deplore
the circumstances in which he is
placed and bitterly to reprobate the
jockeying that got him into them, the
fact is, it is too late to indulge such
whims. It is too late, after the train
has started, to debate the needfulness
of this particular journey: the door is
locked, the express goes tearing over-
land at sixty miles an hour; he had
better betake himself to sleep or the
daily paper, and discourage unavail-
16
ing thought. He sees many pleasant
places out of the window: cottages
in a garden, angles by the riverside,
balloons voyaging the sky; but as for
him, he is booked for all his natural
days, and must remain a banker
to the end.
If the juggling only began with
school-time, if even the domineering
friends and counsellors had made a
choice of their own, there might still
be some pretension to philosophy in
the affair. But no. They too were
trapped; they are but tame elephants
unwittingly ensnaring others, and
were themselves ensnared by tame
elephants of an older domestica-
tion. We have all learned our tricks
in captivity, to the spiriting of Mrs.
Grundy and a system of rewards
and punishments. The crack of
the whip and the trough of fodder:
the cut direct and an invitation to
'7
dinner: the gallows and the Shorter
Catechism: a pat upon the head and
a stinging lash on the reverse: these
are the elements of education and the
principles of the Practical Philosophy.
Sir Thomas Browne, in the earlier
part of the Seventeenth Century, had
already apprehended the staggering
fact that geography is a considerable
part of orthodoxy; and that a man
who, when born in London, makes a
conscientious Protestant, would have
made an equally conscientious Hindu
if he had first seen daylight in
Benares. This is but a small part,
however important, of the things that
are settled for us by our place of
birth. An Englishman drinks beer
and tastes his liquor in the throat;
a Frenchman drinks wine and tastes
it in the front of the mouth. Hence,
a single beverage lasts the French-
man all afternoon; and the English-
18
man cannot spend above a very short
time in a cafe", but he must swallow
half a bucket. The Englishman takes
a cold tub every morning in his bed-
room; the Frenchman has an occa-
sional hot bath. The Englishman
has an unlimited family and will die
in harness; the Frenchman retires
upon a competency with three chil-
dren at the outside. So this impera-
tive national tendency follows us
through all the privacies of life, dic-
tates our thoughts and attends us to
the grave. We do nothing, we say
nothing, we wear nothing, but it is
stamped with the Queen's Arms.
We are English down to our boots
and into our digestions. There is not
a dogma of all those by which we
lead young men, but we get it our-
selves, between sleep and waking,
between death and life, in a complete
abeyance of the reasoning part.
19
" But how, sir," (you will ask)
" is there then no wisdom in the
world ? And when my admirable
father was this day urging me, with
the most affecting expressions, to
decide on an industrious, honest and
lucrative employment ?" Enough,
sir; I follow your thoughts, and will
answer them to the utmost of my
ability. Your father, for whom I
entertain a singular esteem, is I am
proud to believe a professing Chris-
tian: the Gospel, therefore, is or ought
to be his rule of conduct. Now, I am
of course ignorant of the terms em-
ployed by your father; but I quote
here from a very urgent letter,
written by another parent, who was
a man of sense, integrity, great energy
and a Christian persuasion, and who
has perhaps set forth the common
view with a certain innocent openness
of his own:
20
" You are now come to that time of
life," he writes to his son, " and have
reason within yourself to consider
the absolute necessity of making pro-
vision for the time when it will be
asked Who is this man ? Is he doing
any good in the world ? Has he the
means of being ' One of us '? I
beseech you," he goes on, rising in
emotion, and appealing to his son by
name, " I beseech you do not trifle
with this till it actually comes upon
you. Bethink yourself and bestir
yourself as a man. This is the time
" and so forth. This gentleman
has his candour; he is perspicacious,
and has to deal apparently with a
perspicacious pick-logic of a son;
and hence the startling perspicacity
of the document. But, my dear sir,
what a principle of life ! To " do
good in the world " is to be received
into a society, apart from personal
21
affection. I could name many forms
of evil vastly more exhilarating
whether in prospect or enjoyment.
If I scraped money, believe me, it
should be for some more cordial
purpose. And then, scraping money?
It seems to me as if he had forgotten
the Gospel. This is a view of life not
quite the same as the Christian,
which the old gentleman professed
and sincerely studied to practise.
But upon this point, I dare dilate no
further. Suffice it to say, that look-
ing round me on the manifestations
of this Christian society of ours, I have
been often tempted to exclaim: What,
then, is Antichrist ?
A wisdom, at least, which professes
one set of propositions and yet acts
upon another, can be no very entire
or rational ground of conduct.
Doubtless, there is much in this ques-
tion of money; and for my part, I
22
believe no young man ought to be
at peace till he is self-supporting,
and has an open, clear life of it on his
own foundation. But here a con-
sideration occurs to me of, as I must
consider, startling originality. It is
this: That there are two sides to this
question as well as to so many others.
Make more ? Aye, or spend less ?
There is no absolute call upon a man
to make any specific income, unless,
indeed, he has set his immortal soul
on being " One of us."
A thoroughly respectable income
is as much as a man spends. A
luxurious income, or true opulence, is
something more than a man spends.
Raise the income, lower the expendi-
ture, and, my dear sir, surprising
as it seems, we have the same result.
But I hear you remind me, with pursed
lips, of privations of hardships.
Alas ! sir, there are privations upon
P 23
either side; the banker has to sit all
day in his bank, a serious privation;
can you not conceive that the land-
scape painter, whom I take to be the
meanest and most lost among con-
temporary men, truly and deliberately
prefers the privations upon his side
to wear no gloves, to drink beer, to
live on chops or even on potatoes,
and lastly, not to be " One of us "
truly and deliberately prefers his
privations to those of the banker ?
I can. Yes, sir, I repeat the words;
I can. Believe me, there are Rivers
in Bohemia! but there is nothing
so hard to get people to understand as
this: That they pay for their money;
and nothing so difficult to make them
remember as this: That money, when
they have it, is, for most of them at
least, only a cheque to purchase
pleasure with. How then if a man
gets pleasure in following an art ?
24
He might gain more cheques by follow-
ing another; but then, although there
is a difference in cheques, the amount
of pleasure is the same. He gets
some of his directly; unlike the bank
clerk, he is having his fortnight's
holiday, and doing what delights
him, all the year.
All these patent truisms have a
very strange air, when written down.
But that, my dear sir, is no fault of
mine or of the truisms. There they
are. I beseech you do not trifle with
them. Bethink yourself like a man.
This is the time.
But, you say, all this is very well; it
does not help me to a choice. Once
more, sir, you have me; it does not.
What shall I say ? A choice, let us
remember, is almost more of a nega-
tive than a positive. You embrace
one thing; but you refuse a thousand.
The most liberal profession imprisons
25
many energies and starves many
affections. If you are in a bank, you
cannot be much upon the sea. You
cannot be both afirst-rate violinist and
a first-rate painter: you must lose in
the one art if you persist in following
both. If you are sure of your pre-
ference, follow it. If not nay, my
dear sir, it is not for me or any man ,
to go beyond this point. God made
you; not I. I cannot even make you
over again. I have heard of a
schoolmaster, whose speciality it was
to elicit the bend of each pupil: poor
schoolmaster, poor pupils ! As for
me, if you have nothing indigenous
in your own heart, no living prefer-
ence, no fine, human scorn, I leave
you to the tide; it will sweep you
somewhere. Have you but a grain
of inclination, I will help you. If
you wish to be a costermonger, be it,
shame the devil; and I will stand the
26
donkey. If you wish to be nothing,
once more I leave you to the tide.
I regret profoundly, my dear young
sir, not only for you, in whom I see
such a lively promise of the future,
but for the sake of your admirable
and truly worthy father and your no
less excellent mamma, that my re-
marks should seem no more con-
clusive. I can give myself this
praise, that I have kept back nothing;
but this, alas ! is a subject on which
there is little to put forward. It will
probably not much matter what you
decide upon doing; for most men
seem to sink at length to the degree
of stupor necessary for contentment
in their different estates. Yes, sir,
this is what I have observed. Most
men are happy, and most men dis-
honest. Their mind sinks to the
proper level; their honour easily
accepts the custom of the trade. I
27
wish you may find degeneration no
more painful than your neighbours,
soon sink into apathy, and be long
spared in a state of respectable
somnambulism, from the grave to
which we haste.
R. L. S.
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Stevenson, Robert Louis
5381 On the choice of a
S7 profession
