"No man liveth to himself alone."
For the ordinary human being there is no such thing as a secret.
The ordinary man who is compelled to keep everything to himself gets
morbid and suspicious. He broods over what he thinks he must not utter
to others. Not daring to talk with friends, he converses with himself.
Thus his sympathies narrow, and his vision grows not only feeble but
false. He gets the proportion of things sadly confused. It is not only
a relief, but a real benefit to most men and women to be able to
unburden their souls to some other human being whom they know to be
faithful.
And if this be the intellectual need, strong as nature itself, of
grown-up men and women, it is plain that the young man, whose
character is forming, requires the same thing a great deal more. Very
well. Your mother is the confessor, young man, whom Nature has given
you for this beautiful and saving purpose. Do not eat your heart out,
therefore, but frankly tell her your hopes, desires, offenses, plans.
Confide in her your good deeds and your bad. And she, who would give
her life for you, and count it the happiest thing she ever did if it
would only help you, will give you the very gold of wisdom, refined
and superrefined by the fires of that love which burn nowhere else in
the universe save in a mother's heart.
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