The calendar in the Pocket University Guide to Daily Reading is based on is 1922’s. In 1922, Memorial Day fell on May 30th. You’ll recall we read Hale’s The Man Without a Country last Monday. Today’s Daily Readings are from May 25th.

Born on May 25 in the year 1803, Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Daily Readings for May 25 or 30th depending on what year you happen to be living

• Emerson’s “The Rhodora”
• “The Titmouse”
• “The Problem”
• Lincoln’s “The Whigs and the Mexican War”
• “Notes for a New Law Lecture” [that’s rich] (background)

The two Lincoln selections are from one of the autobiographical volumes in the Pocket U. Library. My Gawd the fawning over him is sickeningly sweet. The first is itself an extract of a longer speech he gave to the US House of Representatives in January 1948. (Link is to the entire speech.) We are to compare and contrast the style of the young Lincoln with the elder (later in the volume) and be amazed at his literary maturity or something. Regarding the second reading, it shows, “Lincoln’s power of straightforward statement and his good sense.”

I am not an accomplished lawyer. I find quite as much material for a lecture in those points wherein I have failed, as in those wherein I have been moderately successful. The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every other calling, is diligence. Leave nothing for to-morrow which can be done to-day. Never let your correspondence fall behind. Whatever piece of business you have in hand, before stopping, do all the labor pertaining to it which can then be done.…

Extemporaneous speaking should be practised and cultivated. It is the lawyer’s avenue to the public. However able and faithful he may be in other respects, people are slow to bring him business if he cannot make a speech. And yet there is not a more fatal error to young lawyers than relying too much on speech-making. If any one, upon his rare powers of speaking, shall claim an exemption from the drudgery of the law, his case is a failure in advance.

Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser—in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.

Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this. Who can be more nearly a fiend than he who habitually overhauls the register of deeds in search of defects in titles, whereon to stir up strife, and put money in his pocket? A moral tone ought to be infused into the profession which should drive such men out of it.

Despite not being a huge fan of Abe (it’s complicated), a lot of that sounds like good advise.

Stay well and keep reading.