Yesterday’s is today’s and today’s is tomorrow’s. I skipped one. June 9 should have been a reading from Charles Dickens. From Volume XVII Autobiography in the Pocket Univ. Library—

The novels of Dickens, David Copperfield in particular, are largely written out of his own sufferings, struggles, and victories. His hardships as a child left a stamp of pain which he never outgrew. His limitations in training and discipline narrowed his field as a writer, but gave him a master-key to the hearts and minds of men and women born, like himself, to poverty and affliction.

George Iles, ed. Vol. XVII

Well I’ll be. Dickens named his last child after Edward Bulwer Lytton, who wrote, among other things, The Last Days of Pompeii (1834). Here is a portion of what Dickens wrote to his son as he was about to depart for Australia at age 16. The entire letter is here.

Never take a mean advantage of anyone in any transaction, and never be hard upon people who are in your power. Try to do to others, as you would have them do to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail sometimes. It is much better for you that they should fail in obeying the greatest rule laid down by our Saviour, than that you should.

I put a New Testament among your books, for the very same reasons, and with the very same hopes that made me write an easy account of it for you, when you were a little child; because it is the best book that ever was or will be known in the world, and because it teaches you the best lessons by which any human creature who tries to be truthful and faithful to duty can possibly be guided. As your brothers have gone away, one by one, I have written to each such words as I am now writing to you, and have entreated them all to guide themselves by this book, putting aside the interpretations and inventions of men.

You will remember that you have never at home been wearied about religious observances or mere formalities. I have always been anxious not to weary my children with such things before they are old enough to form opinions respecting them. You will therefore understand the better that I now most solemnly impress upon you the truth and beauty of the Christian religion, as it came from Christ Himself, and the impossibility of your going far wrong if you humbly but heartily respect it.

Only one thing more on this head. The more we are in earnest as to feeling it, the less we are disposed to hold forth about it. Never abandon the wholesome practice of saying your own private prayers, night and morning. I have never abandoned it myself, and I know the comfort of it.

I hope you will always be able to say in after life, that you had a kind father. You cannot show your affection for him so well, or make him so happy, as by doing your duty.

Your affectionate Father.

RTWT

Stay well. Stay safe. Keep reading. “Try to do to others, as you would have them do to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail sometimes.”