My sister Selma tells a wonderful story about the profound, lengthy and beautifully philosophical letters that our father sent her when she was attending the University of Michigan. Whenever one of them arrived, she called her friends to her room and read the treasured epistle out loud. Her first fall semester, they were the envy of every girl in the dorm. Not only because they arrived with predictable regularity, but also because of their lyrical, lovely, earnest, wise and worldly sentiments. How could any daughter resist:

…Making verses well is an agreeable talent, which I hope you will be possessed of; for, as it more difficult to express one’s thoughts in verse than in prose, the being capable of doing it is more glorious.

…If you improve and grow learned, everyone will be fond of you, and desirous of your company; whereas ignorant people are shunned and despised.

…It is a saying, that idleness is the mother of all vice. At least, it is certain that laziness is the inheritance of fools; and nothing is so despicable as a sluggard.