Chapter 2

Now, you may be getting a good living in a profession, and yet doing no good at all in the world, but (S. 6, N. 10) quite the contrary. Keep the latter before you as your one object, and you will be right whether you make a living or not; but if you dwell on the other, you’ll very likely drop into mere money-making, and let the world take care of itself, for good or evil. Don’t be in a hurry about finding your work in the world for yourself; you are not old enough to (S. 19, N. 7) judge for yourself yet, but just look about you in the place you find yourself in, and try (S. 51, N. 13) to make things a little better and honester there. You’ll find plenty to keep your hand in at Oxford, or wherever else you [may] go. And don’t be led away to think this part of the world important, and that unimportant. Every corner of the world is important. No man knows whether this part or that part is most so, but every man may do some honest work in his own corner.—THOMAS HUGHES, “TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL DAYS.”

Now — getting, +Du kannst dir nun aber vielleicht ... verdienen+.

quite = just, +gerade+.

Say ‘Keep the last part of your sentence as your principal aim (+Hauptzweck+, m.) before your eyes (+vor Augen+)’.

Say ‘you will do right’.

Insert +dabei+ after ‘living’.

Say ‘but if you have only the other (to agree with ‘part’) before your eyes’.

to drop into mere money-making, +in bloße Geldmacherei verfallen+.

to let the world take care of itself for good or evil, +die Welt im Guten und im Bösen sich selbst überlassen+.

to be in a hurry, +sich beeilen+; about finding = to find (S. 1, N. 3).

‘just’, here nur, which place after verb and pronoun; in the place, +an der Stelle+; to find oneself, +sich befinden+.

‘things’, here = life, with def. art., after which place the adv. ‘there’; honester = more virtuous.

The clause ‘at Oxford — go’ is best placed at the head of the whole passage; to keep your hand in = to do.

And — away, +Laß dich auch nicht dazu verleiten+; to think a thing important, +eine Sache für wichtig halten+.

is most so = is most important.—=When the superlative is used as a predicate, it is generally preceded by +am+= (the preposition +an+ contracted with the definite article, dative case singular, masculine), =and takes the dative termination +en+=; as—This matter is not important, but that is most important, +diese Sache ist nicht wichtig, aber jene ist ~am wichtigsten~+.

may — corner = can in his own corner do something good.

Section 121.

THE STATE OF IRELAND.

(Conclusion of a Speech delivered in the House of Commons in March 1868.)