German composition

Section 120 Do Good in Your Own Sphere of Action. — II

Now⁠1, 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) quite⁠2 the contrary. Keep⁠3 the latter before you as your one object, and you⁠4 will be right whether you make a living⁠5 or not; but⁠6 if you dwell on the other, you’ll very likely drop⁠7 into mere money-making, and let⁠8 the world take care of itself, for good or evil. Don’t be in a hurry⁠9 about finding your work in the world for yourself; you are not old enough to (S. 19, N. 7) judge for yourself yet, but just⁠10 look about you in the place you find yourself in, and try (S. 51, N. 13) to make things⁠11 a little better and honester there. You’ll⁠12 find plenty to keep your hand in at Oxford, or wherever else you [may] go. And⁠13 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 is⁠14 most so, but every man may⁠15 do some honest work in his own corner.—Thomas Hughes, “Tom Brown’s School Days.”

Notes

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

2 quite = just, gerade.

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

4 Say ‘you will do right’.

5 Insert dabei after ‘living’.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

14 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.

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