 CHESTORFIELD SUTTERS TO HIS SON Red for LibriVox.org into the public domain. LETTER 124 LONDON, NOVEMBER 19, OLD STYLE, 1750 My dear friend, I was very glad to find, by your letter of the 12th, new style, that you had informed yourself so well of the State of the French Marine at Toulon, and of the commerce at Marseille. They are objects that deserve the inquiry and attention of every man who intends to be concerned in public affairs. The French are now wisely attentive to both. Their commerce is incredibly blessed within these last thirty years. They have beaten us out of a great part of our Levant trade. Their East India trade has greatly affected ours, and in the West Indies their Martinique establishment supplies not only France itself, but the greatest part of Europe, with sugars, whereas our islands, as Jamaica, Barbados, and the Leeward, have now no other market for theirs but England. New France, or Canada, has also greatly lessened our fur and skin trade. It is true, as you say, that we have no treaty of commerce subsisting. I do not say with Marseille, but with France. There was a treaty of commerce made between England and France immediately after the Treaty of Utrecht, but the whole treaty was conditional, and to depend upon the parliaments enacting certain things which were stipulated in two of the articles. The parliament, after a very famous debate, would not do it, so the treaty fell to the ground. However, the outlines of that treaty are, by mutual and tacit consent, the general rules of our present commerce with France. It is true, too, that our commodities which go to France must go in our bottoms, the French having imitated in many respects our famous act of navigation as it is commonly called. This act was made in the year 1652, in the parliament held by Oliver Cromwell. It forbids all foreign ships to bring into England any merchandise or commodities whatsoever that were not of the growth and produce of that country to which those ships belonged, under penalty of the forfeiture of such ships. This act was particularly leveled at the Dutch, who were at that time the carriers of almost all Europe, and got immensely rich by freight. Upon this principle of the advantages arising from freight, there is a provision in the same act that even the growth and produce of our own colonies in America shall not be carried from thence to any other country in Europe, without first touching in England. But this clause has lately been repealed, in the instances of some perishable commodities such as rice, etc., which are allowed to be carried directly from our American colonies to other countries. The act also provides that two-thirds, I think, of those who navigate the said ships shall be British subjects. There is an excellent and little book written by the famous Monsieur Huet-Uweck de Vranche sur le commerce des anciens, which is very well worth your reading, and very soon read. It will give you a clear notion of the rise and progress of commerce. There are many other books which take up the history of commerce where Monsieur Da Vranche leaves it, and bring it down to these times. I advise you to read some of them with care, commerce being a very essential part of political knowledge in every country, but more particularly in that which owes all its riches and power to it. I come now to another part of your letter, which is the orthography, if I may call bad spelling orthography. You spell induce E-N-D-U-C-E, and grandeur you spell G-R-A-N-D-U-R-E, two faults of which very few of my housemaids would have been guilty. I must tell you that orthography, in the true sense of the word, is so absolutely necessary for a man of letters, or a gentleman, that one false spelling may fix ridicule upon him for the rest of his life. And I know a man of quality who never recovered the ridicule of having spelled wholesome without the W. Reading with care will secure everybody from false spelling, for books are always well spelled according to the orthography of the times. Some words are indeed doubtful, being spelled differently by different authors of equal authority, but those are few, and in those cases every man has his option, because he may plead his authority either way. But where there is but one right way, as in the two words above mentioned, it is unpardonable and ridiculous for a gentleman to miss it. Even a woman of a tolerable education would despise and laugh at a lover who should send her an ill-spelled B-le-du. I fear and suspect that you have taken it into your head in most cases that the matter is all and the manner little or nothing. If you have, undeceive yourself, and be convinced that, in everything, the manner is full as important as the matter. If you speak the sense of an angel, in bad words and with a disagreeable utterance, nobody will hear you twice. Who can help it? If you write epistles as well as Cicero, but in a very bad hand and very ill-spelled, whoever receives will laugh at them, and if you had the figure of Adonis, with an awkward air and motions, it will disgust instead of pleasing. Study manner, therefore, in everything, if you would be anything. My principal inquiries of my friends at Paris concerning you will be relative to the manner of your doing whatever you do. I shall not inquire whether you understand Demosthenes, Tacitus, or the Juice Publikum Imperii, but I shall inquire whether your utterance is pleasing, your style not only pure but elegant, your manner's noble and easy, your air and address engaging, in short, whether you are a gentleman, a man of fashion, and fit to keep good company or not. For till I am satisfied in these particulars you and I must by no means meet. I could not possibly stand it. It is in your power to become all this at Paris, if you please. Consult with Lady Herve, and Madame Monconcieux, upon all these matters, and they will speak to you and advise you freely. Tell them that Bessonne com patire Angora, that you are utterly new in the world, that you are desirous to form yourself, that you beg they will reprove, advise, and correct you, that you know that none can do it so well, and that you will implicitly follow their orders. This, together with your careful observation of the manners of the best company, will really form you. Abbe Guasco, a friend of mine, will come to you as soon as he knows of your arrival at Paris. He is well received in the best companies there, and will introduce you to them. He will be desirous to do you any service he can. He is active and curious and can give you information upon most things. He is a sort of camp-le-sonne of the President Montesquieu, to whom you have a letter. I imagine that this letter will not wait very long for you at Paris, where I reckon you will be in about a fortnight. At you. End of Section 93. Read by Professor Heather Mby. For more free audiobooks or to volunteer, please visit LibreVox.org. Section 94 of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son. Read for LibreVox.org into the public domain. Letter 125. London, December 24, Old Style, 1750. Dear friend, at length you are become a Parisian and consequently must be addressed in French. You will also answer me in the same language, that I may be able to judge of the degree in which you possess the elegance, the delicacy, and the orthography of that language which is, in a manner, become the universal one of Europe. I am assured that you speak it well, but in that well there are gradations. He who in the provinces might be reckoned to speak correctly, would at Paris be looked upon as an ancient gall. In that country of mode even language is subservient to fashion, which varies almost as often as their clothes. The affected, the refined, and the neological or new fashionable style are at present too much at vogue at Paris. Know, observe, and occasionally converse, if you please, according to those different styles, but do not let your taste be infected by them. Wit too is there subservient to fashion, and actually at Paris one must have wit, even in despite of Minerva. Everybody runs after it, although if it does not come naturally and of itself, it can never be overtaken. But unfortunately for those who pursue, they seize upon what they take for wit, and endeavor to pass it for such upon others. This is, at best, the lot of Ixion, who embraced a cloud instead of the God as he pursued. Fine sentiments, which never existed, false and unnatural thoughts, obscure and far-sought expressions, not only unintelligible, but which it is even impossible to decipher or to guess at, are all the consequences of this error, and two-thirds of the new French books which now appear are made up of those ingredients. It is the new cookery of Parnassus, in which the still is employed instead of the pot and the spit, and where quintessences and extracts are chiefly used. Enby, the Attic Salt, is now prescribed. You will now and then be obliged to eat of this new cookery, but do not suffer your taste to be corrupted by it. And when you in your turn are desirous of treating others, take the good old cookery of Louis XIV's reign for your rule. There were at that time admirable head-cooks such as Cornille, Boédo, Racine, and Lafontaine. Whatever they prepared was simple, wholesome, and solid. By laying aside all metaphors, do not suffer yourself to be dazzled by false brilliancy, by unnatural expressions, nor by those antithesis so much in fashion. As a protection against such innovations, have a recourse to your own good sense, and to the ancient authors. On the other hand, do not laugh at those who give into such errors. You are as yet too young to act the critic, or to stand forth a severe avenger of the violated rites of good sense. Content yourself with not being perverted, but do not think of converting others. Let them quietly enjoy their errors in taste, as well as in religion. Within the course of the last century and a half, taste in France has, as well as that kingdom itself, undergone many vicissitudes. Under the reign of, I do not say Louis XIII, but of Cardinal Derichelieu, good taste first began to make its way. It was refined under that of Louis XIV, a great king, at least if not a great man. Cornille was the restorer of true taste, and the founder of the French theatre, although rather inclined to the Italian Conchetti and the Spanish Agudesi. Witness those epigrams which he makes chimine utter in the greatest excess of grief. Before his time, those kind of itinerant authors, called troubadours or romanciers, were a species of madmen who attracted the admiration of fools. Toward the end of Cardinal Derichelieu's reign, and the beginning of Louis XIV's, the temple of taste was established at the hotel of Ramboillet. But that taste was not judiciously refined. This temple of taste might more properly have been named a laboratory of wit, where good sense was put to the torture, in order to extract from it the most subtle essence. There it was that Voltaire labored hard and incessantly to create wit. At length, Boyleau and Molliere fixed the standard of true taste. In spite of the scuderies, the calprnities, etc., they defeated and put to flight artemines, juba, orandates, and all those heroes of romance, who were, notwithstanding each of them, as good as a whole army. Those madmen then endeavored to obtain an asylum in libraries. This they could not accomplish, but were under a necessity of taking shelter in the chambers of some few ladies. I would have you read one volume of Cleopatra, and one of Clelia. It would otherwise be impossible to you to form any idea of the extravagances they contained. But God keep you from ever persevering to the twelfth. During almost the whole reign of Louis XIV, true taste remained in its purity, until it received some hurt, although undesignedly, from a very fine genius. I mean, Monsieur de Fontanelle, who, with the greatest sense and the most solid learning, sacrificed rather too much to the graces, whose most favorite child and pupil he was. Admired with reason, others tried to imitate him, but unfortunately for us, the author of the pastorales, of the history of oracles, and of the French theatre, found fewer imitators than the Chevalier-der did mimics. He has since been taken off by a thousand authors, but never really imitated by any one that I know of. At this time the seed of true taste in France seems to me not well established. It exists but torn by factions. There is one party of Petit Matra, one of half-learned women, another of insipid authors whose works are Verba et Voches et Prétraînihi, and, in short, a numerous and very fashionable party of writers, who in a metaphysical jumble introduce their false and subtle reasonings upon the movements and the sentiments of the soul, the heart, and the mind. Do not let yourself be overpowered by fashion, nor by particular sets of people with whom you may be connected. But try all the different coins before you receive any in payment. Let your own good sense and reason be judge of the value of each, and be persuaded that nothing can be beautiful and less true. Whatever brilliancy is not the result of the solidity and justice of a thought, it is but a false glare. The Italian saying upon a diamond is equally just with regard to thoughts. Quanto pui sodenza, tanto pui splendore. All this ought not to hinder you from conforming externally to the modes and tones of the different companies in which you may chance to be. With the petit mattress speak epigrams, false sentiments, with frivolous women, and a mixture of all these together, with professed Beaux-esprit. I would have you do so, for at your age you ought not to claim at changing the tone of the company, but conform to it. Examine well, however, weigh all maturely within yourself, and do not mistake the tinsel of Tazzo for the gold of Virgil. You will find at Paris good authors and circles distinguished by the solidity of their reasoning. You will never hear trifling, affected, and far-sought conversations at Madame Monconcile, nor at the hotels of Matignon and Cogni, where she will introduce you. The President Montesquieu will not speak to you in the epigrammatic style. His book, The Spirit of the Laws, written in the vulgar tongue, will equally please and instruct you. Frequent the theatre whenever Cornille, Racine, and Molière's pieces are played. They are according to nature and to truth. I do not mean by this to give an exclusion to several admirable modern plays, particularly Cigny, imitated in English by Mr. Francis in a play called Eugenia, replete with sentiments that are true, natural, and applicable to oneself. If you choose to know the characters of people now in fashion, read Caballon the Younger and more of those works. The former is a most excellent painter. The latter has studied and knows the human heart, perhaps too well. Crebillon, Agrements du Cour et de l'Esprit is an excellent work in its kind. It will be of infinite amusement to you and not totally useless. The Japanese history of Tanzar and Néadarn, by the same author, is an amiable extravagancy, interspersed with the most just reflections. In short, provided you do not mistake the objects of your attention, you will find matter at Paris to form a good and true taste. I shall let you remain at Paris without any person to direct your conduct. As I shall let you remain at Paris without any person to direct your conduct, I flatter myself that you will not make a bad use of the confidence I repose in you. I do not require that you should lead the life of a Capuchin friar. Quite the contrary. I recommend pleasures to you, but I expect that they shall be the pleasures of a gentleman. Those add brilliancy to a young man's character, but debauchery vilifies and degrades it. I shall have very true and exact accounts of your conduct, and according to the information I receive shall be more or less or not at all yours. Adieu. P.S. Do not omit writing to me once a week, and let your answer to this letter be in French. Conduct yourself as much as possible with the foreign ministers, which is properly travelling into different countries, without going from one place. Speak Italian to all the Italians, and German to all the Germans you meet, in order not to forget those two languages. I wish you, my dear friend, as many happy years as you deserve, and not one more. May you deserve a great number. End of Section ninety-four, read by Professor Heather and by. For more free audiobooks or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Section ninety-five of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Letter one hundred and twenty-six. London, January eighth, old style, seventeen fifty-one. My dear friend, by your letter of the fifth, new style, I find that your debut at Paris has been a good one. You are entered into good company, and I dare say you will not sink into bad. Frequent the houses where you have been once invited, and have none of that shyness which makes most of your countrymen strangers, where they might be intimate and domestic if they please. Wherever you have a general invitation to suck when you please, profit of it, with decency, and go every now and then. Lord Abelmar will, I am sure, be extremely kind to you, but his house is only a dinner-house, and, as I am formed, frequented by no French people. Should he happen to employ you in his bureau, which I much doubt, you must write a better hand than your common one, or you will get no credit by your manuscripts, for your hand is at present an illiberal one, and it is neither a hand of business nor of a gentleman, but the hand of a schoolboy writing his exercises, which he hopes will never be read. Madame de Montconcile gives me a favorable account of you, and so do Marquis de Montignol and Madame de Bocage. They all say that you desire to please, and consequently promise me that you will. And they judge right, for whoever really desires to please, and has, as you now have, the means of learning how, certainly will please, and that is the great point of life. It makes all other things easy. Whenever you are with Madame de Montconcile, Madame de Bocage, or other women of fashion, with whom you are tolerably free, say frankly and naturally, I know little of the world, I am quite a novice in it, and although very desirous of pleasing, I am at a loss for the means. Be so good, Madame, as to let me into your secret of pleasing everybody. I shall owe my success to it, and you will always have more than falls to your share. When, in consequence of this request, they shall tell you of any little error, awkwardness, or impropriety, you should not only feel, but express the warmest acknowledgment. Though nature should suffer, and she will, at first hearing them, tell them that you will look upon the most severe criticisms as the greatest proof of their friendship. Madame de Bocage tells me particularly, to inform you, I shall always receive the honour of his visits with pleasure. It is true that at his age the pleasures of conversation are cold, but I will endeavour to make him acquainted with young people, etc. Make use of this invitation, and as you live in a manner next door to her, step in and out there frequently. Monsieur de Bocage will go with you, he tells me, with great pleasure, to the plays, and point out to you whatever deserves your knowing there. This is worth your acceptance, too. He has a very good taste. I have not yet heard from Lady Hervey upon your subject, but as you inform me that you have already slept with her once, I look upon you as adopted by her. Consult her in all your little matters. Tell her any difficulties that may occur to you. Ask her what you should do or say in such or such cases. She has l'usage du monde imperfection, and will help you to acquire it. Madame de Bocage-Rod est partie de grâce, and your quotation is very applicable to her. You may be there, I dare say, as often as you please, and I would advise you to sup there once a week. You say very justly that as Mr. Hart is leaving you, you shall want advice more than ever. You shall never want mine, and as you have already had so much of it, I must rather repeat than add to what I have already given you. But that I will do, and add to it occasionally as circumstances may require. At present I shall only remind you of your two great objects, which you should always attend to. They are Parliament and Foreign Affairs. With regard to the former you can do nothing while abroad but attend carefully to the purity, correctness, and elegance of your diction, the clearness and gracefulness of your utterance, in whatever language you speak. As for the parliamentary knowledge, I will take care of that when you come home. With regard to Foreign Affairs, everything you do abroad may and ought to tend that way. Your reading should be chiefly historical. I do not mean of remote, dark, and fabulous history, still less of Jimcrack natural history of fossils, minerals, plants, etc. But I mean the useful, political, and constitutional history of Europe for these last three centuries and a half. The other necessary thing for your foreign object, and not less necessary than either ancient or modern knowledge, is a great knowledge of the world, manners, politeness, address, and le ton de la bonne compagnie. In that view, keeping a great deal of good company is the principal point to which you are now to attend. It seems ridiculous to tell you, but it is most certainly true, that your dancing master is, at this time, the man in all Europe of the greatest importance to you. You must dance well, in order to sit, stand, and walk well, and you must do all these well in order to please. What with your exercises, some reading, and a great deal of company, your day is, I confess, extremely taken up. But the day, if well employed, is long enough for everything, and I am sure you will not slatter away one moment of it in inaction. At your age, people have strong and active spirits, alacrity and vivacity in all they do, are impregnate, indefatagable, and quick. The difference is that a young fellow of parts exerts all those happy dispositions in the pursuit of proper objects, endeavors to excel in the solid, and in the showish parts of life. Whereas a silly puppy, or a dull rogue, throws away all his youth and spirit upon trifles, where he is serious, or upon disgraceful vices, while he aims at pleasures. This, I am sure, will not be your case. Your good sense and your good conduct, hitherto, are your guarantees with me for the future. Continue only at Paris as you have begun, and your stay there will make you, what I have always wished you to be, as near perfection as our nature permits. Adieu, my dear, remember to write to me once a week. Not as to a father, but without reserve as to a friend. End of Section ninety-five. Red by Professor Heather Mby. For more free audiobooks or to volunteer, please visit LibreVox.org. Section ninety-six of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son. Red for LibreVox.org into the Public Domain. Chapter one-hundred and twenty-seven. London, January fourteenth, Old Style, seventeen-fifty-one. My dear friend, among the many good things Mr. Hart has told me of you, two in particular gave me great pleasure. The first, that you are exceedingly careful and jealous of the dignity of your character. That is the sure and solid foundation upon which you must both stand and rise. A man's moral character is a more delicate thing than a woman's reputation of chastity. A slip or two may possibly be forgiven her, and her character may be clarified by subsequent and continued good conduct. But a man's moral character once tainted is irreparably destroyed. The second was that you had acquired a most correct and extensive knowledge of foreign affairs, such as the history, the treaties, and the forms of government of the several countries of Europe. This sort of knowledge little attended to here will make you not only useful, but necessary in your future destination, to carry you very far. He added that you wanted from hence some books relative to our laws and constitution, our colonies and our commerce, of which you know less than those of any other part of Europe. I will send you what short books I can find of that sort, to give you a general notion of those things, but you cannot have time to go into their depths at present. You cannot now engage with new folios. You and I will refer the constitutional part of this country to our meeting here, when we will enter seriously into it, and read the necessary books together. In the meantime, go on in the course you are in, of foreign matters, converse with ministers and others of every country, watch the transactions of every court, and endeavor to trace them up to their source. This with your physics, your geometry, and your exercises will be all that you can possibly have time for at Paris, for you must allow a great deal for company and pleasures. It is they that must give you those manners that address that tournure of the Beaumont, which will qualify you for your future destination. You must first please in order to get the confidence, and consequently the secrets of the courts and ministers for whom and with whom you negotiate. I will send you by the first opportunity a short book written by Lord Bullenbroek, under the name of Sir John Oldcastle, containing remarks upon the history of England, which will give you a clear general notion of our constitution, and which will serve you at the same time, like all Lord Bullenbroek's works, for a model of eloquence and style. I will also send you Sir Josiah Childs' little book upon trade, which may be properly called the commercial grammar. He lays down the true principles of commerce, and his conclusions from them are generally very just. Since you turn your thoughts a little toward trading commerce, which I am very glad you do, I will recommend a French book to you, which you will easily get at Paris, and which I take to be the best book in the world of that kind. I mean the Dictionnaire de Commerce de Savoie, in three volumes in folio, where you will find every one thing that relates to trade, commerce, species, exchange, et cetera, most clearly stated, and not only relative to France, but to the whole world. You will easily suppose that I do not advise you to read such a book too de suite, but I only mean that you should have it at hand to have recourse to occasionally. With this great stock of both useful and ornamental knowledge, which you have already acquired, and which by your application in industry you are daily increasing, you will lay a solid foundation of future figure and fortune, that if you complete it by the accomplishments of manners, graces, et cetera, I know nothing which you may not aim at, and in time hope for. Your great point at present at Paris, to which all other considerations must give way, is to become entirely a man of fashion, to be well-bred without ceremony, easy without negligence, steady and intrepid with modesty, genteel without affectation, insinuating without meanness, cheerful without being noisy, frank without indiscretion, and secret without mysteriousness. To know the proper time and place for whatever you say or do, and to do it with an air of condition, all this is not so soon nor so easily learned as people imagine, but requires observation and time. The world is an immense folio, which demands a great deal of time and attention to be read and understood as it ought to be. You have not yet read above four or five pages of it, and you will have but barely time to dip now and then in other less important books. Lord Abel Marl has, I know, wrote to a friend of his here, that you do not frequent him so much as he expected and desired, that he fears somebody or other has given you wrong impressions of him, and that I may possibly think, from your being so seldom at his house, that he has been wanting in his attentions to you. I told the person who told me this, that on the contrary, you seemed by your letters to me to be extremely pleased with Lord Abel Marl's behavior to you, but that you were obliged to give up dining abroad during your course of experimental philosophy. I guess the true reason, which I believe was, that as no French people frequent his house, you rather choose to dine at other places, where you were likely to meet with better company than your countrymen, and you were in the right of it. However, I would have to show no shyness to Lord Abel Marl, but go to him and dine with him oftener than it may be you would wish, for the sake of having him speak well of you here when he returns. He is a good deal in fashion here, and his puffing you, to use an awkward expression, before you return here, will be of great use to you afterward. People in general take characters, as they do most things, upon trust, rather than be at the trouble of examining them themselves. And the decisions of four or five fashionable people, in every place, are final, more particularly with regard to characters, which all can hear but few can judge of. Do not mention the least of this to any mortal, and take care that Lord Abel Marl do not suspect that you know anything of the matter. Lord Huntington and Lord Stormont are, I hear, arrived at Paris. You have doubtless seen them. Lord Stormont is well spoken of here. However, in your connections, if you form any with them, show rather a preference to Lord Huntington, for reasons which you will easily guess. Mr. Hart goes this week to Cornwall, to take possession of his living. He has been installed at Windsor. He will return here in about a month, when your literary correspondence with him will be regularly carried on. Your mutual concern at parting was a good sign for both. I have this moment received good accounts of you from Paris. Go on. Vous êtes en bon train. Adieu. End of Section 96. Read by Professor Heather Mby. For more free audiobooks or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Section 97 of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Letter 128. London, January 21st, Old Style, 1750. My dear friend, in all my letters from Paris, I have the pleasure of finding, among many other good things, your docility mentioned with emphasis. This is the sure way of improving in those things, which you only want. It is true they are little, but it is as true, too, that they are necessary things. As they are mere matters of usage and mode, it is no disgrace for anybody of your age to be ignorant of them. And the most compendious way of learning them is, fairly to avow your ignorance, and consult those who, from long usage and experience, know them best. Good sense and good nature suggest civility in general, but in good breeding there are a thousand little delicacies, which are established only by custom, and it is these little elegances of manners which distinguish a courtier and a man of fashion from the vulgar. I am assured by different people that your air is already much improved, and one of my correspondents makes you the true French compliment of saying, However unbecoming this speech may be in the mouth of a Frenchman, I am very glad that they think it applicable to you. For I would have you not only adopt, but rival, the best manners and usages of the place you are at, be they what they will. That is the versatility of manners which is so useful in the course of the world. Choose your models at Paris, and then rival them in their own way. There are fashionable words, phrases, and even gestures at Paris, which are called du bon temps, not to mention certain petits politices cet attention qui ne sont rien un elle-même, which fashion has rendered necessary. Make yourself master of all these things, and to such a degree as to make the French say, C'est un Françoise. And when hereafter you shall be at other courts, do the same thing there, and conform to the fashionable manners and usages of the place. That is what the French themselves are not apt to do. Wherever they go, they retain their own manners, as thinking them the best. But granting them to be so, they are still in the wrong not to conform to those of the place. One would desire to please wherever one is, and nothing is more innocently flattering than an approbation, and an imitation of the people one converses with. I hope your colleges with Marcel go on prosperously. In these ridiculous, though at the same time really important lectures, pray attend, and desire your professor to attend, more particularly to the chapter of the arms. It is they that decide of a man's being gentile or otherwise, more than any other part of the body. A twist or stiffness in the wrist will make any man in Europe look awkward. The next thing to be attended to is your coming into a room, and presenting yourself to company. This gives the first impression, and the first impression is often a lasting one. Therefore, pray desire Professor Marcel to make you come in and go out of his room frequently, and in the supposition of different companies being there, such as ministers, women, mixed companies, etc. Those who present themselves well have a certain dignity in their air, which without the least seeming mixture of pride, at once engages and is respected. I should not so often repeat, nor so long dwell upon such trifles, with anybody that has had less solid and valuable knowledge than you have. Frivolous people attend to those things, par preference. They know nothing else. My fear with you is that from knowing better things you should despise these too much, and think them of much less consequence than they really are, for they are of a great deal and more especially to you. Pleasing and governing women may, in time, be of great service to you. They often please and govern others. Apropos, are you in love with Madame de Birkenrode still, or has some other taken her place in your affections? I take it for granted that, quoi, te comme, quoi d'un mot vénus, non hérobus cendus adorat ignibus, un arrangement sied bien à un galantan. In that case, I recommend to you the utmost discretion and the profoundest silence. Bragging of, hinting at, intimating, or even effectively disclaiming and denying such an arrangement will equally discredit you among men and women. An unaffected silence upon that subject is the only true medium. In your commerce with women, and indeed with men too, un certain dossier is particularly engaging. It is what constitutes that character which the French talk of so much and so justly value, I mean l'amiable. This dossure is not so easily described as felt. It is the compound result of different things, a complacence, a flexibility, but not a servility of manners, an air of softness in the countenance, gesture, and expression, equally whether you concur or differ with the person you converse with. Observe those carefully who have that dossure that charms you and others, and your own good sense will soon enable you to discover the different ingredients of which it is composed. You must be more particularly attentive to this dossure whenever you are obliged to refuse what is asked of you or to say what in itself cannot be very agreeable to those to whom you say it. It is then the necessary gilding of a disagreeable pill. L'amiable consists in a thousand of these little things aggregately. It is the so viture and modeau which I have so often recommended to you. The respectable, Mr. Hart assures me, you do not want and I believe him. Study then carefully and acquire perfectly the amiable, and you will have everything. Abbe Guasco, who is another of your panagiarists, writes me word that he has taken you to dinner at Marquis de Saint-Germain, where you will be welcome as often as you please, and the oftener the better. Profit of that upon the principle of travelling in different countries, without changing places. He says too that he will take you to the Parliament when any remarkable cause is to be tried. That is very well. Go through the several chambers of the Parliament and see and hear what they are doing. Join practice and observation to your theoretical knowledge of their rights and privileges. No Englishman has the least notion of them. I need not recommend to you to go to the bottom of the constitutional and political knowledge of countries, for Mr. Hart tells me that you have a peculiar turn that way, and have informed yourself most correctly of them. I must now put some queries to you, as to a jurist's publicy piratous, which I am sure you can answer me, and which I own I cannot answer myself, if they are upon a subject now much talked up. First, are there any particular forms requisite for the election of a king of the Romans, different from those which are necessary for the election of an emperor? Second, is not a king of the Romans as legally elected by the votes of a majority of the electors, as by two thirds, or by the unanimity of the electors? Third, is there any particular law or constitution of the empire that distinguishes, either in matter or in form, the election of a king of the Romans from that of an emperor, and is not the golden bull of Charles IV equally the rule for both? Fourth, were there not, at a meeting of a certain number of the electors, I have forgotten when, some rules and limitations agreed upon concerning the election of a king of the Romans, and were those restrictions legal, and did they obtain the force of law? How happy I am, my dear child, that I can apply to you for knowledge, and with a certainty of being rightly informed. It is knowledge more than quick, flashy parts that makes a man of business. A man who is master of his matter, twill with inferior parts, be too hard in parliament, and indeed anywhere else, for a man of better parts who knows his subject but superficially, and if to his knowledge he joins eloquence and elocution, he must necessarily soon be at the head of that assembly, but without those two no knowledge is sufficient. Lord Huntington writes me word that he has seen you, and that you have renewed your old school acquaintance. Tell me fairly your opinion of him, and of his friend, Lord Sturmont, and also of the other English people of fashion you meet with. I promise you invaluable secrecy on my part. You and I must now write to each other, as friends, without the least reserve. There will for the future be a thousand things in my letters, which I would not have any mortal living but yourself see or know. Those you will easily distinguish, and neither show nor repeat, and I will do the same by you. To come to another subject, for I have a pleasure in talking over every subject with you. How deep are you in Italian? Do you understand Ariosto, Tasso, Boccaccio, and Machiavelli? If you do, you know enough of it, and may know all the rest by reading when you have time. Little or no business is written in Italian except in Italy, and if you know enough of it to understand the few Italian letters that may in time come in your way, and speak Italian tolerably to those very few Italians who speak no French, give yourself no further trouble about that language till you happen to have full leisure to perfect yourself in it. It is not the same with regard to German. Your speaking and writing it well will particularly distinguish you from every other man in England, and is, moreover, of great use to anyone who is, as probably as you will be, employed in the Empire. Therefore, pray cultivate them seditiously, by writing four or five lines of German every day, and by speaking it to every German you meet with. You have now got a footing in a great many good houses at Paris, in which I advise you to make yourself domestic. This is to be done by a certain easiness of carriage, and a decent familiarity. Not by way of putting yourself upon the frivolous footing of being some consequence, but by doing, in some degree, the honors of the house and table, calling yourself un bondenard le galopendici, saying to the Masters or Mistress, si si est mon département, je m'en charge, avouiller que je m'en acquittais à ma ville. This sort of pardonnage has something engaging, and liant, in it, and begets that decent familiarity, which it is both agreeable and useful to establish in good houses and with people of fashion. Mere formal visits, dinners and suppers, upon formal invitations, are not the thing. They add no connection nor information. But it is the easy, careless ingress and egress at all hours that forms the pleasing and profitable commerce of life. The post is so negligent that I lose some letters from Paris entirely, and receive others much later than I should. To this I ascribe my having received no letter from you for above a fortnight, which to my impatience seems a long time. I expect to hear from you once a week. Mr. Hart has gone to Cornwall, and will be back in about three weeks. I have a packet of books to send you by the first opportunity, which I believe will be Mr. York's return to Paris. The Greek books come from Mr. Hart, and the English ones from your humble servant. Read Lord Bolin Brookes with great attention, as well to the style as to the matter. I wish you could form yourself such a style in every language. Style is the dress of thoughts, and a well-dressed thought, like a well-dressed man, appears to great advantage. Yours, Adieu. London, August 28 Old Style, 1751 My dear friend, a bill for ninety pounds sterling was brought me the other day, said to be drawn upon me by you. I scrupled paying it at first, not upon account of the sum, but because you had sent me no letter of advice, which is always done in those transactions, and still more, because I did not perceive that you had signed it. The person who presented it desired me to look again, and that I should discover your name at the bottom. Accordingly I looked again, and with the help of my magnifying glass, did perceive that what I had first taken only for somebody's mark was in truth your name, written in the worst and smallest hand I ever saw in my life. However, I paid it at a venture, though I would almost rather lose the money than that such a signature should be yours. All gentlemen and all men of business write their names always in the same way, that their signatures may be so well known as not to be easily counterfeited, and they generally sign in rather larger character than their common hand, whereas your name was in a less and a worse than your common writing. This suggested to me the various accidents which may very probably happen to you, while you write so ill. For instance, if you were to write in such a character to the secretary's office, your letter would immediately be sent to the decipherer, as containing matters of the utmost secrecy, not fit to be trusted to the common character. If you were to write so to an antiquarian, he, knowing you to be a man of learning, would certainly try it by the runic, Celtic, or Slavonian alphabet, never suspecting it to be a modern character. And if you were to send a poulet to a fine woman in such a hand, she would think that it really came from the poulet lié, which by the by is the etymology of the word poulet. For Henry IV of France used to send billets due to his mistresses by his poulet lié, under pretence of sending them chickens, which gave the name of poulet to those short but expressive manuscripts. I have often told you that every man who has the use of his eyes and of his hand can write whatever hand he pleases, and it is plain that you can, since you write both the Greek and German characters, which you never learned of a writing master, extremely well, though your common hand, which you learned of a master, is an exceedingly bad and illiberal one, equally unfit for business or common use. I do not desire that you should write the labored, stiff character of a writing master. A man of business must write quick and well, and that depends simply upon use. I would therefore advise you to get some very good writing master at Paris, and apply to it for a month only, which will be sufficient, for upon my word the writing of a genteel, plain hand of business is of much more importance than you think. You will say it may be that when you write so very ill it is because you are in a hurry, to which I answer, why are you ever in a hurry? A man of sense may be in haste, but can never be in a hurry, because he knows that whatever he does in a hurry he must necessarily do very ill. He may be in haste to dispatch an affair, but he will care not to let that haste hinder his doing it well. Little minds are in a hurry, when the object proves, as it commonly does, too big for them. They run, they hair, they puzzle, confound, and perplex themselves. They want to do everything at once and never do it at all. But a man of sense takes the time necessary for doing the thing he is about well, and his haste to dispatch a business only appears by the continuity of his application to it. He pursues it with a cool steadiness, and finishes it before he begins any other. I own your time is much taken up, and you have a great many different things to do. But remember that you had much better do half of them well and leave the other half undone than do them all indifferently. Moreover, the few seconds that are saved in the course of the day, by writing ill instead of well, do not amount to an object of time by any means equivalent to the disgrace or ridicule of writing the scrawl of a common whore. Consider that if your very bad writing could furnish me with a matter of ridicule, what will it not do to others who do not view you in that partial light that I do? There was a pope, I think it was Cardinal Chigi, who was justly ridiculed for his attention to little things, and his inability in great ones, and therefore called Maximus in Minimus and Minimus in Maximus. Why? Because he attended to little things when he had great ones to do. At this particular period of your life, and at the place you are now in, you have only little things to do, and you should make it habitual to you to do them well, that they may require no attention from you when you have, as I hope you will have, greater things to mind. Make a good handwriting familiar to you now, that you may hereafter have nothing but your matter to think of, when you have occasion to write to kings and ministers. Dance, dress, present yourself habitually well now, that you may have none of those little things to think of hereafter, and which will all be necessary to be done well occasionally, when you will have far greater things to do. As I am eternally thinking of everything that can be relative to you, one thing has occurred to me which I think necessary to mention to you, in order to prevent the difficulties which it might otherwise lay you under. It is this. As you get more acquaintances at Paris, it will be impossible for you to frequent your first acquaintances so much as you did, while you had no others. As, for example, at your first debut, I suppose you were chiefly at Madame Monconcile's, Lady Herveys, and Madame Dubocages. Now that you have got so many other houses, you cannot be there as so often as you used, but pray take care not to give them the least reason to think that you neglect or despise them, for the sake of new and more dignified and shining acquaintances, which would be ungrateful and imprudent on your part, and never forgiven on theirs. Call upon them often, though you do not stay with them so long as formerly. Tell them that you are sorry you are obliged to go away, but that you have such and such engagements, with which good breeding obliges you to comply, and insinuate that you would rather stay with them. In short, take care to make as many personal friends and as few personal enemies as possible. I do not mean, by personal friends, intimate and confidential friends, of which no man can hope to have above half a dozen in the whole course of his life. But I mean friends in the common acceptation of the word. That is, people who speak well of you and who would rather do you good than harm, consistently with their own interest and no further. Upon the whole I recommend to you again and again, Lady Grasse. Adorned by them, you may in a manner do what you please. It will be approved of. Without them your best qualities will lose half their efficacy. Endeavour to be fashionable among the French, which will soon make you fashionable here. Monsieur de Matignon already calls you le petit François. If you can get that name generally at Paris, it will put you à la mode. Adieu, my dear child. The Accounts Which I Receive Of You From Paris Grow Every Day More And More Satisfactory. Lord Abel Marl has written a sort of panagyric of you, which has been seen by many people here, and which will be a very useful forerunner for you. Being in fashion is an important point for anybody anywhere, but it would be a very great one for you to be established in the fashion here before you return. Your business will be half done by it, as I am sure you would not give people reason to change their favourable presentiments of you. The good that is said of you will not, I am convinced, make you a coxcomb, and on the other hand, the being thought still to want some little accomplishments will, I am persuaded, not mortify you, but only animate you to acquire them. I will therefore give you both fairly, in the following extract of a letter which I lately receive from an impartial and discerning friend. Permit me to assure you, sir, that Mr. Standhope will succeed. He has a great fund of knowledge and an uncommonly good memory, although he does not make any parade of either the one or the other. He is desirous of pleasing, and he will please. He has an expressive countenance. His figure is elegant, though little. He has not the least awkwardness, though he has not as yet acquired all the grace's requisite, which Marcel and the ladies will soon give him. In short, he wants nothing but those things which, at his age, must unavoidably be wanting. I mean a certain turn in delicacy of manners, which are to be acquired only by time, and in good company. Ready as he is, he will soon learn them, particularly as he frequents such companies as are the most proper to give them. By this extract, which I can assure you is a faithful one, you and I have both of us the satisfaction knowing how much you have, and how little you want. Let what you have give you, if possible, rather more seeming modesty, but at the same time more interior firmness and assurance, and let what you want, which you see is very attainable, redouble your attention in endeavors to acquire it. You have, in truth, but that one thing to apply to, and a very pleasing application it is, since it is through pleasures you must arrive at it. Company, suppers, balls, spectacles, which show you the models upon which you should form yourself, and all the little usages, customs, and delicacies, which you must adopt and make habitual to you, are now your only schools and universities, in which young fellows and fine women will give you the best lectures. Monsieur de Bocage is another of your Panagyrus, and he tells me that Madame Bocage apprises avec vous le temps demi et de bon, and that you like it very well. You are in the right of it. It is the way of improving, endeavor to be upon that footing with every woman you can first with, accepting where there may be a tender point of connection, a point which I have nothing to do with. But if such a one there is, I hope she has not d'un mauvais need de vivre en bras, which I agree with you in thinking a very disagreeable thing. I have sent you, by the opportunity of Pollock, the courier, who was once my servant, two little parcels of Greek and English books, and shall send you two more by Mr. York, but I accompany them with this caution, that as you have not much time to read, you should employ it in reading what is the most necessary, and that is indisputably modern historical, geographical, chronological, and political knowledge. The present constitution, maxims, force, riches, trade, commerce, characters, parties, and cabals of the several courts of Europe. Many who are reckoned good scholars, although they know pretty accurately the governments of Athens and Rome, are totally ignorant of the constitution of any one country now in Europe, even of their own. Read just Latin and Greek enough to keep up your classical learning, which will be an ornament to you while young, and a comfort to you when old. But the true useful knowledge, and especially for you, is the modern knowledge above mention. It is that which must qualify you for both domestic and foreign business, and it is to that, therefore, that you should principally direct your attention. And I know with great pleasure that you do so. I would not thus commend you to yourself if I thought commendations would have upon you those ill effects which they frequently have upon weak minds. I think you are much above being a vain coxcomb overrating your own merit, and insulting others with the superabundance of it. On the contrary, I am convinced that the consciousness of merit makes a man of sense more modest, though more firm. A man who displays his own merit is a coxcomb, and a man who does not know it is a fool. A man of sense knows it, exerts it, avails himself of it, but never boasts of it, and always seems rather to under than overvalue it, though in truth he sets the right value upon it. It is a very true maxim of La Bruyère, an author well worth your studying. Con ne vaut dans ce mot que ce que l'on vaut valoir. A man who is really diffident, timid and bashful, be his merit what it will, never can push himself in the world. His despondency throws him into inaction, and the forward, the bustling and the petulant will always get the better of him. The manner makes the whole difference. What would be impudence in one manner is only a proper and a decent assurance in another. A man of sense and of knowledge in the world will assert his own rights and pursue his own objects as steadily and intrepidly as the most impudent man living, and commonly more so. But then he has art enough to give an outward air of modesty to all he does. This engages and prevails, while the very same things shock and fail, from the overbearing or impudent manner only of doing them. I repeat my maxim. Suavite and Maudot, said Fortutter and Rie. Would you know the characters, modes, and manners of the latter end of the last age, which are very like those of the present, read La Bruyère. But would you know man, independently of modes, read La Bruyère-Foucault, who, I am afraid, paints him very exactly. Give the enclose to Abe Grosco, of whom you make good use, to go about with you and see things. Between you and me he has more knowledge than parts. Mais une billonne, c'est tirer parti de tout, and everybody is good for something. President Montesquieu is, in every sense, a most useful acquaintance. He has parts joined to great reading and knowledge of the world. Poussé dans ces sources, tante que vous pourrez. Adieu. May the Grace's attend you, for without them, on you fatica Ivana. If they do not come to you willingly, ravish them, and force them to accompany you in all you think, all you say, and all you do. Chesterfield's Letters to His Son, read for Librevox.org into the public domain. LONDON, FEB. 11, OLD STYLE, SEVENTEEN-FIFTY-ONE My dear friend, when you go to the play, which I hope you do often, for it is a very instructive amusement, you must certainly have observed the very different effects which the several parts have upon you, according as they are well or ill-acted. The very best tragedy of corneals, if well spoken and acted, interests, engages, agitates, and affects your passions. Love, terror, and pity alternately possess you. But if ill-spoken and acted, it would only excite your indignation or your laughter. Why? It is still corneals. It is the same sense, the same matter, whether well or ill-acted. It is then merely the manner of speaking and acting that makes this great difference in the effects. Apply this to yourself, and conclude from it, that if you would either please in a private company or persuade in a public assembly, air, looks, gestures, graces, enunciation, proper accents, just emphasis, and tuneful cadences are full as necessary as the matter itself. Let awkward, ungraceful, inelegant, and dull fellows say what they will in behalf of their solid matter and strong reasonings, and let them despise all those graces and ornaments which engage the senses and captivate the heart. They will find, though they will possibly wonder why, that their rough, unpolished matter and their unadorned, coarse but strong arguments will neither please nor persuade, but on the contrary will tire out attention and excite disgust. We are so made, we love to be pleased better than to be informed. Information is, in a certain degree, mortifying, as it implies our previous ignorance. It must be sweetened to be palatable. To bring this directly to you, know that no man can make a figure in this country but by Parliament. Your fate depends upon your success there as a speaker, and take my word for it, that success turns much more upon manner than matter. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Murray, the Solicitor General, Uncle to Lord Stormont, are beyond comparison the best speakers. Why? Only because they are the best orators. They alone can inflame or quiet the house. They alone are so attended to, in that numerous and noisy assembly, that you might hear a pinfall while either of them is speaking. Is it that their matter is better or their argument stronger than other peoples? Does the house expect extraordinary information from them? Not in the least, but the house expects pleasure from them, and therefore attends, finds it and therefore approves. Mr. Pitt particularly has very little parliamentary knowledge. His matter is generally flimsy and his arguments often weak. But his eloquence is superior, his action graceful, his enunciation just and harmonious, his periods are well turned, and every word he makes use of is the very best and the most expressive that can be used in that place. This and not his matter made him pay minister, in spite of both king and ministers. From this draw the obvious conclusion. The same thing holds fullest true in conversation, where even trifles, elegantly expressed, well looked and accompanied with graceful action, will ever please, beyond all the homespun, unadorned sense in the world. Reflect on one side how you feel within yourself, while you are forced to suffer the tedious, muddy, and ill-turned narration of some awkward fellow, even though the fact may be interesting. And on the other hand, with what pleasure you attend to the relation of a much less interesting matter, when elegantly expressed, gentially turned, and gracefully delivered. By attending carefully to all these aggramal in your daily conversation, they will become habitual to you, before you come into parliament, and you will have nothing then to do but to raise them a little when you come there. I would wish you to be so attentive to this object, that I would not have you speak to your footmen, but in the very best words that the subject admits of, be the language what it will. Think of your words and of their arrangement before you speak. Choose the most elegant and place them in the best order. Consult your own ear to avoid cacophony, and what is very near as bad, monotony. Think also of your gestures and looks, when you are speaking even upon the most trifling subjects. The same things, differently expressed, looked and delivered, cease to be the same things. The most passionate lover in the world cannot make a stronger declaration of love than the bourgeois gentilome does in this happy form of words. Maurier d'amour me font belle marquise vos beau-eux. I defy anybody to say more, and yet I would advise nobody to say that, and I would recommend to you rather to smother and conceal your passion entirely than to reveal it in these words. Seriously, this holds in everything, as well as in that ludicrous instance. The French to do them justice attend very minutely to the purity, the correctness, and the elegance of their style and conversation and in their letters. Bien-néraire is an object of their study, and though they sometimes carry it to affectation, they never sink into inelegance, which is much the worse extreme of the two. Observe them and form your French style upon theirs, for elegance in one language will reproduce itself in all. I knew a young man who, being just elected a Member of Parliament, was laughed at for being discovered, through the keyhole of his chamber door, speaking to himself in the glass, and forming his looks and gestures. I could not join in that laugh, but on the contrary thought him much wiser than those who laughed at him, for he knew the importance of those little graces in a public assembly, and they did not. Your little person, which I am told by the way is not ill-turned, whether in a laced coat or a blanket, is specifically the same. But yet I believe you choose to wear the former, and you are in the right for the sake of pleasing more. The worst bread man in Europe, if a lady let fall her fan, would certainly take it up and give it her. The best bread man in Europe could do no more. The difference, however, would be considerable. The latter would please by doing it gracefully. The former would be laughed at for doing it awkwardly. I repeat it and repeat it again, and shall never cease repeating it to you. Air, manners, graces, style, elegance, and all those ornaments must now be the only objects of your attention. It is now or never that you must acquire them. Postpone, therefore, all other considerations. Make them now your serious study. You have not one moment to lose. The solid and the ornamental united are undoubtedly best, but where I reduce to make an option I should without hesitation choose the latter. I hope you assiduously frequent Marcel, the most celebrated dancing master at Paris, and carry graces from him. Nobody had more to spare than he had formerly. Have you learned to carve, for it is ridiculous not to carve well. A man who tells you gravely that he cannot carve may as well tell you that he cannot blow his nose. It is both as necessary and as easy. Take my compliments to Lord Huntingdon, whom I love and honour extremely, as I dare say you do. I will write to him soon, though I believe he has hardly time to read a letter, and my letters to those I love are, as you know by experience, not very short ones. This is one proof of it, and this would have been longer if the paper had been so. Good night, then, my dear child. CHESTORFIELD'S LETTERS TO HIS SON LONDON, FEB. 28, OLD STYLE, SEVENTEEN-FIFTY-ONE MY DEAR FRIEND, THIS EPICGREME AND MARCHELL NON AMOTE, SABEDI, NEK POSSEM DE SERRE QUARE, HAK TANTAM POSSEM DE SERRE, NON AMOTE, OR I DO NOT LOVE THEY, DR. FELL, THE REASON WHY I CANNOT TELL, BUT THIS I KNOW AND KNOW FULL WELL, I DO NOT LOVE THEY, DR. FELL, HAS PUZZLED A GREAT MANY PEOPLE, WHO CANNOT CONCEIVE HOW IT IS POSSIBLE NOT TO LOVE ANYBODY, AND YET NOT TO KNOW THE REASON WHY. I think I conceive Marshall's meaning very clearly, though the nature of the epigram, which is to be short, would not allow him to explain it more fully. And I take it to be this. O sabbadis, you are a very worthy, deserving man. You have a thousand good qualities. You have a great deal of learning. I esteem, I respect, but for the soul of me I cannot love you, though I cannot particularly say why. You are not amiable. You have not those engaging manners, those pleasing attentions, those graces and that address, which are absolutely necessary to please, though impossible to define. I cannot say it is this or that particular thing that hinders me from loving you. It is the whole together, and upon the whole you are not agreeable. How often have I, in the course of my life, found myself in this situation, with regard to many of my acquaintance, whom I have honored and respected without being able to love? I did not know why, because when one is young one does not take the trouble, nor allow oneself the time, to analyze one's sentiments and to trace them up to their source. But subsequent observation and reflection have taught me why. There is a man whose moral character, deep learning in superior parts I acknowledge, admire and respect, but whom it is so impossible for me to love that I am almost in a fever whenever I am in his company. His figure, without being deformed, seems made to disgrace or ridicule the common structure of the human body. His legs and arms are never in the position which, according to the situation of his body, they ought to be in, but constantly employed in committing acts of hostility upon the graces. He throws anywhere but down his throat whatever he means to drink, and only mangles what he means to carve. Inattentive to all the regards of social life, he mistimes or misplaces everything. He disputes with heat indiscriminately, mindless of the rank, character and situation of those with whom he disputes, absolutely ignorant of the several gradations of familiarity or respect. He is exactly the same to his superiors, his equals, and his inferiors, and therefore by a necessary consequence, absurd to two of the three. Is it possible to love such a man? No. The utmost I can do for him is to consider him as a respectable hot and hot. This moe was exclaimed at Dr. Johnson in retaliation for his famous letter. Remember that when I came from Cambridge I had acquired among the penance of that illiberal seminary a sauciness of literature, a turn to satire and contempt, and a strong tendency to argumentation and contradiction. But I had been but a very little while in the world before I found that this would by no means do, and I immediately adopted the opposite character. I concealed what learning I had, I applauded often without approving, and I yielded commonly without conviction. So Viter and Maudot was my law and my prophet, and if I pleased between you and me it was much more owing to that than to any superior knowledge or merit of my own. Apropos, the word pleasing puts one always in mind of Lady Hervey, pray tell her that I declare her responsible to me for your pleasing, that I consider her as a pleasing fallstaff, who not only pleases herself, but is the cause of pleasing in others, that I know she can make anything of anybody, and that as your governess, if she does not make you please, it must only be because she will not, and not because she cannot. I hope you are du bois d'eau en effet, and if so, she is so good a sculptor that I am sure she can give you whatever form she pleases. A versatility of manners is as necessary in social, as a versatility of parts is in political life. One must often yield, in order to prevail. One must humble oneself to be exalted. One must, like St. Paul, become all things to all men, to gain some. And, by the way, men are taken by the same means, mutatas, mutandas, that women are gained, by gentleness, insinuation, and submission. And these lines of Mr. Dryden will hold to a minister as well as to a mistress. The prostrate lover, when he lowest lies, but stoopes to conquer, and but kneels to rise. In the course of the world, the qualifications of the chameleon are often necessary. Nay, they must be carried a little further, and exerted a little sooner, for you should, to a certain degree, take the hue of either the man or the woman that you want, and wish to be upon terms with. On propos, have you yet found out at Paris any friendly and hospitable Madame de Lercé, qui vaut bien se charger du soin de vos éduquures? And have you had any occasion of representing to her quel fait soit d'enclenu? But I ask your pardon, sir, for the abruptness of the question, and acknowledge that I am meddling with manners that are out of my department. However, in matters of less importance, I desire to be du versicret, l'effet de l'étispositaire. Trust me with the general turning color of your amusements at Paris. Is it le fracasse du grand mot, comme a dit, balle, opera, cure, et cetera? Or is it des petits sociétés, moins bouillants, mais pas pour cela moins agréable? Where are you the most atablie? Where are you le petit stanop? Voyez-vous encore jour à quel caragement, net? Have you made any acquaintances among the young Frenchmen who ride at your academy, and who are they? Send to me this sort of chitchat in your letters, which by the by I wish you would honor me with somewhat oftener. If you frequent any of the myriads of polite Englishmen who infest Paris, who are they? Have you finished with Abbe Nollet, and are you au fait of all the properties and effects of air? Before I inclined a quibble, I would say that the effects of air, at least, are to be best learned of, Marcel. If you have quite done with Abbe Nollet, I asked my friend Abbe Salier to recommend to you some maigre filumaz, to teach you a little geometry and astronomy, not enough to absorb your attention and puzzle your intellects, but only enough not to be grossly ignorant of either. I have, of late, been a sort of astronomy mal agro-moi, by bringing in last Monday into the House of Lords a bill for reforming our present calendar and taking the new style. Upon which occasion I was obliged to talk some astronomical jargon, of which I did not understand one word, but got it by heart and spoke it by rote from a master. I wished that I had known a little more of it myself, and so much would I have you know. But the great and necessary knowledge of all is to know yourself and others. This knowledge requires great attention and long experience. Exert the former, and may you have the latter. Adieu. P.S. I have this moment received your letters of the twenty-seventh February and the second March new style. The seal shall be done as soon as possible. I am glad that you were employed in Lord Abel-Marl's bureau. It will teach you, at least, the mechanical part of that business, such as folding, entering, and docketing letters. For you must not imagine that you are let into the fan-fan of the correspondence. Nor, indeed, is it fit that you should at your age. However, use yourself to secrecy as to the letters you either read or write, that in time you may be trusted with secret, very secret, separate, apart, etc. I am sorry that this business interferes with your writing. I hope it is seldom, but I insist upon its not interfering with your dancing-master, who is at this time the most useful and necessary of all the masters you have or can have. End of Section 101. Read by Professor Heather and by. For more free audiobooks or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Section 102 of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Letter 133. My dear friend, I mentioned to you, some time ago, a sentence which I would most earnestly wish you would always to retain in your thoughts and observe in your conduct. It is SOVETE IN MOTO, FORTUTE IN RE. GENTLEness of manners with firmness of mind. I do not know any one rule so unexceptionably useful and necessary in every part of life. I shall therefore take it for my text today, and as old men love preaching, and I have some right to preach to you, I here present you with my sermon upon these words. To proceed then, regularly and pulpitically, I will first show you, my beloved, the necessary connection of the two members of my text, SOVETE IN MOTO, FORTUTE IN RE. In the next place, I shall set forth the advantages and utility resulting from a strict observance of the precept contained in my text, and conclude with an application of the whole. The SOVETE IN MOTO alone would degenerate and sink into a mean, timid complacence and passiveness if not supported and dignified by the FORTUTE IN RE, which would also run into impetiosity and brutality if not tempered and softened by the SOVETE IN MOTO. However, they are seldom united. The warm, choleric man with strong animal spirits despises the SOVETE IN MOTO, and thinks to carry all before him by the FORTUTE IN RE. He may possibly by great accident now and then succeed, when he has only weak and timid people to deal with. But his general fate will be to shock and offend, to be hated and fail. On the other hand, the cunning, crafty man thinks to gain all his ends by the SOVETE IN MOTO only. He becomes all things to all men. He seems to have no opinion of his own, and surveily adopts the present opinion of the present person. He insiduates himself only into the esteem of fools, but is soon detected, and surely despised by everybody else. The wise man, who differs as much from the cunning as from the choleric man, alone joins the SOVETE IN MOTO with the FORTUTE IN RE. Now to the advantages arising from the strict observance of this precept. If you are in authority and have a right to command, your commands delivered SOVETE IN MOTO will be willingly, cheerfully, and consequently well obeyed. Whereas if given only FORTUTE, that is, brutally, they will rather, as Tacitus says, be interrupted than executed. For my own part, if I bid my footmen bring me a glass of wine, in a rough, insulting manner, I should expect that, in obeying me, he would contrive to spill some of it upon me. And I am sure I should deserve it. A cool, steady resolution should show that where you have a right to command you will be obeyed. But at the same time, a gentleness in the manner of enforcing that obedience should make it a cheerful one, and soften as much as possible the mortifying consciousness of inferiority. If you are to ask a favour, or even to solicit your due, you must do it SOVETE IN MOTO, or you will give those who have a mind to refuse you either a pretense to do it by resenting the manner, but on the other hand you must, by a steady perseverance and decent tenaciousness, show the FORTUTE IN RE. The right motives are seldom the true ones of men's actions, especially of kings, ministers, and people in high stations, who often give to importunity and fear what they would refuse to justice or merit. By the SOVETE IN MOTO engage their hearts, if you can, at least prevent the pretense of offense, but take care to show enough of the FORTUTE IN RE to extort from their love of ease, or their fear, what you might in vain hope for from their justice or good nature. People in high life are hardened to the wants and distresses of mankind, as surgeons are to their bodily pains. They see and hear of them all day long, and even of so many simulated ones, that they do not know which are real and which are not. Other sentiments are therefore to be applied to, than those of mere justice and humanity. Their favour must be captivated by the SOVETE IN MOTO, their love of ease disturbed by unwearyed importunity, or their fears wrought upon by a decent imitation of implacable, cool resentment. This is the true FORTUTE IN RE. This precept is the only way I know in the world of being loved without being despised, and feared without being hated. It constitutes the dignity of character which every wise man must endeavour to establish. Now to apply what has been said, and so conclude. If you find that you have a hastiness in your temper, which unguardedly breaks out into indiscreet sallies or rough expressions, to either your superiors, your equals or your inferiors, watch it narrowly, check it carefully, and call the SOVETE IN MOTO to your assistance. At the first impulse of passion, be silent till you can be soft. Labor even to get the command of your countenance so well that those emotions may not be read in it. A most unspeakable advantage in business. On the other hand, let no complacence, no gentleness of temper, no weak desire of pleasing on your part, no wheedling, coaxing, nor flattery on other peoples, make you recede one jot from any point that reason and prudence have bid you pursue. But return to the charge, persist, persevere, and you will find most things attainable that are possible. A yielding, timid neatness is always abused and insulted by the unjust and the unfeeling. But when sustained by the fortite and rey, is always respected, commonly successful. In your friendships and connections, as well as your enmities, this rule is particularly useful. Let your firmness and vigor preserve and invite attachments to you. But at the same time, let your manner hinder the enemies of your friends and dependents from becoming yours. Let your enemies be disarmed by the gentleness of your manner, but let them feel at the same time the steadiness of your resentment. For there is a great difference between bearing malice, which is always ungenerous, and a resolute self-defense, which is always prudent and justifiable. In negotiations with foreign ministers, remember the fortite and rey. Give up no point, except of no expedient, till the utmost necessity reduces you to it. And even then, dispute the ground inch by inch. But then, when you are contending with the minister of fortite and rey, remember to gain the man by the sauvete and moto. If you engage his heart, you have a fair chance for imposing upon his understanding and determining his will. Tell him in a frank, gallant manner that your ministerial wrangles do not lessen your personal regard for his merit. But on the contrary, his zeal and ability in the service of his master increase it, and that of all things you desire to make a good friend of so good a servant. By these means you may, and will very often be, a gainer. You can never be a loser. Some people cannot gain upon themselves to be easy and civil to those who are either their rivals, competitors, or opposers, though independently of those accidental circumstances they would like and esteem them. They betray a shyness and an awkwardness in company with them, and catch at any little thing to expose them. And so, from temporary and only occasional opponents make them their personal enemies. This is exceedingly weak and detrimental, as indeed is all humor in business, which can only be carried on successfully by unadulterated good policy and right reasoning. In such situations I would be more particularly and noblement, civil, easy and frank with the man whose designs I traversed. This is commonly called generosity and magnanimity, but is in truth good sense and policy. The manner is often as important as the matter, sometimes more so. A favour may make an enemy and an injury may make a friend, according to the different manner in which they are severally done. The countenance, the address, the words, the annunciation, the graces, add great efficacy to the sauveté in modo, and great dignity to the fortité in ray, and consequently they deserve the utmost attention. From what has been said I conclude with this observation, that gentleness of manners with firmness of mind is a short but full description of human perfection on this side of religious and moral duties. That you may be seriously convinced of this truth, and show it in your life and conversation, is the most sincere and ardent wish of yours. LONDON, MARCH 11TH OLD STYLE 1751 MY DEAR FRIEND I received by the last post a letter from Abbe Gwasco, in which he joins his representations to those of Lord Abba-Marl, against you remaining any longer in your very bad lodgings at the academy. And as I do not find that any advantage can arise to you from being intern in an academy, which is full as far from the writing-house and from all your other masters as your lodgings will probably be, I agree to your moving to an hotel-garni. The Abbe will help you to find one, as I desire him by the enclosed, which you will give him. I must, however, annex one condition to your going into private lodgings, which is an absolute exclusion of English breakfasts and suppers at them. The former consume the whole morning, and the latter employ the evenings very ill, in senseless toasting our Langois in their infernal claret. You will be sure to go to the writing-house as often as possible, that is, whenever your new business at Lord Abba-Marl's does not hinder you. But at all events I insist upon your never-missing Marcel, who is at present of more consequence to you than all the bureaus in Europe, for this is the time for you to acquire two Sépétirien, which, though in an arithmetical account added to one another ad infinitum, they would amount to nothing, in the account of the world amount to a great deal an important sum. Les agréments et les grâces, without which you will never be anything, are absolutely made up of all those Riennes, which are more easily felt than described. By the way, you may take your lodgings for one whole year certain, by which means you may get them much cheaper, for though I intend to see you here in less than a year, it will be but for a little time, and you will return to Paris again, where I intend you shall stay till the end of April 12 month, 1752, at which time, provided you have got all l'appellitis, les manières, les attentions, et les grâces du Beaumont, I shall place you in some business suitable to your destination. I have received at last your present of the cartoon, from Dominicino by Plancher. It is very finely done. It is a pity he did not take in all the figures of the original. I will hang it up, where it shall be your own again some time or other. Mr. Hart is returned in perfect health from Cornwall, and has taken possession of his pre-Bendle house at Windsor, which is a very pretty one. As I dare say you will always feel, I hope you will always express, the strongest sentiments of gratitude and friendship for him. Write to him frequently, and attend to the letters you receive from him. He shall be with us at Blackheath, alias Fabiole, all the time that I propose you shall be there, which I believe will be the month of August next. Having thus mentioned to you the probable time of our meeting, I will prepare you a little for it. Hatred, jealousy, or envy, make most people attentive to discover the least defects of those they do not love. They rejoice at every new discovery they make of that kind, and take care to publish it. I thank God I do not know what those three ungenerous passions are, having never felt them in my own breast. But love has just the same effect upon me, except that I can seal, instead of publishing, the defects which my attention makes me discover in those I love. I curiously pry into them, I analyze them, and wishing either to find them perfect or to make them so, nothing escapes me, and I soon discover every the least gradation to ward off from that perfection. You must therefore expect the most critical exam mind that ever anybody underwent. I shall discover your least, as well as your greatest defects, and I shall very freely tell you of them. Non-quad odio habiem sed quad emin, but I shall tell you them tete a tete, and as misio not as dimia, and I will tell them to nobody else. I think it but fair to inform you beforehand, where I suspect that my criticisms are likely to fall, and that is more upon the outward than upon the inward man. I neither suspect your heart nor your head, but to be plain with you I have a strange distrust of your air, your address, your manners, your tournure, and particularly of your enunciation and elegance of style. These will all be put to the trial, for while you are with me you must do the honors of my house and table. The least inaccuracy or inelegance will not escape me, as you will find by a look at the time and by a remonstrance afterward when we are alone. You will see a great deal of company of all sorts at Fabiole, and particularly foreigners. Make therefore in the meantime all these exterior and ornamental qualifications your peculiar care, and disappoint all my imaginary schemes of criticism. Some authors have criticized their own works first in hopes of hindering others from doing it afterward, but then they do it themselves with so much tenderness and partiality for their own production, that not only the production itself, but the preventive criticism is criticized. I am not one of those authors, but on the contrary my severity increases with my fondness for my work, and if you will but effectually correct all the faults I shall find, I will ensure you from all subsequent criticisms from other quarters. Have you got a little into the interior, into the Constitution of Things at Paris? Have you seen what you have seen thoroughly? For, by the way, few people see what they see or hear what they hear. For example, if you go to Les Envalides, do you content yourself with seeing the building, the hall where three or four hundred cripples dine, and the galleries where they lie? Or do you inform yourself of the numbers, the conditions of their admission, their allowance, the value and nature of the fund by which the whole is supported? This latter I call seeing. The former is only starting. Many people take the opportunity of Les Vacances to go and see the empty rooms where the several chambers of the Parliament did sit, which rooms are exceedingly like all other large rooms. When you go there, let it be when they are full. See and hear what is doing in them. Learn their respective constitutions, jurisdictions, objects, and methods of proceeding. Here some cases tried in every one of the different chambers. A profondiser les choses. I am glad to hear that you are so well at Marquis de Saint-Germain, the Ambassador from the King of Sardinia at the Court of France, of whom I hear a very good character. How are you with the other foreign ministers at Paris? Do you frequent the Dutch Ambassador or Ambassadoress? Have you any footing at the Nuncio's or at the Imperial and Spanish Ambassadors? It is useful. Be more particular in your letters to me, as to your manner of passing your time and the company you keep. Where do you dine and sup alphanus? Whose house is most your home? Adieu. Les Gras, les Gras. I acquainted you in a former letter that I had brought a bill into the House of Lords for correcting and reforming our present calendar, which is the Julian, and for adopting the Gregorian. I will now give you a more particular account of that affair, from which reflections will naturally occur to you that I hope may be useful, and which I fear you have not made. It was notorious that the Julian calendar was erroneous, and had overcharged the solar year with eleven days. Pope Gregory XIII corrected this error. His reformed calendar was immediately received by all the Catholic powers of Europe, and afterward adopted by all the Protestant ones except Russia, Sweden, and England. It was not, in my opinion, very honourable for England to remain in a gross and avowed error, especially in such company. The inconvenience of it was likewise felt by all those who had foreign correspondences, whether political or mercantile. I determined, therefore, to attempt the reformation. I consulted the best lawyers and the most skillful astronomers, and we cooked up a bill for that purpose. But then my difficulty began. I was to bring in this bill, which was necessarily composed of law jargon and astronomical calculations, to both which I am an utter stranger. However, it was absolutely necessary to make the House of Lords think that I knew something of the matter, and also to make them believe that they knew something of it themselves, which they do not. For my own part I could just as soon have talked Celtic or Slavonian to them as astronomy, and they would have understood me full as well. So I resolved to do better than speak to the purpose, and to please instead of informing them. I gave them, therefore, only an historical account of calendars, from the Egyptian down to the Gregorian, amusing them now and then with little episodes. But I was particularly attentive to the choice of my words, to the harmony and roundness of my periods, to my elocution, to my action. This succeeded and will ever succeed. They thought I informed, because I pleased them, and many of them said that I had made the whole very clear to them when God knows I had not even attempted it. Lord Macclesfield, who had the greatest share in forming the Bill, and who was one of the greatest mathematicians and astronomers in Europe, spoke afterward with infinite knowledge, and all the clearness that so intricate a matter would admit of. But as his words, his periods, and his utterance were not near so good as mine, the preference was most unanimously, though most unjustly given to me. This will ever be the case. Every numerous assembly is mob. Let the individuals who compose it be what they will. Mere reason and good sense is never to be talked to a mob. Their passions, their sentiments, their senses, and their seeming interests are alone to be applied to. Understanding they have collectively none, but they have ears and eyes which must be flattered and seduced, and this can only be done by eloquence, tuneful periods, graceful action, and all the various parts of oratory. When you come into the House of Commons, if you imagine that speaking plain and unadorned sense and reason will do your business, you will find yourself most grossly mistaken. As a speaker you will be ranked only according to your eloquence, and by no means according to your matter. Everybody knows the matter almost alike, but few can adorn it. I was early convinced of the importance and powers of eloquence, and from that moment I applied myself to it. I resolved not to utter one word, even in common conversation, that should not be the most expressive and the most elegant that the language could supply me with for that purpose, by which means I have acquired such a certain degree of habitual eloquence that I must now really take some pains if I would express myself very inelegantly. I want to inculcate this known truth into you, which you seem by no means to be convinced of yet, that ornaments are at present your only objects. Your sole business now is to shine, not to weigh. Wait without luster is led. You had better talk trifles elegantly to the most trifling women than chorus and elegant sense to the most solid man. You had better return a dropped fan gentile than give a thousand pounds awkwardly, and you had better refuse a favor gracefully than to grant it clumsily. Manor is all in everything. It is by manner only that you can please and consequently rise. All your Greek will never advance you from secretary to envoy or from envoy to ambassador, but your address, your manner, your air, if good, very probably may. Marcel can be of much more used to you than Aristotle. I would, upon my word, much rather that you had Lord Bowlingbroke's style and eloquence in speaking and writing than all the learning of the Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society, and the two universities united. Having mentioned Lord Bowlingbroke's style, which is undoubtedly infinitely superior to anybody's, I would have you read his works, which you have over and over again, with particular attention to his style. Transcribe, imitate, emulate it if possible. That would be of real use to you in the House of Commons, in negotiations, in conversation, with that you may justly hope to please, to persuade, to seduce, to impose, and you will fail in those articles in proportion as you fall short of it. Upon the whole lay aside during your year's residence at Paris all thoughts of all that dull fellows call solid and exert your utmost care to acquire what people of fashion call shining. Prenez les clas et les brûliants de galantan. Among the commonly called little things to which you do not attend, your handwriting is one, which is indeed shamefully bad in a liberal. It is neither the hand of a man of business nor of a gentleman, but of a truant schoolboy. As soon therefore as you have done with Abbe Nollé, pray get an excellent writing-master, since you think that you cannot teach yourself to write what hand you please, and let him teach you to write a genteel, legible, liberal hand, and quick. Not the hand of a procurer or a writing-master, but that sort of hand in which the first commie in foreign burjos commonly write, for I tell you truly that were I, Lord Abbe Noll, nothing should remain in my burjo written in your present hand. From hand to arms the transition is natural. Is the carriage and motion of your arms so too? The motion of the arms is the most material part of a man's air, especially in dancing. The feet are not near so material. If a man dances well from the waist upward, wears his hat well, and moves his head properly, he dances well. Do the women say that you dress well? For that is necessary, too, for a young fellow. Have you ungoot be, or passion for anybody? I do not ask for whom, and if a genia would both give you the desire and teach you the means to please. In a fortnight or three weeks you will see Sir Charles Hotham at Paris, in his way to Toulouse, where he is to stay a year or two. Pray be very civil to him, but do not carry him into company, except presenting him to Lord Abbe Noll. For as he is not to stay at Paris above a week, we do not desire that he should taste of that dissipation. You may show him a play and an opera. Adieu, my dear child. LONDON, March 25, old style, 1751. My dear friend. What a happy period of your life is this. Pleasure is now and ought to be your business. While you were younger, dry rules and unconnected words were the unpleasant objects of your labours. When you grow older, the anxiety, the vexations, the disappointments inseparable from public business, will require the greatest share of your time and attention. Your pleasures may, indeed, conduce to your business, and your business will quicken your pleasures, but still your time must at least be divided, whereas now it is wholly your own, and cannot be so well employed as in the pleasures of a gentleman. The world is now the only book you want, and almost the only one you want to read. That necessary book can only be read in company, in public places, at meals, and in ruells. You must be in the pleasures in order to learn the manners of good company. In premeditated or informal business, people conceal, or at least endeavour to conceal, their characters, whereas pleasures discover them, and the heart breaks out through the guard of the understanding. Those are often propitious moments for skillful negotiators to improve. In your destination particularly, the able conduct of pleasures is of infinite use. To keep a good table, and to do the honours of it gracefully, and sur le ton de la bonne compagnie, it's absolutely necessary for a foreign minister. There is a certain light tabled chit-chat, useful to keep off improper and too serious subjects, which is only to be learned in the pleasures of good company. In truth it may be trifling, but trifling as it is, a man of parts and experience of the world will give an agreeable turn to it. L'art de Badenay agréablement is by no means to be despised. An engaging address and turn to gallantry is often a very great service to foreign ministers. Women have, directly or indirectly, a good deal to say in most courts. The late Lord Strafford governed, for a considerable time, the court of Berlin, and made his own fortune, by being well with Madame de Vortenburg, the first king of Prussia's mistress. I could name many other instances of that kind. That sort of agreeable cacae de femme, the necessary forerunner of closer conferences, is only to be got by frequenting women of the first fashion, et qui donne le ton. Let every other book give way to this great and necessary book, the world, of which there are so many various readings, that it requires a great deal of time and attention to understand it well. Contrary to all other books, you must not stay at home, but go abroad to read it. And when you seek it abroad, you will not find it in booksellers' shops and stalls, but in courts, in hotels, at entertainments, balls, assemblies, spectacles, et cetera. Put yourself upon the footing of an easy, domestic, but polite familiarity and intimacy in the several French houses to which you have been introduced. Cultivate them, frequent them, and show a desire of becoming enfant de la maison. Get acquainted as much as you can with les gens de coeur, and observe carefully how politely they can differ, and how civilly they can hate, how easy and idle they seem in the multiplicity of their business, and how they can lay hold of the proper moments to carry it on, in the midst of their pleasures. Courts alone teach versatility and politeness, for there is no living there without them. Lord Abba-Marl has, I hear, and I am very glad of it, put you into the hands of Messrs. Debussy. Prophet of that, and I beg of them to let you attend them in all the companies of Versailles and Paris. One of them, at least, will naturally carry you to Madame de la Valioire, unless he is discarded by this time, and Galeo retaken. Tell them, frankly, que vous cherchez à vous former, que vous êtes en main de matrie, sous vous l'ambient s'endonner la peine. Your profession has this agreeable peculiarity in it, which is that it is connected with and promoted by pleasures, and it is the only one in which a thorough knowledge of the world, polite manners, and an engaging address are absolutely necessary. If a lawyer knows his law, a parse in his divinity, and a financier his calculations, each may make a figure and a fortune in his profession, without great knowledge of the world, and without the manners of a gentleman. But your profession throws you into all the intrigues and cabals, as well as pleasures of courts. In those windings and labyrinths, a knowledge of the world, a discernment of characters, a suppleness and versatility of mind, and an elegance of manners must be your clue. You must know how to soothe and lull the monsters that guard, and how to address and gain the fair that keep the golden fleece. These are the arts and accomplishments necessary for a foreign minister, in which it must be owned, to our shame, that most other nations outdo the English, and, Ceturus Paribus, a French minister will get the better of an English one at any third court in Europe. The French have something more liant, more insinuating and engaging in their manner than we have. An English minister shall have resided seven years at a court without having made any one personal connection there, or without being intimate and domestic in any one house. He is always the English minister and never unnaturalised. He receives his orders, demands an audience, writes an account of it to his court, and his business is done. A French minister, on the contrary, has not been six weeks at a court without having, by a thousand little attentions, insinuated himself into some degree of favour with the prince, his wife, his mistress, his favourite, and his minister. He has established himself upon a familiar and domestic footing in a dozen of the best houses of the place, where he has accustomed the people to be not only easy but unguarded before him. He makes himself at home there, and they think him so. By these means he knows the interior of those courts, and can almost write prophecies to his own, from the knowledge he has of the characters, the humours, the abilities, or the weaknesses of the actors. The Cardinal Dossat was looked upon at Rome as an Italian and not as a French cardinal, and Monsieur Davaud, wherever he went, was never considered as foreign minister, but as a native and a personal friend. Mere plain truth, sense, and knowledge will by no means do alone in courts. Art and ornaments must come to their assistance. Humours must be flattered, the Molia tempora must be studied and known, confidence acquired by seeming frankness, and profited of by skill. And above all, you must gain and engage the heart to betray the understanding to you. Ha tibi irant artist. The death of the Prince of Wales, who was more beloved for his affability and good nature than esteemed for his steadiness and conduct, has given concern to many in apprehensions to all. The great difference of the ages of King and Prince George presents the prospect of a minority, a disagreeable prospect for any nation. But it is to be hoped and is most probable that the King, who is now perfectly recovered of his late indisposition, may live to see his grandson of age. He is seriously a most hopeful boy, gentle and good-natured, with good sound sense. This event has made all sorts of people hear historians, as well as politicians. Our histories are rummaged for all the particular circumstances of the six minorities we have had since the conquest—Viz, those of Henry III, Edward III, Richard II, Henry VI, Edward V, and Edward VI—and the reasonings, the speculations, the conjectures, and the predictions you will easily imagine must be innumerable and endless in this nation, where every porter is a consummate politician. Dr. Swift says, very humorously, that every man knows he understands religion and politics, though he never learned them, but that many people are conscious that they do not understand many other sciences from never having learned them. My dear friend, here you have, altogether, the pocket books, the compasses, and the patterns. When your three graces have made their option, you need only send me, in a letter, small pieces of the three mohairs they fix upon. If I can find no way of sending them safely and directly to Paris, I will contrive to have them left with Madame Morel at Calais, who being Madame Montconcile's agent there may find means of furthering them to your three ladies, who all belong to your friend, Madame Montconcile. Two of the three, I am told, are handsome. Madame Polignac, I can swear, is not so. But, however, as the world goes, two out of three is a very good composition. You will also find in the packet a compass ring set round with little diamonds, which I advise you to make a present of to Abbe Guasco, who has been useful to you, and will continue to be so. As it is a mere bobble, you must add to the value of it by your manner of giving it him. Show it him first, and when he commends it, as he probably will, tell him that it is at his service, et que comme il est toujours bravo et par chemin, il est absolument nécessaire qu'il est un basseau. All these little gallantries depend entirely upon the manner of doing them, as in truth what does not. The greatest favors may be done so awkwardly and bunglingly as to offend, and disagreeable things may be done so agreeably as almost to oblige. Endeavour to acquire this great secret. It exists, it exists, it is to be found, and is worth a great deal more than the grand secret of the alchemists would be, if it were, as it is not, to be found. This is only to be learned in courts, where clashing views, jarring opinions, and cordial hatreds are softened and kept within decent bounds by politeness and manners. Frequent observe and learn courts. Are you free of that of Sint-Cloud? Are you free of that of Sint-Cloud? Are you often at Versailles? Insinuate and wriggle yourself into favor at those places. La baie de la ville, my old friend, will help you at the latter. Your three ladies may establish you in the former. The good breeding de la ville et de la cour of the city and of the court are different, but without deciding which is intrinsically the best, that of the court is, without doubt, the most necessary for you, who are to live, to grow, and to rise in courts. In two years' time, which will be as soon as you are fit for it, I hope to be able to plant you in the soil of a young court here, where if you have all the address, the suppleness and versatility of a good court here, you will have a great chance of thriving and flourishing. Young favor is easily acquired if the proper means are employed, and when acquired, it is warm if not durable, and the warm moments must be snatched and improved. Do not mention this view of mine for you to any one mortal, but learn to keep your own secrets, which, by the way, very few people can do. If your course of experimental philosophy with Abbe Nolo is over, I would have you apply to Abbe Salier for a master to give you a general notion of astronomy and geometry, of both of which you may know as much as I desire you should in six months' time. I only desire that you should have a clear notion of the present planetary system and the history of all the former systems. Fontenelle's plurality des mots will almost teach you all you need to know upon that subject. As for geometry, the first seven books of Euclid will be a sufficient portion of it for you. It is right to have a general notion of those of true sciences, so as not to appear quite ignorant of them, when they happen, as sometimes they do, to meet the topics of conversation. But a deep knowledge of them requires too much time and engrosses the mind too much. I repeat it again and again to you. Let the great book of the world be your principal study. Nocturna versite manu, versite denura, which may be rendered thus in English, turn over men by day and women by night. I mean only the best editions. Whatever may be said at Paris of my speech upon the bill for the reformation of the present calendar, or whatever applause it may have met with here, the whole I can assure you is owing to the words and to the delivery, but by no means to the matter, which as I told you in a former letter I was not master of. I mention this again to show you the importance of well-chosen words, harmonious periods, and good delivery. For between you and me, Lord Macclesfield's speech was, in truth, worth a thousand of mine. It will soon be printed and I will send at you. It is very instructive. You say that you wish to speak but half as well as I did. You may easily speak full as well as ever I did, if you will but give the same attention to the same objects that I did at your age, and for many years afterward. I mean correctness, purity, and elegance of style, harmony of periods, and gracefulness of delivery. Read over and over again the third book of Cicero de Oratory, in which he particularly treats of the ornamental parts of oratory. They are indeed properly oratory, for all the rest depends only upon common sense, and some knowledge of the subject to speak upon. But if you would please, persuade, and prevail in speaking, it must be by the ornamental parts of oratory. Make them therefore habitual to you, and resolve never to say the most common things, even to your footmen, but in the best words you can find, and with the best utterance. This, with les maniers, la tenue, et les usages du Beaumont, are the only two things you want. Fortunately they are both in your power. May you have them both. Adieu. End of section 106, read by Professor Heather Mbaye. For more free audiobooks...