<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0147" id="link2H_4_0147"></SPAN></p>
<h2> LETTER CXLV </h2>
<h3> GREENWICH, June 6, O. S. 1751. </h3>
<p>MY DEAR FRIEND: Solicitous and anxious as I have ever been to form your
heart, your mind, and your manners, and to bring you as near perfection as
the imperfection of our natures will allow, I have exhausted, in the
course of our correspondence, all that my own mind could suggest, and have
borrowed from others whatever I thought could be useful to you; but this
has necessarily been interruptedly and by snatches. It is now time, and
you are of an age to review and to weigh in your own mind all that you
have heard, and all that you have read, upon these subjects; and to form
your own character, your conduct, and your manners, for the rest of your
life; allowing for such improvements as a further knowledge of the world
will naturally give you. In this view I would recommend to you to read,
with the greatest attention, such books as treat particularly of those
subjects; reflecting seriously upon them, and then comparing the
speculation with the practice.</p>
<p>For example, if you read in the morning some of La Rochefoucault's maxims;
consider them, examine them well, and compare them with the real
characters you meet with in the evening. Read La Bruyere in the morning,
and see in the evening whether his pictures are like. Study the heart and
the mind of man, and begin with your own. Meditation and reflection must
lay the foundation of that knowledge: but experience and practice must,
and alone can, complete it. Books, it is true, point out the operations of
the mind, the sentiments of the heart, the influence of the passions; and
so far they are of previous use: but without subsequent practice,
experience, and observation, they are as ineffectual, and would even lead
you into as many errors in fact, as a map would do, if you were to take
your notions of the towns and provinces from their delineations in it. A
man would reap very little benefit by his travels, if he made them only in
his closet upon a map of the whole world. Next to the two books that I
have already mentioned, I do not know a better for you to read, and
seriously reflect upon, than 'Avis d'une Mere d'un Fils, par la Marquise
de Lambert'. She was a woman of a superior understanding and knowledge of
the world, had always kept the best company, was solicitous that her son
should make a figure and a fortune in the world, and knew better than
anybody how to point out the means. It is very short, and will take you
much less time to read, than you ought to employ in reflecting upon it,
after you have read it. Her son was in the army, she wished he might rise
there; but she well knew, that, in order to rise, he must first please:
she says to him, therefore, With regard to those upon whom you depend, the
chief merit is to please. And, in another place, in subaltern employments,
the art of pleasing must be your support. Masters are like mistresses:
whatever services they may be indebted to you for, they cease to love when
you cease to be agreeable. This, I can assure you, is at least as true in
courts as in camps, and possibly more so. If to your merit and knowledge
you add the art of pleasing, you may very probably come in time to be
Secretary of State; but, take my word for it, twice your merit and
knowledge, without the art of pleasing, would, at most, raise you to the
IMPORTANT POST of Resident at Hamburgh or Ratisbon. I need not tell you
now, for I often have, and your own discernment must have told you, of
what numberless little ingredients that art of pleasing is compounded, and
how the want of the least of them lowers the whole; but the principal
ingredient is, undoubtedly, 'la douceur dans le manieres': nothing will
give you this more than keeping company with your superiors. Madame
Lambert tells her son, Let your connections be with people above you; by
that means you will acquire a habit of respect and politeness. With one's
equals, one is apt to become negligent, and the mind grows torpid. She
advises him, too, to frequent those people, and to see their inside; In
order to judge of men, one must be intimately connected; thus you see them
without, a veil, and with their mere every-day merit. A happy expression!
It was for this reason that I have so often advised you to establish and
domesticate yourself, wherever you can, in good houses of people above
you, that you may see their EVERY-DAY character, manners, habits, etc. One
must see people undressed to judge truly of their shape; when they are
dressed to go abroad, their clothes are contrived to conceal, or at least
palliate the defects of it: as full-bottomed wigs were contrived for the
Duke of Burgundy, to conceal his hump back. Happy those who have no faults
to disguise, nor weaknesses to conceal! there are few, if any such; but
unhappy those who know little enough of the world to judge by outward
appearances. Courts are the best keys to characters; there every passion
is busy, every art exerted, every character analyzed; jealousy, ever
watchful, not only discovers, but exposes, the mysteries of the trade, so
that even bystanders 'y apprennent a deviner'. There too the great art of
pleasing is practiced, taught, and learned with all its graces and
delicacies. It is the first thing needful there: It is the absolutely
necessary harbinger of merit and talents, let them be ever so great. There
is no advancing a step without it. Let misanthropes and would-be
philosophers declaim as much as they please against the vices, the
simulation, and dissimulation of courts; those invectives are always the
result of ignorance, ill-humor, or envy. Let them show me a cottage, where
there are not the same vices of which they accuse courts; with this
difference only, that in a cottage they appear in their native deformity,
and that in courts, manners and good-breeding make them less shocking, and
blunt their edge. No, be convinced that the good-breeding, the 'tournure,
la douceur dans les manieres', which alone are to be acquired at courts,
are not the showish trifles only which some people call or think them;
they are a solid good; they prevent a great deal of real mischief; they
create, adorn, and strengthen friendships; they keep hatred within bounds;
they promote good-humor and good-will in families, where the want of
good-breeding and gentleness of manners is commonly the original cause of
discord. Get then, before it is too late, a habit of these 'mitiores
virtutes': practice them upon every the least occasion, that they may be
easy and familiar to you upon the greatest; for they lose a great degree
of their merit if they seem labored, and only called in upon extraordinary
occasions. I tell you truly, this is now the only doubtful part of your
character with me; and it is for that reason that I dwell upon it so much,
and inculcate it so often. I shall soon see whether this doubt of mine is
founded; or rather I hope I shall soon see that it is not.</p>
<p>This moment I receive your letter of the 9th N. S. I am sorry to find that
you have had, though ever so slight a return of your Carniolan disorder;
and I hope your conclusion will prove a true one, and that this will be
the last. I will send the mohairs by the first opportunity. As for the
pictures, I am already so full, that I am resolved not to buy one more,
unless by great accident I should meet with something surprisingly good,
and as surprisingly cheap.</p>
<p>I should have thought that Lord———-, at his age, and
with his parts and address, need not have been reduced to keep an opera w—-e,
in such a place as Paris, where so many women of fashion generously serve
as volunteers. I am still more sorry that he is in love with her; for that
will take him out of good company, and sink him into bad; such as
fiddlers, pipers, and 'id genus omne'; most unedifying and unbecoming
company for a man of fashion!</p>
<p>Lady Chesterfield makes you a thousand compliments. Adieu, my dear child.</p>
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