LETTER I
Bath, October 9, O.
Dear boy: Your distresses
in your journey from Heidelberg to Schaffhausen, your
lying upon straw, your black bread, and your broken
‘berline,’ are proper seasonings for
the greater fatigues and distresses which you must
expect in the course of your travels; and, if one had
a mind to moralize, one might call them the samples
of the accidents, rubs, and difficulties, which every
man meets with in his journey through life. In
this journey, the understanding is the ‘voiture’
that must carry you through; and in proportion as
that is stronger or weaker, more or less in repair,
your journey will be better or worse; though at best
you will now and then find some bad roads, and some
bad inns. Take care, therefore, to keep that
necessary ‘voiture’ in perfect good
repair; examine, improve, and strengthen it every
day: it is in the power, and ought to be the
care, of every man to do it; he that neglects it, deserves
to feel, and certainly will feel, the fatal effects
of that negligence.
‘A propos’ of negligence:
I must say something to you upon that subject.
You know I have often told you, that my affection for
you was not a weak, womanish one; and, far from blinding
me, it makes me but more quick-sighted as to your
faults; those it is not only my right, but my duty
to tell you of; and it is your duty and your interest
to correct them. In the strict scrutiny which
I have made into you, I have (thank God) hitherto
not discovered any vice of the heart, or any peculiar
weakness of the head: but I have discovered laziness,
inattention, and indifference; faults which are only
pardonable in old men, who, in the decline of life,
when health and spirits fail, have a kind of claim
to that sort of tranquillity. But a young man
should be ambitious to shine, and excel; alert, active,
and indefatigable in the means of doing it; and, like
Cæsar, ‘Nil actum reputans, si
quid superesset agendum.’ You seem to want
that ‘vivida vis animi,’
which spurs and excites most young men to please,
to shine, to excel. Without the desire and the
pains necessary to be considerable, depend upon it,
you never can be so; as, without the desire and attention
necessary to please, you never can please. ‘Nullum
numen abest, si sit prudentia,’ is
unquestionably true, with regard to everything except
poetry; and I am very sure that any man of common
understanding may, by proper culture, care, attention,
and labor, make himself whatever he pleases, except
a good poet. Your destination is the great and
busy world; your immediate object is the affairs,
the interests, and the history, the constitutions,
the customs, and the manners of the several parts
of Europe. In this, any man of common sense may,
by common application, be sure to excel. Ancient
and modern history are, by attention, easily attainable.
Geography and chronology the same, none of them requiring
any uncommon share of genius or invention. Speaking
and Writing, clearly, correctly, and with ease and
grace, are certainly to be acquired, by reading the
best authors with care, and by attention to the best
living models. These are the qualifications more
particularly necessary for you, in your department,
which you may be possessed of, if you please; and which,
I tell you fairly, I shall be very angry at you, if
you are not; because, as you have the means in your
hands, it will be your own fault only.
If care and application are necessary
to the acquiring of those qualifications, without
which you can never be considerable, nor make a figure
in the world, they are not less necessary with regard
to the lesser accomplishments, which are requisite
to make you agreeable and pleasing in society.
In truth, whatever is worth doing at all, is worth
doing well; and nothing can be done well without attention:
I therefore carry the necessity of attention down
to the lowest things, even to dancing and dress.
Custom has made dancing sometimes necessary for a
young man; therefore mind it while you learn it that
you may learn to do it well, and not be ridiculous,
though in a ridiculous act. Dress is of the same
nature; you must dress; therefore attend to it; not
in order to rival or to excel a fop in it, but in
order to avoid singularity, and consequently ridicule.
Take great care always to be dressed like the reasonable
people of your own age, in the place where you are;
whose dress is never spoken of one way or another,
as either too negligent or too much studied.
What is commonly called an absent
man, is commonly either a very weak, or a very affected
man; but be he which he will, he is, I am sure, a very
disagreeable man in company. He fails in all the
common offices of civility; he seems not to know those
people to-day, whom yesterday he appeared to live
in intimacy with. He takes no part in the general
conversation; but, on the contrary, breaks into it
from time to time, with some start of his own, as
if he waked from a dream. This (as I said before)
is a sure indication, either of a mind so weak that
it is not able to bear above one object at a time;
or so affected, that it would be supposed to be wholly
engrossed by, and directed to, some very great and
important objects. Sir Isaac Newton, Mr. Locke,
and (it may be) five or six more, since the creation
of the world, may have had a right to absence, from
that intense thought which the things they were investigating
required. But if a young man, and a man of the
world, who has no such avocations to plead, will claim
and exercise that right of absence in company, his
pretended right should, in my mind, be turned into
an involuntary absence, by his perpetual exclusion
out of company. However frivolous a company may
be, still, while you are among them, do not show them,
by your inattention, that you think them so; but rather
take their tone, and conform in some degree to their
weakness, instead of manifesting your contempt for
them. There is nothing that people bear more
impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt; and an
injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.
If, therefore, you would rather please than offend,
rather be well than ill spoken of, rather be loved
than hated; remember to have that constant attention
about you which flatters every man’s little
vanity; and the want of which, by mortifying his pride,
never fails to excite his resentment, or at least his
ill will. For instance, most people (I might
say all people) have their weaknesses; they have their
aversions and their likings, to such or such things;
so that, if you were to laugh at a man for his aversion
to a cat, or cheese (which are common antipathies),
or, by inattention and negligence, to let them come
in his way, where you could prevent it, he would, in
the first case, think himself insulted, and, in the
second, slighted, and would remember both. Whereas
your care to procure for him what he likes, and to
remove from him what he hates, shows him that he is
at least an object of your attention; flatters his
vanity, and makes him possibly more your friend, than
a more important service would have done. With
regard to women, attentions still below these are
necessary, and, by the custom of the world, in some
measure due, according to the laws of good-breeding.
My long and frequent letters, which
I send you, in great doubt of their success, put me
in mind of certain papers, which you have very lately,
and I formerly, sent up to kites, along the string,
which we called messengers; some of them the wind
used to blow away, others were torn by the string,
and but few of them got up and stuck to the kite.
But I will content myself now, as I did then, if some
of my present messengers do but stick to you.
Adieu!
LETTER II
Dear boy: You are by
this time (I suppose) quite settled and at home at
Lausanne; therefore pray let me know how you pass your
time there, and what your studies, your amusements,
and your acquaintances are. I take it for granted,
that you inform yourself daily of the nature of the
government and constitution of the Thirteen Cantons;
and as I am ignorant of them myself, must apply to
you for information. I know the names, but I
do not know the nature of some of the most considerable
offices there; such as the Avoyers, the Seizeniers,
the Banderets, and the Gros Sautier. I desire,
therefore, that you will let me know what is the particular
business, department, or province of these several
magistrates. But as I imagine that there may
be some, though, I believe, no essential difference,
in the governments of the several Cantons, I would
not give you the trouble of informing yourself of
each of them; but confine my inquiries, as you may
your informations, to the Canton you reside in, that
of Berne, which I take to be the principal one.
I am not sure whether the Pays de Vaud, where you
are, being a conquered country, and taken from the
Dukes of Savoy, in the year 1536, has the same share
in the government of the Canton, as the German part
of it has. Pray inform yourself and me about
it.
I have this moment received yours
from Berne, of the 2d October, N. S. and also one
from Mr. Harte, of the same date, under Mr. Burnaby’s
cover. I find by the latter, and indeed I thought
so before, that some of your letters and some of Mr.
Harte’s have not reached me. Wherefore,
for the future, I desire, that both he and you will
direct your letters for me, to be left ches Monsieur
Wolters, Agent de S. M. Britanique, a Rotterdam, who
will take care to send them to me safe. The reason
why you have not received letters either from me or
from Grevenkop was that we directed them to Lausanne,
where we thought you long ago: and we thought
it to no purpose to direct to you upon your route,
where it was little likely that our letters would
meet with you. But you have, since your arrival
at Lausanne, I believe, found letters enough from
me; and it may be more than you have read, at least
with attention.
I am glad that you like Switzerland
so well; and am impatient to hear how other matters
go, after your settlement at Lausanne. God bless
you!
LETTER III
London, December 2, O..
Dear boy: I have not,
in my present situation, [His Lordship was,
in the year 1746, appointed one of his Majesty’s
secretaries of state.] time to write to
you, either so much or so often as I used, while I
was in a place of much more leisure and profit; but
my affection for you must not be judged of by the
number of my letters; and, though the one lessens,
the other, I assure you, does not.
I have just now received your letter
of the 25th past, N. S., and, by the former post,
one from Mr. Harte; with both which I am very well
pleased: with Mr. Harte’s, for the good
account which he gives me of you; with yours, for
the good account which you gave me of what I desired
to be informed of. Pray continue to give me further
information of the form of government of the country
you are now in; which I hope you will know most minutely
before you leave it. The inequality of the town
of Lausanne seems to be very convenient in this cold
weather; because going up hill and down will keep
you warm. You say there is a good deal of good
company; pray, are you got into it? Have you made
acquaintances, and with whom? Let me know some
of their names. Do you learn German yet, to read,
write, and speak it?
Yesterday, I saw a letter from Monsieur
Bochat to a friend of mine; which gave me the greatest
pleasure that I have felt this great while; because
it gives so very good an account of you. Among
other things which Monsieur Bochat says to your advantage,
he mentions the tender uneasiness and concern that
you showed during my illness, for which (though I will
say that you owe it to me) I am obliged to you:
sentiments of gratitude not being universal, nor even
common. As your affection for me can only proceed
from your experience and conviction of my fondness
for you (for to talk of natural affection is talking
nonsense), the only return I desire is, what it is
chiefly your interest to make me; I mean your invariable
practice of virtue, and your indefatigable pursuit
of knowledge. Adieu! and be persuaded that I
shall love you extremely, while you deserve it; but
not one moment longer.
LETTER IV
London, December 9, O. .
Dear boy: Though I
have very little time, and though I write by this post
to Mr. Harte, yet I cannot send a packet to Lausanne
without a word or two to yourself. I thank you
for your letter of congratulation which you wrote
me, notwithstanding the pain it gave you. The
accident that caused the pain was, I presume, owing
to that degree of giddiness, of which I have sometimes
taken the liberty to speak to you. The post I
am now in, though the object of most people’s
views and desires, was in some degree inflicted upon
me; and a certain concurrence of circumstances obliged
me to engage in it. But I feel that to go through
with it requires more strength of body and mind than
I have: were you three or four years older; you
should share in my trouble, and I would have taken
you into my office; but I hope you will employ these
three or four years so well as to make yourself capable
of being of use to me, if I should continue in it
so long. The reading, writing, and speaking the
modern languages correctly; the knowledge of the laws
of nations, and the particular constitution of the
empire; of history, geography, and chronology, are
absolutely necessary to this business, for which I
have always intended you. With these qualifications
you may very possibly be my successor, though not
my immediate one.
I hope you employ your whole time,
which few people do; and that you put every moment
to, profit of some kind or other. I call company,
walking, riding, etc., employing one’s
time, and, upon proper occasions, very usefully; but
what I cannot forgive in anybody is sauntering, and
doing nothing at all, with a thing so precious as
time, and so irrecoverable when lost.
Are you acquainted with any ladies
at Lausanne? and do you behave yourself with politeness
enough to make them desire your company?
I must finish: God bless you!
LETTER V
London, February 24, O.
Sir: In order that we may,
reciprocally, keep up our French, which, for want
of practice, we might forget; you will permit me to
have the honor of assuring you of my respects in that
language: and be so good to answer me in the
same. Not that I am apprehensive of your forgetting
to speak French: since it is probable that two-thirds
of our daily prattle is in that language; and because,
if you leave off writing French, you may perhaps neglect
that grammatical purity, and accurate orthography,
which, in other languages, you excel in; and really,
even in French, it is better to write well than ill.
However, as this is a language very proper for sprightly,
gay subjects, I shall conform to that, and reserve
those which are serious for English. I shall
not therefore mention to you, at present, your Greek
or Latin, your study of the Law of Nature, or the Law
of Nations, the Rights of People, or of Individuals;
but rather discuss the subject of your Amusements
and Pleasures; for, to say the truth, one must have
some. May I be permitted to inquire of what nature
yours are? Do they consist in little commercial
play at cards in good company? are they little agreeable
suppers, at which cheerfulness and decency are united?
or, do you pay court to some fair one, who requires
such attentions as may be of use in contributing to
polish you? Make me your confidant upon this
subject; you shall not find a severe censor: on
the contrary, I wish to obtain the employment of minister
to your pleasures: I will point them out, and
even contribute to them.
Many young people adopt pleasures,
for which they have not the least taste, only because
they are called by that name. They often mistake
so totally, as to imagine that debauchery is pleasure.
You must allow that drunkenness, which is equally
destructive to body and mind, is a fine pleasure.
Gaming, that draws you into a thousand scrapes, leaves
you penniless, and gives you the air and manners of
an outrageous madman, is another most exquisite pleasure;
is it not? As to running after women, the consequences
of that vice are only the loss of one’s nose,
the total destruction of health, and, not unfrequently,
the being run through the body.
These, you see, are all trifles; yet
this is the catalogue of pleasures of most of those
young people, who never reflecting themselves, adopt,
indiscriminately, what others choose to call by the
seducing name of pleasure. I am thoroughly persuaded
you will not fall into such errors; and that, in the
choice of your amusements, you will be directed by
reason, and a discerning taste. The true pleasures
of a gentleman are those of the table, but within
the bound of moderation; good company, that is to
say, people of merit; moderate play, which amuses,
without any interested views; and sprightly gallant
conversations with women of fashion and sense.
These are the real pleasures of a
gentleman; which occasion neither sickness, shame,
nor repentance. Whatever exceeds them, becomes
low vice, brutal passion, debauchery, and insanity
of, mind; all of which, far from giving satisfaction,
bring on dishonor and disgrace. Adieu.
LETTER VI
London, March 6, O.
Dear boy: Whatever
you do, will always affect me, very sensibly, one way
or another; and I am now most agreeably affected, by
two letters, which I have lately seen from Lausanne,
upon your subject; the one from Madame St. Germain,
the other from Monsieur Pampigny: they both give
so good an account of you, that I thought myself obliged,
in justice both to them and, to you, to let you know
it. Those who deserve a good character, ought
to have the satisfaction of knowing that they have
it, both as a reward and as an encouragement.
They write, that you are not only ‘décrotte,’
but tolerably well-bred; and that the English crust
of awkward bashfulness, shyness, and roughness (of
which, by the bye, you had your share) is pretty well
rubbed off. I am most heartily glad of it; for,
as I have often told you, those lesser talents, of
an engaging, insinuating manner, an easy good-breeding,
a genteel behavior and address, are of infinitely
more advantage than they are generally thought to
be, especially here in England. Virtue and learning,
like gold, have their intrinsic value but if they
are not polished, they certainly lose a great deal
of their luster; and even polished brass will pass
upon more people than rough gold. What a number
of sins does the cheerful, easy good-breeding of the
French frequently cover? Many of them want common
sense, many more common learning; but in general, they
make up so much by their manner, for those defects,
that frequently they pass undiscovered: I have
often said, and do think, that a Frenchman, who, with
a fund of virtue, learning and good sense, has the
manners and good-breeding of his country, is the perfection
of human nature. This perfection you may, if
you please, and I hope you will, arrive at. You
know what virtue is: you may have it if you will;
it is in every man’s power; and miserable is
the man who has it not. Good sense God has given
you. Learning you already possess enough of,
to have, in a reasonable time, all that a man need
have. With this, you are thrown out early into
the world, where it will be your own fault if you
do not acquire all, the other accomplishments necessary
to complete and adorn your character. You will
do well to make your compliments to Madame St. Germain
and Monsieur Pampigny; and tell them, how sensible
you are of their partiality to you, in the advantageous
testimonies which, you are informed, they have given
of you here.
Adieu. Continue to deserve such
testimonies; and then you will not only deserve, but
enjoy my truest affection.
LETTER VII
London, March 27, O. .
Dear boy: Pleasure
is the rock which most young people split upon:
they launch out with crowded sails in quest of it,
but without a compass to direct their course, or reason
sufficient to steer the vessel; for want of which,
pain and shame, instead of pleasure, are the returns
of their voyage. Do not think that I mean to
snarl at pleasure, like a Stoic, or to preach against
it, like a parson; no, I mean to point it out, and
recommend it to you, like an Epicurean: I wish
you a great deal; and my only view is to hinder you
from mistaking it.
The character which most young men
first aim at, is that of a man of pleasure; but they
generally take it upon trust; and instead of consulting
their own taste and inclinations, they blindly adopt
whatever those with whom they chiefly converse, are
pleased to call by the name of pleasure; and a man
of pleasure in the vulgar acceptation of that phrase,
means only, a beastly drunkard, an abandoned whoremaster,
and a profligate swearer and curser. As it may
be of use to you. I am not unwilling, though
at the same time ashamed to own, that the vices of
my youth proceeded much more from my silly resolution
of being, what I heard called a man of pleasure, than
from my own inclinations. I always naturally
hated drinking; and yet I have often drunk; with disgust
at the time, attended by great sickness the next day,
only because I then considered drinking as a necessary
qualification for a fine gentleman, and a man of pleasure.
The same as to gaming. I did
not want money, and consequently had no occasion to
play for it; but I thought play another necessary ingredient
in the composition of a man of pleasure, and accordingly
I plunged into it without desire, at first; sacrificed
a thousand real pleasures to it; and made myself solidly
uneasy by it, for thirty the best years of my life.
I was even absurd enough, for a little
while, to swear, by way of adorning and completing
the shining character which I affected; but this folly
I soon laid aside, upon finding berth the guilt and
the indecency of it.
Thus seduced by fashion, and blindly
adopting nominal pleasures, I lost real ones; and
my fortune impaired, and my constitution shattered,
are, I must confess, the just punishment of my errors.
Take warning then by them: choose
your pleasures for yourself, and do not let them be
imposed upon you. Follow nature and not fashion:
weigh the present enjoyment of your pleasures against
the necessary consequences of them, and then let your
own common sense determine your choice.
Were I to begin the world again, with
the experience which I now have of it, I would lead
a life of real, not of imaginary pleasures. I
would enjoy the pleasures of the table, and of wine;
but stop short of the pains inseparably annexed to
an excess of either. I would not, at twenty years,
be a preaching missionary of abstemiousness and sobriety;
and I should let other people do as they would, without
formally and sententiously rebuking them for it; but
I would be most firmly resolved not to destroy my
own faculties and constitution; in complaisance to
those who have no regard to their own. I would
play to give me pleasure, but not to give me pain;
that is, I would play for trifles, in mixed companies,
to amuse myself, and conform to custom; but I would
take care not to venture for sums; which, if I won,
I should not be the better for; but, if I lost, should
be under a difficulty to pay: and when paid, would
oblige me to retrench in several other articles.
Not to mention the quarrels which deep play commonly
occasions.
I would pass some of my time in reading,
and the rest in the company of people of sense and
learning, and chiefly those above me; and I would
frequent the mixed companies of men and women of fashion,
which, though often frivolous, yet they unbend and
refresh the mind, not uselessly, because they certainly
polish and soften the manners.
These would be my pleasures and amusements,
if I were to live the last thirty years over again;
they are rational ones; and, moreover, I will tell
you, they are really the fashionable ones; for the
others are not, in truth, the pleasures of what I
call people of fashion, but of those who only call
themselves so. Does good company care to have
a man reeling drunk among them? Or to see another
tearing his hair, and blaspheming, for having lost,
at play, more than he is able to pay? Or a whoremaster
with half a nose, and crippled by coarse and infamous
debauchery? No; those who practice, and much
more those who brag of them, make no part of good
company; and are most unwillingly, if ever, admitted
into it. A real man of fashion and pleasures
observes decency: at least neither borrows nor
affects vices: and if he unfortunately has any,
he gratifies them with choice, delicacy, and secrecy.
I have not mentioned the pleasures
of the mind (which are the solid and permanent ones);
because they do not come under the head of what people
commonly call pleasures; which they seem to confine
to the senses. The pleasure of virtue, of charity,
and of learning is true and lasting pleasure; with
which I hope you will be well and long acquainted.
Adieu!
LETTER VIII
London, April 3, O.
Dear boy: If I am rightly
informed, I am now writing to a fine gentleman, in
a scarlet coat laced with gold, a brocade waistcoat,
and all other suitable ornaments. The natural
partiality of every author for his own works makes
me very glad to hear that Mr. Harte has thought this
last edition of mine worth so fine a binding; and,
as he has bound it in red, and gilt it upon the back,
I hope he will take care that it shall be lettered
too. A showish binding attracts the eyes, and
engages the attention of everybody; but with this
difference, that women, and men who are like women,
mind the binding more than the book; whereas men of
sense and learning immediately examine the inside;
and if they find that it does not answer the finery
on the outside, they throw it by with the greater
indignation and contempt. I hope that, when this
edition of my works shall be opened and read, the
best judges will find connection, consistency, solidity,
and spirit in it. Mr. Harte may ‘recensere’
and ‘emendare,’ as much as he pleases;
but it will be to little purpose, if you do not cooperate
with him. The work will be imperfect.
I thank you for your last information
of our success in the Mediterranean, and you say very
rightly that a secretary of state ought to be well
informed. I hope, therefore, you will take care
that I shall. You are near the busy scene in
Italy; and I doubt not but that, by frequently looking
at the map, you have all that theatre of the war very
perfect in your mind.
I like your account of the salt works;
which shows that you gave some attention while you
were seeing them. But notwithstanding that, by
your account, the Swiss salt is (I dare say) very
good, yet I am apt to suspect that it falls a little
short of the true Attic salt in which there was a
peculiar quickness and delicacy. That same Attic
salt seasoned almost all Greece, except Boeotia, and
a great deal of it was exported afterward to Rome,
where it was counterfeited by a composition called
Urbanity, which in some time was brought to very near
the perfection of the original Attic salt. The
more you are powdered with these two kinds of salt,
the better you will keep, and the more you will be
relished.
Adieu! My compliments to Mr. Harte and Mr. Eliot.
LETTER IX
London, April 14, O. .
Dear boy: If you feel
half the pleasure from the consciousness of doing
well, that I do from the informations I have lately
received in your favor from Mr. Harte, I shall have
little occasion to exhort or admonish you any more
to do what your own satisfaction and self love will
sufficiently prompt you to. Mr. Harte tells me
that you attend, that you apply to your studies; and
that beginning to understand, you begin to taste them.
This pleasure will increase, and keep pace with your
attention; so that the balance will be greatly to your
advantage. You may remember, that I have always
earnestly recommended to you, to do what you are about,
be that what it will; and to do nothing else at the
same time. Do not imagine that I mean by this,
that you should attend to and plod at your book all
day long; far from it; I mean that you should have
your pleasures too; and that you should attend to
them for the time; as much as to your studies; and,
if you do not attend equally to both, you will neither
have improvement nor satisfaction from either.
A man is fit for neither business nor pleasure, who
either cannot, or does not, command and direct his
attention to the present object, and, in some degree,
banish for that time all other objects from his thoughts.
If at a ball, a supper, or a party of pleasure, a
man were to be solving, in his own mind, a problem
in Euclid, he would be a very bad companion, and make
a very poor figure in that company; or if, in studying
a problem in his closet, he were to think of a minuet,
I am apt to believe that he would make a very poor
mathematician. There is time enough for everything,
in the course of the day, if you do but one thing
at once; but there is not time enough in the year,
if you will do two things at a time. The Pensionary
de Witt, who was torn to pieces in the year 1672, did
the whole business of the Republic, and yet had time
left to go to assemblies in the evening, and sup in
company. Being asked how he could possibly find
time to go through so much business, and yet amuse
himself in the evenings as he did, he answered, there
was nothing so easy; for that it was only doing one
thing at a time, and never putting off anything till
to-morrow that could be done to-day. This steady
and undissipated attention to one object is a sure
mark of a superior genius; as hurry, bustle, and agitation
are the never-failing symptoms of a weak and frivolous
mind. When you read Horace, attend to the justness
of his thoughts, the happiness of his diction, and
the beauty of his poetry; and do not think of Puffendorf
de Homine el Cive; and, when you are reading Puffendorf,
do not think of Madame de St. Germain; nor of Puffendorf,
when you are talking to Madame de St. Germain.
Mr. Harte informs me, that he has
reimbursed you of part of your losses in Germany;
and I consent to his reimbursing you of the whole,
now that I know you deserve it. I shall grudge
you nothing, nor shall you want anything that you
desire, provided you deserve it; so that you see, it
is in your own power to have whatever you please.
There is a little book which you read
here with Monsieur Codere entitled, ‘Manière
de bien penser dans les Ouvrages
d’Esprit,’ written by Pyre Bonhours.
I wish you would read this book again at your leisure
hours, for it will not only divert you, but likewise
form your taste, and give you a just manner of thinking.
Adieu!
LETTER X
London, June 30, O.
Dear boy: I was extremely
pleased with the account which you gave me in your
last, of the civilities that you received in your Swiss
progress; and I have written, by this post, to Mr.
Burnaby, and to the ‘Avoyer,’ to thank
them for their parts. If the attention you met
with pleased you, as I dare say it did, you will,
I hope, draw this general conclusion from it, that
attention and civility please all those to whom they
are paid; and that you will please others in proportion
as you are attentive and civil to them.
Bishop Burnet has wrote his travels
through Switzerland; and Mr. Stanyan, from a long
residence there, has written the best account, yet
extant, of the Thirteen Cantons; but those books will
be read no more, I presume, after you shall have published
your account of that country. I hope you will
favor me with one of the first copies. To be serious;
though I do not desire that you should immediately
turn author, and oblige the world with your travels;
yet, wherever you go, I would have you as curious and
inquisitive as if you did intend to write them.
I do not mean that you should give yourself so much
trouble, to know the number of houses, inhabitants,
signposts, and tombstones, of every town that you go
through; but that you should inform yourself, as well
as your stay will permit you, whether the town is
free, or to whom it belongs, or in what manner:
whether it has any peculiar privileges or customs;
what trade or manufactures; and such other particulars
as people of sense desire to know. And there
would be no manner of harm if you were to take memorandums
of such things in a paper book to help your memory.
The only way of knowing all these things is to keep
the best company, who can best inform you of them.
I am just now called away; so good night.
LETTER XI
London, July 20, O.
Dear boy: In your Mamma’s
letter, which goes here inclosed, you will find one
from my sister, to thank you for the Arquebusade
water which you sent her; and which she takes very
kindly. She would not show me her letter to you;
but told me that it contained good wishes and good
advice; and, as I know she will show your letter in
answer to hers, I send you here inclosed the draught
of the letter which I would have you write to her.
I hope you will not be offended at my offering you
my assistance upon this occasion; because, I presume,
that as yet, you are not much used to write to ladies.
‘A propos’ of letter-writing, the best
models that you can form yourself upon are, Cicero,
Cardinal d’Ossat, Madame Sevigne, and Comte
Bussy Rebutin. Cicero’s Epistles to Atticus,
and to his familiar friends, are the best examples
that you can imitate, in the friendly and the familiar
style. The simplicity and the clearness of Cardinal
d’Ossat’s letters show how letters of business
ought to be written; no affected turns, no attempts
at wit, obscure or perplex his matter; which is always
plainly and clearly stated, as business always should
be. For gay and amusing letters, for ‘enjouement
and badinage,’ there are none that equal Comte
Bussy’s and Madame Sevigne’s. They
are so natural, that they seem to be the extempore
conversations of two people of wit, rather, than letters
which are commonly studied, though they ought not to
be so. I would advise you to let that book be
one in your itinerant library; it will both amuse
and inform you.
I have not time to add any more now; so good night.
LETTER XII
London, July 30, O.
Dear boy: It is now
four posts since I have received any letter, either
from you or from Mr. Harte. I impute this to the
rapidity of your travels through Switzerland; which
I suppose are by this time finished.
You will have found by my late letters,
both to you and Mr. Harte, that you are to be at Leipsig
by next Michaelmas; where you will be lodged in the
house of Professor Mascow, and boarded in the neighborhood
of it, with some young men of fashion. The professor
will read you lectures upon ‘Grotius de
Jure Belli et Pacis,’ the
‘Institutes of Justinian’ and the ‘Jus
Publicum Imperii;’ which I expect that
you shall not only hear, but attend to, and retain.
I also expect that you make yourself perfectly master
of the German language; which you may very soon do
there, if you please. I give you fair warning,
that at Leipsig I shall have an hundred invisible
spies about you; and shall be exactly informed of everything
that you do, and of almost everything that you say.
I hope that, in consequence of those minute informations,
I may be able to say of you, what Velleius Paterculus
says of Scipio; that in his whole life, ’nihil
non laudandum aut dixit, aut fecit, aut
sensit.’ There is a great deal of good
company in Leipsig, which I would have you frequent
in the evenings, when the studies of the day are over.
There is likewise a kind of court kept there, by a
Duchess Dowager of Courland; at which you should get
introduced. The King of Poland and his Court go
likewise to the fair at Leipsig twice a year; and
I shall write to Sir Charles Williams, the king’s
minister there, to have you presented, and introduced
into good company. But I must remind you, at
the same time, that it will be to a very little purpose
for you to frequent good company, if you do not conform
to, and learn their manners; if you are not attentive
to please, and well bred, with the easiness of a man
of fashion. As you must attend to your manners,
so you must not neglect your person; but take care
to be very clean, well dressed, and genteel; to have
no disagreeable attitudes, nor awkward tricks; which
many people use themselves to, and then cannot leave
them off. Do you take care to keep your teeth
very clean, by washing them constantly every morning,
and after every meal? This is very necessary,
both to preserve your teeth a great while, and to save
you a great deal of pain. Mine have plagued me
long, and are now falling out, merely from want of
care when I was your age. Do you dress well, and
not too well? Do you consider your air and manner
of presenting yourself enough, and not too much?
Neither negligent nor stiff? All these things
deserve a degree of care, a second-rate attention;
they give an additional lustre to real merit.
My Lord Bacon says, that a pleasing figure is a perpetual
letter of recommendation. It is certainly an
agreeable forerunner of merit, and smoothes the way
for it.
Remember that I shall see you at Hanover
next summer, and shall expect perfection; which if
I do not meet with, or at least something very near
it, you and I shall, not be very well together.
I shall dissect and analyze you with a microscope;
so that I shall discover the least speck or blemish.
This is fair warning; therefore take your measures
accordingly. Yours.
LETTER XIII
London, August 21, O. .
Dear boy: I reckon
that this letter has but a bare chance of finding you
at Lausanne; but I was resolved to risk it, as it is
the last that I shall write to you till you are settled
at Leipsig. I sent you by the last post, under
cover to Mr. Harte, a letter of recommendation to one
of the first people at Munich; which you will take
care to present to him in the politest manner; he
will certainly have you presented to the electoral
family; and I hope you will go through that ceremony
with great respect, good breeding, and ease.
As this is the first court that ever you will have
been at, take care to inform yourself if there be any
particular, customs or forms to be observed, that you
may not commit any mistake. At Vienna men always
make courtesies, instead of bows, to the emperor;
in France nobody bows at all to the king, nor kisses
his hand; but in Spain and England, bows are made,
and hands are kissed. Thus every court has some
peculiarity or other, of which those who go to them
ought previously to inform themselves, to avoid blunders
and awkwardnesses.
I have not time to say any more now,
than to wish you good journey to Leipsig; and great
attention, both there and in going there. Adieu.
LETTER XIV
London, September 21, O.
Dear boy: I received,
by the last post, your letter of the 8th, N. S., and
I do not wonder that you are surprised at the credulity
and superstition of the Papists at Einsiedlen, and
at their absurd stories of their chapel. But
remember, at the same time, that errors and mistakes,
however gross, in matters of opinion, if they are sincere,
are to be pitied, but not punished nor laughed at.
The blindness of the understanding is as much to be
pitied as the blindness of the eye; and there is neither
jest nor guilt in a man’s losing his way in either
case. Charity bids us set him right if we can,
by arguments and persuasions; but charity, at the
same time, forbids, either to punish or ridicule his
misfortune. Every man’s reason is, and must
be, his guide; and I may as well expect that every
man should be of my size and complexion, as that he
should reason just as I do. Every man seeks for
truth; but God only knows who has found it. It
is, therefore, as unjust to persecute, as it is absurd
to ridicule, people for those several opinions, which
they cannot help entertaining upon the conviction
of their reason. It is the man who tells, or
who acts a lie, that is guilty, and not he who honestly
and sincerely believes the lie. I really know
nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous
than lying. It is the production either of malice,
cowardice, or vanity; and generally misses of its aim
in every one of these views; for lies are always detected
sooner or later. If I tell a malicious lie, in
order to affect any man’s fortune or character,
I may indeed injure him for some time; but I shall
be sure to be the greatest sufferer myself at last;
for as soon as ever I am detected (and detected I
most certainly shall be), I am blasted for the infamous
attempt; and whatever is said afterward, to the disadvantage
of that person, however true, passes for calumny.
If I lie, or equivocate (for it is the same thing),
in order to excuse myself for something that I have
said or done, and to avoid the danger and the shame
that I apprehend from it, I discover at once my fear
as well as my falsehood; and only increase, instead
of avoiding, the danger and the shame; I show myself
to be the lowest and the meanest of mankind, and am
sure to be always treated as such. Fear, instead
of avoiding, invites danger; for concealed cowards
will insult known ones. If one has had the misfortune
to be in the wrong, there is something noble in frankly
owning it; it is the only way of atoning for it, and
the only way of being forgiven. Equivocating,
evading, shuffling, in order to remove a present danger
or inconveniency, is something so mean, and betrays
so much fear, that whoever practices them always deserves
to be, and often will be kicked. There is another
sort of lies, inoffensive enough in themselves, but
wonderfully ridiculous; I mean those lies which a
mistaken vanity suggests, that defeat the very end
for which they are calculated, and terminate in the
humiliation and confusion of their author, who is sure
to be detected. These are chiefly narrative and
historical lies, all intended to do infinite honor
to their author. He is always the hero of his
own romances; he has been in dangers from which nobody
but himself ever escaped; he has seen with his own
eyes, whatever other people have heard or read of:
he has had more ‘bonnes fortunes’ than
ever he knew women; and has ridden more miles post
in one day, than ever courier went in two. He
is soon discovered, and as soon becomes the object
of universal contempt and ridicule. Remember,
then, as long as you live, that nothing but strict
truth can carry you through the world, with either
your conscience or your honor unwounded. It is
not only your duty, but your interest; as a proof
of which you may always observe, that the greatest
fools are the greatest liars. For my own part,
I judge of every man’s truth by his degree of
understanding.
This letter will, I suppose, find
you at Leipsig; where I expect and require from you
attention and accuracy, in both which you have hitherto
been very deficient. Remember that I shall see
you in the summer; shall examine you most narrowly;
and will never forget nor forgive those faults, which
it has been in your own power to prevent or cure; and
be assured that I have many eyes upon you at Leipsig,
besides Mr. Harte’s. Adieu!
LETTER XV
London, October 2, O.
Dear boy: By your letter
of the 18th past, N. S., I find that you are a tolerably
good landscape painter, and can present the several
views of Switzerland to the curious. I am very
glad of it, as it is a proof of some attention; but
I hope you will be as good a portrait painter, which
is a much more noble science. By portraits, you
will easily judge, that I do not mean the outlines
and the coloring of the human figure; but the inside
of the heart and mind of man. This science requires
more attention, observation, and penetration, than
the other; as indeed it is infinitely more useful.
Search, therefore, with the greatest care, into the
characters of those whom you converse with; endeavor
to discover their predominant passions, their prevailing
weaknesses, their vanities, their follies, and their
humors, with all the right and wrong, wise and silly
springs of human actions, which make such inconsistent
and whimsical beings of us rational creatures.
A moderate share of penetration, with great attention,
will infallibly make these necessary discoveries.
This is the true knowledge of the world; and the world
is a country which nobody ever yet knew by description;
one must travel through it one’s self to be
acquainted with it. The scholar, who in the dust
of his closet talks or writes of the world, knows no
more of it, than that orator did of war, who judiciously
endeavored to instruct Hannibal in it. Courts
and camps are the only places to learn the world in.
There alone all kinds of characters resort, and human
nature is seen in all the various shapes and modes,
which education, custom, and habit give it; whereas,
in all other places, one local mode generally prevails,
and producing a seeming though not a real sameness
of character. For example, one general mode distinguishes
an university, another a trading town, a third a seaport
town, and so on; whereas, at a capital, where the
Prince or the Supreme Power resides, some of all these
various modes are to be seen and seen in action too,
exerting their utmost skill in pursuit of their several
objects. Human nature is the same all over the
world; but its operations are so varied by education
and habit, that one must see it in all its dresses
in order to be intimately acquainted with it.
The passion of ambition, for instance, is the same
in a courtier, a soldier, or an ecclesiastic; but,
from their different educations and habits, they will
take very different methods to gratify it. Civility,
which is a disposition to accommodate and oblige others,
is essentially the same in every country; but good-breeding,
as it is called, which is the manner of exerting that
disposition, is different in almost every country,
and merely local; and every man of sense imitates and
conforms to that local good-breeding of the place
which he is at. A conformity and flexibility
of manners is necessary in the course of the world;
that is, with regard to all things which are not wrong
in themselves. The ‘versatile ingenium’
is the most useful of all. It can turn itself
instantly from one object to another, assuming the
proper manner for each. It can be serious with
the grave, cheerful with the gay, and trifling with
the frivolous. Endeavor by all means, to acquire
this talent, for it is a very great one.
As I hardly know anything more useful,
than to see, from time to time, pictures of one’s
self drawn by different hands, I send you here a sketch
of yourself, drawn at Lausanne, while you were there,
and sent over here by a person who little thought
that it would ever fall into my hands: and indeed
it was by the greatest accident in the world that it
did.
LETTER XVI
London, October 9, O. .
Dear boy: People of
your age have, commonly, an unguarded frankness about
them; which makes them the easy prey and bubbles of
the artful and the experienced; they look upon every
knave or fool, who tells them that he is their friend,
to be really so; and pay that profession of simulated
friendship, with an indiscreet and unbounded confidence,
always to their loss, often to their ruin. Beware,
therefore, now that you are coming into the world,
of these preferred friendships. Receive them with
great civility, but with great incredulity too; and
pay them with compliments, but not with confidence.
Do not let your vanity and self-love make you suppose
that people become your friends at first sight, or
even upon a short acquaintance. Real friendship
is a slow grower and never thrives unless engrafted
upon a stock of known and reciprocal merit. There
is another kind of nominal friendship among young
people, which is warm for the time, but by good luck,
of short duration. This friendship is hastily
produced, by their being accidentally thrown together,
and pursuing the course of riot and debauchery.
A fine friendship, truly; and well cemented by drunkenness
and lewdness. It should rather be called a conspiracy
against morals and good manners, and be punished as
such by the civil magistrate. However, they have
the impudence and folly to call this confederacy a
friendship. They lend one another money, for bad
purposes; they engage in quarrels, offensive and defensive
for their accomplices; they tell one another all they
know, and often more too, when, of a sudden, some
accident disperses them, and they think no more of
each other, unless it be to betray and laugh, at their
imprudent confidence. Remember to make a great
difference between companions and friends; for a very
complaisant and agreeable companion may, and often
does, prove a very improper and a very dangerous friend.
People will, in a great degree, and not without reason,
form their opinion of you, upon that which they have
of your friends; and there is a Spanish proverb, which
says very justly, tell me who you
live with and I will tell
you who you are. One may
fairly suppose, that the man who makes a knave or a
fool his friend, has something very bad to do or to
conceal. But, at the same time that you carefully
decline the friendship of knaves and fools, if it
can be called friendship, there is no occasion to make
either of them your enemies, wantonly and unprovoked;
for they are numerous bodies: and I, would rather
choose a secure neutrality, than alliance, or war with
either of them. You may be a declared enemy to
their vices and follies, without being marked out
by them as a personal one. Their enmity is the
next dangerous thing to their friendship. Have
a real reserve with almost everybody; and have a seeming
reserve with almost nobody; for it is very disagreeable
to seem reserved, and very dangerous not to be so.
Few people find the true medium; many are ridiculously
mysterious and reserved upon trifles; and many imprudently
communicative of all they know.
The next thing to the choice of your
friends, is the choice of your company. Endeavor,
as much as you can, to keep company with people above
you: there you rise, as much as you sink with
people below you; for (as I have mentioned before)
you are whatever the company you keep is. Do not
mistake, when I say company above you, and think that
I mean with regard to, their birth: that is the
least consideration; but I mean with regard to their
merit, and the light in which the world considers them.
There are two sorts of good company;
one, which is called the beau monde, and consists
of the people who have the lead in courts, and in the
gay parts of life; the other consists of those who
are distinguished by some peculiar merit, or who excel
in some particular and valuable art or science.
For my own part, I used to think myself in company
as, much above me, when I was with Mr. Addison and
Mr. Pope, as if I had been with all the princes in
Europe. What I mean by low company, which should
by all means be avoided, is the company of those,
who, absolutely insignificant and contemptible in
themselves, think they are honored by being in your
company; and who flatter every vice and every folly
you have, in order to engage you to converse with
them. The pride of being the first of the company
is but too common; but it is very silly, and very
prejudicial. Nothing in the world lets down a
character quicker than that wrong turn.
You may possibly ask me, whether a
man has it always in his power to get the best company?
and how? I say, Yes, he has, by deserving it;
providing he is but in circumstances which enable
him to appear upon the footing of a gentleman.
Merit and good-breeding will make their way everywhere.
Knowledge will introduce him, and good-breeding will
endear him to the best companies: for, as I have
often told you, politeness and good-breeding are absolutely
necessary to adorn any, or all other good qualities
or talents. Without them, no knowledge, no perfection
whatever, is seen in its best light. The scholar,
without good-breeding, is a pedant; the philosopher,
a cynic; the soldier, a brute; and every man disagreeable.
I long to hear, from my several correspondents
at Leipsig, of your arrival there, and what impression
you make on them at first; for I have Arguses, with
an hundred eyes each, who will watch you narrowly,
and relate to me faithfully. My accounts will
certainly be true; it depends upon you, entirely,
of what kind they shall be. Adieu.
LETTER XVII
London, October 16, O.
Dear boy: The art of
pleasing is a very necessary one to possess; but a
very difficult one to acquire. It can hardly be
reduced to rules; and your own good sense and observation
will teach you more of it than I can. Do as you
would be done by, is the surest method that I know
of pleasing. Observe carefully what pleases you
in others, and probably the same thing in you will
please others. If you are pleased with the complaisance
and attention of others to your humors, your tastes,
or your weaknesses, depend upon it the same complaisance
and attention, on your part to theirs, will equally
please them. Take the tone of the company that
you are in, and do not pretend to give it; be serious,
gay, or even trifling, as you find the present humor
of the company; this is an attention due from every
individual to the majority. Do not tell stories
in company; there is nothing more tedious and disagreeable;
if by chance you know a very short story, and exceedingly
applicable to the present subject of conversation,
tell it in as few words as possible; and even then,
throw out that you do not love to tell stories; but
that the shortness of it tempted you. Of all
things, banish the egotism out of your conversation,
and never think of entertaining people with your own
personal concerns, or private, affairs; though they
are interesting to you, they are tedious and impertinent
to everybody else; besides that, one cannot keep one’s
own private affairs too secret. Whatever you think
your own excellencies may be, do not affectedly display
them in company; nor labor, as many people do, to
give that turn to the conversation, which may supply
you with an opportunity of exhibiting them. If
they are real, they will infallibly be discovered,
without your pointing them out yourself, and with
much more advantage. Never maintain an argument
with heat and clamor, though you think or know yourself
to be in the right: but give your opinion modestly
and coolly, which is the only way to convince; and,
if that does not do, try to change the conversation,
by saying, with good humor, “We shall hardly
convince one another, nor is it necessary that we
should, so let us talk of something else.”
Remember that there is a local propriety
to be observed in all companies; and that what is
extremely proper in one company, may be, and often
is, highly improper in another.
The jokes, the ‘bonmots,’
the little adventures, which may do very well in one
company, will seem flat and tedious, when related in
another. The particular characters, the habits,
the cant of one company, may give merit to a word,
or a gesture, which would have none at all if divested
of those accidental circumstances. Here people
very commonly err; and fond of something that has
entertained them in one company, and in certain circumstances,
repeat it with emphasis in another, where it is either
insipid, or, it may be, offensive, by being ill-timed
or misplaced. Nay, they often do it with this
silly preamble; “I will tell you an excellent
thing”; or, “I will tell you the best thing
in the world.” This raises expectations,
which, when absolutely disappointed, make the relater
of this excellent thing look, very deservedly, like
a fool.
If you would particularly gain the
affection and friendship of particular people, whether
men or women, endeavor to find out the predominant
excellency, if they have one, and their prevailing
weakness, which everybody has; and do justice to the
one, and something more than justice to the other.
Men have various objects in which they may excel, or
at least would be thought to excel; and, though they
love to hear justice done to them, where they know
that they excel, yet they are most and best flattered
upon those points where they wish to excel, and yet
are doubtful whether they do or not. As, for
example, Cardinal Richelieu, who was undoubtedly the
ablest statesman of his time, or perhaps of any other,
had the idle vanity of being thought the best poet
too; he envied the great Corneille his reputation,
and ordered a criticism to be written upon the “Cid.”
Those, therefore, who flattered skillfully, said little
to him of his abilities in state affairs, or at least
but ‘en passant,’ and as it might naturally
occur. But the incense which they gave him, the
smoke of which they knew would turn his head in their
favor, was as a ‘bel esprit’ and a poet.
Why? Because he was sure of one excellency, and
distrustful as to the other. You will easily discover
every man’s prevailing vanity, by observing
his favorite topic of conversation; for every man
talks most of what he has most a mind to be thought
to excel in. Touch him but there, and you touch
him to the quick. The late Sir Robert Walpole
(who was certainly an able man) was little open to
flattery upon that head; for he was in no doubt himself
about it; but his prevailing weakness was, to be thought
to have a polite and happy turn to gallantry; of which
he had undoubtedly less than any man living: it
was his favorite and frequent subject of conversation:
which proved, to those who had any penetration, that
it was his prevailing weakness. And they applied
to it with success.
Women have, in general, but one object,
which is their beauty; upon which, scarce any flattery
is too gross for them to swallow. Nature has
hardly formed a woman ugly enough to be insensible
to flattery upon her person; if her face is so shocking,
that she must in some degree, be conscious of it,
her figure and her air, she trusts, make ample amends
for it. If her figure is deformed, her face, she
thinks, counterbalances it. If they are both
bad, she comforts herself that she has graces; a certain
manner; a ‘je ne saïs quoi,’
still more engaging than beauty. This truth is
evident, from the studied and elaborate dress of the
ugliest women in the world. An undoubted, uncontested,
conscious beauty, is of all women, the least sensible
of flattery upon that head; she knows that it is her
due, and is therefore obliged to nobody for giving
it her. She must be flattered upon her understanding;
which, though she may possibly not doubt of herself,
yet she suspects that men may distrust.
Do not mistake me, and think that
I mean to recommend to you abject and criminal flattery:
no; flatter nobody’s vices or crimes: on
the contrary, abhor and discourage them. But
there is no living in the world without a complaisant
indulgence for people’s weaknesses, and innocent,
though ridiculous vanities. If a man has a mind
to be thought wiser, and a woman handsomer than they
really are, their error is a comfortable one to themselves,
and an innocent one with regard to other people; and
I would rather make them my friends, by indulging
them in it, than my enemies, by endeavoring (and that
to no purpose) to undeceive them.
There are little attentions likewise,
which are infinitely engaging, and which sensibly
affect that degree of pride and self-love, which is
inseparable from human nature; as they are unquestionable
proofs of the regard and consideration which we have
for the person to whom we pay them. As, for example,
to observe the little habits, the likings, the antipathies,
and the tastes of those whom we would gain; and then
take care to provide them with the one, and to secure
them from the other; giving them, genteelly, to understand,
that you had observed that they liked such a dish,
or such a room; for which reason you had prepared it:
or, on the contrary, that having observed they had
an aversion to such a dish, a dislike to such a person,
etc., you had taken care to avoid presenting
them. Such attention to such trifles flatters
self-love much more than greater things, as it makes
people think themselves almost the only objects of
your thoughts and care.
These are some of the arcana necessary
for your initiation in the great society of the world.
I wish I had known them better at your age; I have
paid the price of three-and-fifty years for them, and
shall not grudge it, if you reap the advantage.
Adieu.
LETTER XVIII
London, October 30, O.
Dear boy: I am very
well pleased with your ‘Itinerarium,’ which
you sent me from Ratisbon. It shows me that you
observe and inquire as you go, which is the true end
of traveling. Those who travel heedlessly from
place to place, observing only their distance from
each other, and attending only to their accommodation
at the inn at night, set out fools, and will certainly
return so. Those who only mind the raree-shows
of the places which they go through, such as steeples,
clocks, town-houses, etc., get so little by their
travels, that they might as well stay at home.
But those who observe, and inquire into the situations,
the strength, the weakness, the trade, the manufactures,
the government, and constitution of every place they
go to; who frequent the best companies, and attend
to their several manners and characters; those alone
travel with advantage; and as they set out wise, return
wiser.
I would advise you always to get the
shortest description or history of every place where
you make any stay; and such a book, however imperfect,
will still suggest to you matter for inquiry; upon
which you may get better informations from the people
of the place. For example; while you are at Leipsig,
get some short account (and to be sure there are many
such) of the present state of the town, with regard
to its magistrates, its police, its privileges, etc.,
and then inform yourself more minutely upon all those
heads in, conversation with the most intelligent people.
Do the same thing afterward with regard to the Electorate
of Saxony: you will find a short history of it
in Puffendorf’s Introduction, which will give
you a general idea of it, and point out to you the
proper objects of a more minute inquiry. In short,
be curious, attentive, inquisitive, as to everything;
listlessness and indolence are always blameable, but,
at your age, they are unpardonable. Consider
how precious, and how important for all the rest of
your life, are your moments for these next three or
four years; and do not lose one of them. Do not
think I mean that you should study all day long; I
am far from advising or desiring it: but I desire
that you would be doing something or other all day
long; and not neglect half hours and quarters of hours,
which, at the year’s end, amount to a great
sum. For instance, there are many short intervals
during the day, between studies and pleasures:
instead of sitting idle and yawning, in those intervals,
take up any book, though ever so trifling a one, even
down to a jest-book; it is still better than doing
nothing.
Nor do I call pleasures idleness,
or time lost, provided they are the pleasures of a
rational being; on the contrary, a certain portion
of your time, employed in those pleasures, is very
usefully employed. Such are public spectacles,
assemblies of good company, cheerful suppers, and even
balls; but then, these require attention, or else your
time is quite lost.
There are a great many people, who
think themselves employed all day, and who, if they
were to cast up their accounts at night, would find
that they had done just nothing. They have read
two or three hours mechanically, without attending
to what they read, and consequently without either
retaining it, or reasoning upon it. From thence
they saunter into company, without taking any part
in it, and without observing the characters of the
persons, or the subjects of the conversation; but
are either thinking of some trifle, foreign to the
present purpose, or often not thinking at all; which
silly and idle suspension of thought they would dignify
with the name of absence and distraction.
They go afterward, it may be, to the play, where they
gape at the company and the lights; but without minding
the very thing they went to, the play.
Pray do you be as attentive to your
pleasures as to your studies. In the latter,
observe and reflect upon all you read; and, in the
former, be watchful and attentive to all that you
see and hear; and never have it to say, as a thousand
fools do, of things that were said and done before
their faces, that, truly, they did not mind them, because
they were thinking of something else. Why were
they thinking of something else? and if they were,
why did they come there? The truth is, that the
fools were thinking of nothing. Remember the
‘hoc age,’ do what you are about, be what
it will; it is either worth doing well, or not at all.
Wherever you are, have (as the low vulgar expression
is) your ears and your eyes about you. Listen
to everything that is said, and see everything that
is done. Observe the looks and countenances of
those who speak, which is often a surer way of discovering
the truth than from what they say. But then keep
all those observations to yourself, for your own private
use, and rarely communicate them to others. Observe,
without being thought an observer, for otherwise people
will be upon their guard before you.
Consider seriously, and follow carefully,
I beseech you, my dear child, the advice which from
time to time I have given, and shall continue to give
you; it is at once the result of my long experience,
and the effect of my tenderness for you. I can
have no interest in it but yours. You are not
yet capable of wishing yourself half so well as I wish
you; follow therefore, for a time at least, implicitly,
advice which you cannot suspect, though possibly you
may not yet see the particular advantages of it; but
you will one day feel them. Adieu.
LETTER XIX
London, November 6, O.
Dear boy: Three mails
are now due from Holland, so that I have no letter
from you to acknowledge; I write to you, therefore,
now, as usual, by way of flapper, to put you in mind
of yourself. Doctor Swift, in his account of
the island of Laputa, describes some philosophers there
who were so wrapped up and absorbed in their abstruse
speculations, that they would have forgotten all the
common and necessary duties of life, if they had not
been reminded of them by persons who flapped them,
whenever they observed them continue too long in any
of those learned trances. I do not indeed suspect
you of being absorbed in abstruse speculations; but,
with great submission to you, may I not suspect that
levity, inattention, and too little thinking, require
a flapper, as well as too deep thinking? If my
letters should happen to get to you when you are sitting
by the fire and doing nothing, or when you are gaping
at the window, may they not be very proper flaps,
to put you in mind that you might employ your time
much better? I knew once a very covetous, sordid
fellow, who used frequently to say, “Take care
of the pence; for the pounds will take care of themselves.”
This was a just and sensible reflection in a miser.
I recommend to you to take care of the minutes; for
hours will take care of themselves. I am very
sure, that many people lose two or three hours every
day, by not taking care of the minutes. Never
think any portion of time whatsoever too short to
be employed; something or other may always be done
in it.
While you are in Germany, let all
your historical studies be relative to Germany; not
only the general history of the empire as a collective
body; but the respective electorates, principalities,
and towns; and also the genealogy of the most considerable
families. A genealogy is no trifle in Germany;
and they would rather prove their two-and-thirty quarters,
than two-and-thirty cardinal virtues, if there were
so many. They are not of Ulysses’ opinion,
who says very truly,
Genus
et proavos, et qua non fecimus ipsi;
Vix
ea nostra voco.
Good night.
LETTER XX
London, November 24, O.
Dear boy: As often
as I write to you (and that you know is pretty often),
so often I am in doubt whether it is to any purpose,
and whether it is not labor and paper lost. This
entirely depends upon the degree of reason and reflection
which you are master of, or think proper to exert.
If you give yourself time to think, and have sense
enough to think right, two reflections must necessarily
occur to you; the one is, that I have a great deal
of experience, and that you have none: the other
is, that I am the only man living who cannot have,
directly or indirectly, any interest concerning you,
but your own. From which two undeniable principles,
the obvious and necessary conclusion is, that you
ought, for your own sake, to attend to and follow
my advice.
If, by the application which I recommend
to you, you acquire great knowledge, you alone are
the gainer; I pay for it. If you should deserve
either a good or a bad character, mine will be exactly
what it is now, and will neither be the better in
the first case, nor worse in the latter. You
alone will be the gainer or the loser.
Whatever your pleasures may be, I
neither can nor shall envy you them, as old people
are sometimes suspected by young people to do; and
I shall only lament, if they should prove such as
are unbecoming a man of honor, or below a man of sense.
But you will be the real sufferer, if they are such.
As therefore, it is plain that I can have no other
motive than that of affection in whatever I say to
you, you ought to look upon me as your best, and,
for some years to come, your only friend.
True friendship requires certain proportions
of age and manners, and can never subsist where they
are extremely different, except in the relations of
parent and child, where affection on one side, and
regard on the other, make up the difference.
The friendship which you may contract with people
of your own age may be sincere, may be warm; but must
be, for some time, reciprocally unprofitable, as there
can be no experience on either side. The young
leading the young, is like the blind leading the blind;
(they will both fall into the ditch.) The only sure
guide is, he who has often gone the road which you
want to go. Let me be that guide; who have gone
all roads, and who can consequently point out to you
the best. If you ask me why I went any of the
bad roads myself, I will answer you very truly, That
it was for want of a good guide: ill example invited
me one way, and a good guide was wanting to show me
a better. But if anybody, capable of advising
me, had taken the same pains with me, which I have
taken, and will continue to take with you, I should
have avoided many follies and inconveniences, which
undirected youth run me into. My father was neither
desirous nor able to advise me; which is what, I hope,
you cannot say of yours. You see that I make
use, only of the word advice; because I would much
rather have the assent of your reason to my advice,
than the submission of your will to my authority.
This, I persuade myself, will happen, from that degree
of sense which I think you have; and therefore I will
go on advising, and with hopes of success.
You are now settled for some time
at Leipsig; the principal object of your stay there
is the knowledge of books and sciences; which if you
do not, by attention and application, make yourself
master of while you are there, you will be ignorant
of them all the rest of your life; and, take my word
for it, a life of ignorance is not only a very contemptible,
but a very tiresome one. Redouble your attention,
then, to Mr. Harte, in your private studies of the
‘Literae Humaniores,’ especially Greek.
State your difficulties, whenever you have any; and
do not suppress them, either from mistaken shame,
lazy indifference, or in order to have done the sooner.
Do the same when you are at lectures with Professor
Mascow, or any other professor; let nothing pass till
you are sure that you understand it thoroughly; and
accustom yourself to write down the capital points
of what you learn. When you have thus usefully
employed your mornings, you may, with a safe conscience,
divert yourself in the evenings, and make those evenings
very useful too, by passing them in good company,
and, by observation and attention, learning as much
of the world as Leipsig can teach you. You will
observe and imitate the manners of the people of the
best fashion there; not that they are (it may be)
the best manners in the world; but because they are
the best manners of the place where you are, to which
a man of sense always conforms. The nature of
things (as I have often told you) is always and everywhere
the same; but the modes of them vary more or less,
in every country; and an easy and genteel conformity
to them, or rather the assuming of them at proper
times, and in proper places, is what particularly constitutes
a man of the world, and a well-bred man.
Here is advice enough, I think, and
too much, it may be, you will think, for one letter;
if you follow it, you will get knowledge, character,
and pleasure by it; if you do not, I only lose ‘operam
et oleum,’ which, in all events, I do not grudge
you.
I send you, by a person who sets out
this day for Leipsig, a small packet from your Mamma,
containing some valuable things which you left behind,
to which I have added, by way of new-year’s gift,
a very pretty tooth-pick case; and, by the way, pray
take great care of your teeth, and keep them extremely
clean. I have likewise sent you the Greek roots,
lately translated into English from the French of the
Port Royal. Inform yourself what the Port Royal
is. To conclude with a quibble: I hope you
will not only feed upon these Greek roots, but likewise
digest them perfectly. Adieu.
LETTER XXI
London, December 15, O.
Dear Boy: There is nothing
which I more wish that you should know, and which
fewer people do know, than the true use and value of
time. It is in everybody’s mouth; but in
few people’s practice. Every fool, who
slatterns away his whole time in nothings, utters,
however, some trite commonplace sentence, of which
there are millions, to prove, at once, the value and
the fleetness of time. The sun-dials, likewise
all over Europe, have some ingenious inscription to
that effect; so that nobody squanders away their time,
without hearing and seeing, daily, how necessary it
is to employ it well, and how irrecoverable it is
if lost. But all these admonitions are useless,
where there is not a fund of good sense and reason
to suggest them, rather than receive them. By
the manner in which you now tell me that you employ
your time, I flatter myself that you have that fund;
that is the fund which will make you rich indeed.
I do not, therefore, mean to give you a critical essay
upon the use and abuse of time; but I will only give
you some hints with regard to the use of one particular
period of that long time which, I hope, you have before
you; I mean, the next two years. Remember, then,
that whatever knowledge you do not solidly lay the
foundation of before you are eighteen, you will never
be the master of while you breathe. Knowledge
is a comfortable and necessary retreat and shelter
for us in an advanced age; and if we do not plant
it while young, it will give us no shade when we grow
old. I neither require nor expect from you great
application to books, after you are once thrown out
into the great world. I know it is impossible;
and it may even, in some cases, be improper; this,
therefore, is your time, and your only time, for unwearied
and uninterrupted application. If you should
sometimes think it a little laborious, consider that
labor is the unavoidable fatigue of a necessary journey.
The more hours a day you travel, the sooner you will
be at your journey’s end. The sooner you
are qualified for your liberty, the sooner you shall
have it; and your manumission will entirely depend
upon the manner in which you employ the intermediate
time. I think I offer you a very good bargain,
when I promise you, upon my word, that if you will
do everything that I would have you do, till you are
eighteen, I will do everything that you would have
me do ever afterward.
I knew a gentleman, who was so good
a manager of his time, that he would not even lose
that small portion of it, which the calls of nature
obliged him to pass in the necessary-house; but gradually
went through all the Latin poets, in those moments.
He bought, for example, a common edition of Horace,
of which he tore off gradually a couple of pages, carried
them with him to that necessary place, read them first,
and then sent them down as a sacrifice to Cloacina:
this was so much time fairly gained; and I recommend
you to follow his example. It is better than only
doing what you cannot help doing at those moments;
and it will made any book, which you shall read in
that manner, very present in your mind. Books
of science, and of a grave sort, must be read with
continuity; but there are very many, and even very
useful ones, which may be read with advantage by snatches,
and unconnectedly; such are all the good Latin poets,
except Virgil in his “AEneid”: and
such are most of the modern poets, in which you will
find many pieces worth reading, that will not take
up above seven or eight minutes. Bayle’s,
Moreri’s, and other dictionaries, are proper
books to take and shut up for the little intervals
of (otherwise) idle time, that everybody has in the
course of the day, between either their studies or
their pleasures. Good night.
LETTER XXII
London, December 18, O. .
Dear Boy: As two mails are now due from
Holland,
I have no letters of yours, or Mr.
Harte’s to acknowledge; so that this letter
is the effect of that ‘scribendi cacoethes,’
which my fears, my hopes, and my doubts, concerning
you give me. When I have wrote you a very long
letter upon any subject, it is no sooner gone, but
I think I have omitted something in it, which might
be of use to you; and then I prepare the supplement
for the next post: or else some new subject occurs
to me, upon which I fancy I can give you some informations,
or point out some rules which may be advantageous
to you. This sets me to writing again, though
God knows whether to any purpose or not; a few years
more can only ascertain that. But, whatever my
success may be, my anxiety and my care can only be
the effects of that tender affection which I have for
you; and which you cannot represent to yourself greater
than it really is. But do not mistake the nature
of that affection, and think it of a kind that you
may with impunity abuse. It is not natural affection,
there being in reality no such thing; for, if there
were, some inward sentiment must necessarily and reciprocally
discover the parent to the child, and the child to
the parent, without any exterior indications, knowledge,
or acquaintance whatsoever; which never happened since
the creation of the world, whatever poets, romance,
and novel writers, and such sentiment-mongers, may
be pleased to say to the contrary. Neither is
my affection for you that of a mother, of which the
only, or at least the chief objects, are health and
life: I wish you them both most heartily; but,
at the same time, I confess they are by no means my
principal care.
My object is to have you fit to live;
which, if you are not, I do not desire that you should
live at all. My affection for you then is, and
only will be, proportioned to your merit; which is
the only affection that one rational being ought to
have for another. Hitherto I have discovered
nothing wrong in your heart, or your head: on
the contrary I think I see sense in the one, and sentiments
in the other. This persuasion is the only motive
of my present affection; which will either increase
or diminish, according to your merit or demerit.
If you have the knowledge, the honor, and probity,
which you may have, the marks and warmth of my affection
shall amply reward them; but if you have them not,
my aversion and indignation will rise in the same proportion;
and, in that case, remember, that I am under no further
obligation, than to give you the necessary means of
subsisting. If ever we quarrel, do not expect
or depend upon any weakness in my nature, for a reconciliation,
as children frequently do, and often meet with, from
silly parents; I have no such weakness about me:
and, as I will never quarrel with you but upon some
essential point; if once we quarrel, I will never forgive.
But I hope and believe, that this declaration (for
it is no threat) will prove unnecessary. You
are no stranger to the principles of virtue; and,
surely, whoever knows virtue must love it. As
for knowledge, you have already enough of it, to engage
you to acquire more. The ignorant only, either
despise it, or think that they have enough: those
who have the most are always the most desirous to
have more, and know that the most they can have is,
alas! but too little.
Reconsider, from time to time, and
retain the friendly advice which I send you.
The advantage will be all your own.
LETTER XXIII
London, December 29, O.
Dear boy: I have received
two letters from you of the 17th and 22d, N. S., by
the last of which I find that some of mine to you must
have miscarried; for I have never been above two posts
without writing to you or to Mr. Harte, and even very
long letters. I have also received a letter from
Mr. Harte, which gives me great satisfaction:
it is full of your praises; and he answers for you,
that, in two years more, you will deserve your manumission,
and be fit to go into the world, upon a footing that
will do you honor, and give me pleasure.
I thank you for your offer of the
new edition of ‘Adamus Adami,’
but I do not want it, having a good edition of it
at present. When you have read that, you will
do well to follow it with Pere Bougeant’s ’Histoire
du Traite de Munster,’ in
two volumes quarto; which contains many important
anecdotes concerning that famous treaty, that are not
in Adamus Adami.
You tell me that your lectures upon
the ‘Jus Publicum’ will be ended
at Easter; but then I hope that Monsieur Mascow will
begin them again; for I would not have you discontinue
that study one day while you are at Leipsig.
I suppose that Monsieur Mascow will likewise give you
lectures upon the ‘Instrumentum Pacis,’
and upon the capitulations of the late emperors.
Your German will go on of course; and I take it for
granted that your stay at Leipsig will make you a
perfect master of that language, both as to speaking
and writing; for remember, that knowing any language
imperfectly, is very little better than not knowing
it at all: people being as unwilling to speak
in a language which they do not possess thoroughly,
as others are to hear them. Your thoughts are
cramped, and appear to great disadvantage, in any language
of which you are not perfect master. Let modern
history share part of your time, and that always accompanied
with the maps of the places in question; geography
and history are very imperfect separately, and, to
be useful, must be joined.
Go to the Duchess of Courland’s
as often as she and your leisure will permit.
The company of women of fashion will improve your manners,
though not your understanding; and that complaisance
and politeness, which are so useful in men’s
company, can only be acquired in women’s.
Remember always, what I have told
you a thousand times, that all the talents in the
world will want all their lustre, and some part of
their use too, if they are not adorned with that easy
good-breeding, that engaging manner, and those graces,
which seduce and prepossess people in your favor at
first sight. A proper care of your person is by
no means to be neglected; always extremely clean;
upon proper occasions fine. Your carriage genteel,
and your motions graceful. Take particular care
of your manner and address, when you present yourself
in company. Let them be respectful without meanness,
easy without too much familiarity, genteel without
affectation, and insinuating without any seeming art
or design.
You need not send me any more extracts
of the German constitution; which, by the course of
your present studies, I know you must soon be acquainted
with; but I would now rather that your letters should
be a sort of journal of your own life. As, for
instance, what company you keep, what new acquaintances
you make, what your pleasures are; with your own reflections
upon the whole: likewise what Greek and Latin
books you read and understand. Adieu!