LETTER CLXXI
LONDON, June 26, O. S. 1752.
MY DEAR FRIEND: As I have reason to fear, from your M last letter of the 18th, N. S., from Manheim, that all, or at least most of my letters to you, since you left Paris, have miscarried; I think it requisite, at all events, to repeat in this the necessary parts of those several letters, as far as they relate to your future motions.
I suppose that this will either find you, or be but a few days before you at Bonn, where it is directed; and I suppose too, that you have fixed your time for going from thence to Hanover. If things TURN OUT WELL AT HANOVER, as in my opinion they will, ‘Chi sta bene non si muova’, stay there till a week or ten days before the King sets out for England; but, should THEY TURN OUT ILL, which I cannot imagine, stay, however, a month, that your departure may not seem a step of discontent or peevishness; the very suspicion of which is by all means to be avoided. Whenever you leave Hanover, be it sooner or be it later, where would you go? ‘Lei Padrone’, and I give you your choice: would you pass the months of November and December at Brunswick, Cassel, etc.? Would you choose to go for a couple of months to Ratisbon, where you would be very well recommended to, and treated by the King’s Electoral Minister, the Baron de Behr, and where you would improve your ‘Jus publicum’? or would you rather go directly to Berlin, and stay there till the end of the Carnival? Two or three months at Berlin are, considering all circumstances, necessary for you; and the Carnival months are the best; ‘pour le reste decidez en dernier ressort, et sans appel comme d’abus’. Let me know your decree, when you have formed it. Your good or ill success at Hanover will have a very great influence upon your subsequent character, figure, and fortune in the world; therefore I confess that I am more anxious about it, than ever bride was on her wedding night, when wishes, hopes, fears, and doubts, tumultuously agitate, please, and terrify her. It is your first crisis: the character which you will acquire there will, more or less, be that which will abide by you for the rest of your life. You will be tried and judged there, not as a boy, but as a man; and from that moment there is no appeal for character; it is fixed. To form that character advantageously, you have three objects particularly to attend to: your character as a man of morality, truth, and honor; your knowledge in the objects of your destination, as a man of business; and your engaging and insinuating address, air and manners, as a courtier; the sure and only steps to favor.
Merit at courts, without favor, will do little or nothing; favor, without merit, will do a good deal; but favor and merit together will do everything. Favor at courts depends upon so many, such trifling, such unexpected, and unforeseen events, that a good courtier must attend to every circumstance, however little, that either does, or can happen; he must have no absences, no DISTRACTIONS; he must not say, “I did not mind it; who would have thought it?” He ought both to have minded, and to have thought it. A chamber-maid has sometimes caused revolutions in courts which have produced others in kingdoms. Were I to make my way to favor in a court, I would neither willfully, nor by negligence, give a dog or a cat there reason to dislike me. Two ‘pies grieches’, well instructed, you know, made the fortune of De Luines with Lewis XIII. Every step a man makes at court requires as much attention and circumspection, as those which were made formerly between hot plowshares, in the Ordeal, or fiery trials; which, in those times of ignorance and superstition, were looked upon as demonstrations of innocence or guilt. Direct your principal battery, at Hanover, at the D of N ‘s: there are many very weak places in that citadel; where, with a very little skill, you cannot fail making a great impression. Ask for his orders in everything you do; talk Austrian and Anti-gallican to him; and, as soon as you are upon a foot of talking easily to him, tell him ‘en badinant’, that his skill and success in thirty or forty elections in England leave you no reason to doubt of his carrying his election for Frankfort; and that you look upon the Archduke as his Member for the Empire. In his hours of festivity and compotation, drop that he puts you in mind of what Sir William Temple says of the Pensionary De Witt,–who at that time governed half Europe,–that he appeared at balls, assemblies, and public places, as if he had nothing else to do or to think of. When he talks to you upon foreign affairs, which he will often do, say that you really cannot presume to give any opinion of your own upon those matters, looking upon yourself at present only as a postscript to the corps diplomatique; but that, if his Grace will be pleased to make you an additional volume to it, though but in duodecimo, you will do your best that he shall neither be ashamed nor repent of it. He loves to have a favorite, and to open himself to that favorite. He has now no such person with him; the place is vacant, and if you have dexterity you may fill it. In one thing alone do not humor him; I mean drinking; for, as I believe, you have never yet been drunk, you do not yourself know how you can bear your wine, and what a little too much of it may make you do or say; you might possibly kick down all you had done before.
You do not love gaming, and I thank God for it; but at Hanover I would have you show, and profess a particular dislike to play, so as to decline it upon all occasions, unless where one may be wanted to make a fourth at whist or quadrille; and then take care to declare it the result of your complaisance, not of your inclinations. Without such precaution you may very possibly be suspected, though unjustly, of loving play, upon account of my former passion for it; and such a suspicion would do you a great deal of hurt, especially with the King, who detests gaming. I must end this abruptly. God bless you!
LETTER CLXXII
MY DEAR FRIEND: Versatility as a courtier may be almost decisive to you hereafter; that is, it may conduce to, or retard your preferment in your own destination. The first reputation goes a great way; and if you fix a good one at Hanover, it will operate also to your advantage in England. The trade of a courtier is as much a trade as that of a shoemaker; and he who applies himself the most, will work the best: the only difficulty is to distinguish (what I am sure you have sense enough to distinguish) between the right and proper qualifications and their kindred faults; for there is but a line between every perfection and its neighboring imperfection. As, for example, you must be extremely well-bred and polite, but without the troublesome forms and stiffness of ceremony. You must be respectful and assenting, but without being servile and abject. You must be frank, but without indiscretion; and close, without being costive. You must keep up dignity of character, without the least pride of birth or rank. You must be gay within all the bounds of decency and respect; and grave without the affectation of wisdom, which does not become the age of twenty. You must be essentially secret, without being dark and mysterious. You must be firm, and even bold, but with great seeming modesty.
With these qualifications, which, by the way, are all in your own power, I will answer for your success, not only at Hanover, but at any court in Europe. And I am not sorry that you begin your apprenticeship at a little one; because you must be more circumspect, and more upon your guard there, than at a great one, where every little thing is not known nor reported.
When you write to me, or to anybody else, from thence, take care that your letters contain commendations of all that you see and hear there; for they will most of them be opened and read; but, as frequent couriers will come from Hanover to England, you may sometimes write to me without reserve; and put your letters into a very little box, which you may send safely by some of them.
I must not omit mentioning to you, that at the Duke of Newcastle’s table, where you will frequently dine, there is a great deal of drinking; be upon your guard against it, both upon account of your health, which would not bear it, and of the consequences of your being flustered and heated with wine: it might engage you in scrapes and frolics, which the King (who is a very sober man himself) detests. On the other hand, you should not seem too grave and too wise to drink like the rest of the company; therefore use art: mix water with your wine; do not drink all that is in the glass; and if detected, and pressed to drink more do not cry out sobriety; but say that you have lately been out of order, that you are subject to inflammatory complaints, and that you must beg to be excused for the present. A young fellow ought to be wiser than he should seem to be; and an old fellow ought to seem wise whether he really’ be so or not.
During your stay at Hanover I would have you make two or three excursions to parts of that Electorate: the Hartz, where the silver mines are; Gottingen, for the University; Stade, for what commerce there is. You should also go to Zell. In short, see everything that is to be seen there, and inform yourself well of all the details of that country. Go to Hamburg for three or four days, and know the constitution of that little Hanseatic Republic, and inform yourself well of the nature of the King of Denmark’s pretensions to it.
If all things turn out right for you at Hanover, I would have you make it your head-quarters, till about a week or ten days before the King leaves it; and then go to Brunswick, which, though a little, is a very polite, pretty court. You may stay there a fortnight or three weeks, as you like it; and from thence go to Cassel, and stay there till you go to Berlin; where I would have you be by Christmas. At Hanover you will very easily get good letters of recommendation to Brunswick and to Cassel. You do not want any to Berlin; however, I will send you one for Voltaire. ‘A propos’ of Berlin, be very reserved and cautious while at Hanover, as to that King and that country; both which are detested, because feared by everybody there, from his Majesty down to the meanest peasant; but, however, they both extremely deserve your utmost attention and you will see the arts and wisdom of government better in that country, now, than in any other in Europe. You may stay three months at Berlin, if you like it, as I believe you will; and after that I hope we shall meet there again.
Of all the places in the world (I repeat it once more), establish a good reputation at Hanover, ‘et faites vous valoir la, autant qu’il est possible, par le brillant, les manieres, et les graces’. Indeed it is of the greatest importance to you, and will make any future application to the King in your behalf very easy. He is more taken by those little things, than any man, or even woman, that I ever knew in my life: and I do not wonder at him. In short, exert to the utmost all your means and powers to please: and remember that he who pleases the most, will rise the soonest and the highest. Try but once the pleasure and advantage of pleasing, and I will answer that you will never more neglect the means.
I send you herewith two letters, the one to Monsieur Munchausen, the other to Monsieur Schweigeldt, an old friend of mine, and a very sensible knowing man. They will both I am sure, be extremely civil to you, and carry you into the best company; and then it is your business to please that company. I never was more anxious about any period of your life, than I am about this, your Hanover expedition, it being of so much more consequence to you than any other. If I hear from thence, that you are liked and loved there, for your air, your manners, and address, as well as esteemed for your knowledge, I shall be the happiest man in the world. Judge then what I must be, if it happens otherwise. Adieu.
LETTER CLXXIII
LONDON, July 21, O. S. 1752
MY DEAR FRIEND: By my calculation this letter may probably arrive at Hanover three or four days before you; and as I am sure of its arriving there safe, it shall contain the most material points that I have mentioned in my several letters to you since you left Paris, as if you had received but few of them, which may very probably be the case.
As for your stay at Hanover, it must not IN ALL EVENTS be less than a month; but if things turn out to Your SATISFACTION, it may be just as long as you please. From thence you may go wherever you like; for I have so good an opinion of your judgment, that I think you will combine and weigh all circumstances, and choose the properest places. Would you saunter at some of the small courts, as Brunswick, Cassel, etc., till the Carnival at Berlin? You are master. Would you pass a couple of months at Ratisbon, which might not be ill employed? ‘A la bonne heure’. Would you go to Brussels, stay a month or two there with Dayrolles, and from thence to Mr. Yorke, at The Hague? With all my heart. Or, lastly, would you go to Copenhagen and Stockholm? ‘Lei e anche Padrone’: choose entirely for yourself, without any further instructions from me; only let me know your determination in time, that I may settle your credit, in case you go to places where at present you have none. Your object should be to see the ‘mores multorum hominum et urbes’; begin and end it where you please.
By what you have already seen of the German courts, I am sure you must have observed that they are much more nice and scrupulous, in points of ceremony, respect and attention, than the greater courts of France and England. You will, therefore, I am persuaded, attend to the minutest circumstances of address and behavior, particularly during your stay at Hanover, which (I will repeat it, though I have said it often to you already) is the most important preliminary period of your whole life. Nobody in the world is more exact, in all points of good-breeding, than the King; and it is the part of every man’s character, that he informs himself of first. The least negligence, or the slightest inattention, reported to him, may do you infinite prejudice: as their contraries would service.
If Lord Albemarle (as I believe he did) trusted you with the secret affairs of his department, let the Duke of Newcastle know that he did so; which will be an inducement to him to trust you too, and possibly to employ you in affairs of consequence. Tell him that, though you are young, you know the importance of secrecy in business, and can keep a secret; that I have always inculcated this doctrine into you, and have, moreover, strictly forbidden you ever to communicate, even to me, any matters of a secret nature, which you may happen to be trusted with in the course of business.
As for business, I think I can trust you to yourself; but I wish I could say as much for you with regard to those exterior accomplishments, which are absolutely necessary to smooth and shorten the way to it. Half the business is done, when one has gained the heart and the affections of those with whom one is to transact it. Air and address must begin, manners and attention must finish that work. I will let you into one secret concerning myself; which is, that I owe much more of the success which I have had in the world to my manners, than to any superior degree of merit or knowledge. I desired to please, and I neglected none of the means. This, I can assure you, without any false modesty, is the truth: You have more knowledge than I had at your age, but then I had much more attention and good-breeding than you. Call it vanity, if you please, and possibly it was so; but my great object was to make every man I met with like me, and every woman love me. I often succeeded; but why? By taking great pains, for otherwise I never should: my figure by no means entitled me to it; and I had certainly an up-hill game; whereas your countenance would help you, if you made the most of it, and proscribed for ever the guilty, gloomy, and funereal part of it. Dress, address, and air, would become your best countenance, and make your little figure pass very well.
If you have time to read at Hanover, pray let the books you read be all relative to the history and constitution of that country; which I would have you know as correctly as any Hanoverian in the whole Electorate. Inform yourself of the powers of the States, and of the nature and extent of the several judicatures; the particular articles of trade and commerce of Bremen, Harburg, and Stade; the details and value of the mines of the Hartz. Two or three short books will give you the outlines of all these things; and conversation turned upon those subjects will do the rest, and better than books can.
Remember of all things to speak nothing but German there; make it (to express myself pedantically) your vernacular language; seem to prefer it to any other; call it your favorite language, and study to speak it with purity and elegance, if it has any. This will not only make you perfect in it, but will please, and make your court there better than anything. A propos of languages: Did you improve your Italian while you were at Paris, or did you forget it? Had you a master there? and what Italian books did you read with him? If you are master of Italian, I would have you afterward, by the first convenient opportunity, learn Spanish, which you may very easily, and in a very little time do; you will then, in the course of your foreign business, never be obliged to employ, pay, or trust any translator for any European language.
As I love to provide eventually for everything that can possibly happen, I will suppose the worst that can befall you at Hanover. In that case I would have you go immediately to the Duke of Newcastle, and beg his Grace’s advice, or rather orders, what you should do; adding, that his advice will always be orders to you. You will tell him that though you are exceedingly mortified, you are much less so than you should otherwise be, from the consideration that being utterly unknown to his M—–, his objection could not be personal to you, and could only arise from circumstances which it was not in your power either to prevent or remedy; that if his Grace thought that your continuing any longer there would be disagreeable, you entreated him to tell you so; and that upon the whole, you referred yourself entirely to him, whose orders you should most scrupulously obey. But this precaution, I dare say, is ‘ex abundanti’, and will prove unnecessary; however, it is always right to be prepared for all events, the worst as well as the best; it prevents hurry and surprise, two dangerous, situations in business; for I know no one thing so useful, so necessary in all business, as great coolness, steadiness, and sangfroid: they give an incredible advantage over whoever one has to do with.
I have received your letter of the 15th, N. S., from Mayence, where I find that you have diverted yourself much better than I expected. I am very well acquainted with Comte Cobentzel’s character, both of parts and business. He could have given you letters to Bonn, having formerly resided there himself. You will not be so agreeably ELECTRIFIED where this letter will find you, as you were both at Manheim and Mayence; but I hope you may meet with a second German Mrs. F—–d, who may make you forget the two former ones, and practice your German. Such transient passions will do you no harm; but, on the contrary, a great deal of good; they will refine your manners and quicken your attention; they give a young fellow ‘du brillant’, and bring him into fashion; which last is a great article at setting out in the world.
I have wrote, about a month ago, to Lord Albemarle, to thank him for all his kindnesses to you; but pray have you done as much? Those are the necessary attentions which should never be omitted, especially in the beginning of life, when a character is to be established.
That ready wit; which you so partially allow me, and so justly Sir Charles Williams, may create many admirers; but, take my word for it, it makes few friends. It shines and dazzles like the noon-day sun, but, like that too, is very apt to scorch; and therefore is always feared. The milder morning and evening light and heat of that planet soothe and calm our minds. Good sense, complaisance, gentleness of manners, attentions and graces are the only things that truly engage, and durably keep the heart at long run. Never seek for wit; if it presents itself, well and good; but, even in that case, let your judgment interpose; and take care that it be not at the expense of anybody. Pope says very truly:
“There are whom heaven has blest with store of wit; Yet want as much again to govern it.”
And in another place, I doubt with too much truth:
“For wit and judgment ever are at strife Though meant each other’s aid, like man and wife.”
The Germans are very seldom troubled with any extraordinary ebullitions or effervescenses of wit, and it is not prudent to try it upon them; whoever does, ‘ofendet solido’.
Remember to write me very minute accounts of all your transactions at Hanover, for they excite both my impatience and anxiety. Adieu!
LETTER CLXXIV
LONDON, August 4, O. S. 1752
MY DEAR FRIEND: I am extremely concerned at the return of your old asthmatic complaint, of which your letter from Cassel of the 28th July, N. S., in forms me. I believe it is chiefly owing to your own negligence; for, notwithstanding the season of the year, and the heat and agitation of traveling, I dare swear you have not taken one single dose of gentle, cooling physic, since that which I made you take at Bath. I hope you are now better, and in better hands. I mean in Dr. Hugo’s at Hanover: he is certainly a very skillful physician, and therefore I desire that you will inform him most minutely of your own case, from your first attack in Carniola, to this last at Marpurgh; and not only follow his prescriptions exactly at present, but take his directions, with regard to the regimen that he would have you observe to prevent the returns of this complaint; and, in case of any returns, the immediate applications, whether external or internal, that he would have you make use of. Consider, it is very worth your while to submit at present to any course of medicine or diet, to any restraint or confinement, for a time, in order to get rid, once for all, of so troublesome and painful a distemper; the returns of which would equally break in upon your business or your pleasures. Notwithstanding all this, which is plain sense and reason, I much fear that, as soon as ever you are got out of your present distress, you will take no preventive care, by a proper course of medicines and regimen; but, like most people of your age, think it impossible that you ever should be ill again. However, if you will not be wise for your own sake, I desire you will be so for mine, and most scrupulously observe Dr. Hugo’s present and future directions.
Hanover, where I take it for granted you are, is at present the seat and centre of foreign negotiations; there are ministers from almost every court in Europe; and you have a fine opportunity of displaying with modesty, in conversation, your knowledge of the matters now in agitation. The chief I take to be the Election of the King of the Romans, which, though I despair of, heartily wish were brought about for two reasons. The first is, that I think it may prevent a war upon the death of the present Emperor, who, though young and healthy, may possibly die, as young and healthy people often do. The other is, the very reason that makes some powers oppose it, and others dislike it, who do not openly oppose it; I mean, that it may tend to make the imperial dignity hereditary in the House of Austria; which I heartily wish, together with a very great increase of power in the empire: till when, Germany will never be anything near a match for France. Cardinal Richelieu showed his superior abilities in nothing more, than in thinking no pains or expense too great to break the power of the House of Austria in the empire. Ferdinand had certainly made himself absolute, and the empire consequently formidable to France, if that Cardinal had not piously adopted the Protestant cause, and put the empire, by the treaty of Westphalia, in pretty much the same disjointed situation in which France itself was before Lewis the Eleventh; when princes of the blood, at the head of provinces, and Dukes of Brittany, etc., always opposed, and often gave laws to the crown. Nothing but making the empire hereditary in the House of Austria, can give it that strength and efficiency, which I wish it had, for the sake of the balance of power. For, while the princes of the empire are so independent of the emperor, so divided among themselves, and so open to the corruption of the best bidders, it is ridiculous to expect that Germany ever will, or can act as a compact and well-united body against France. But as this notion of mine would as little please SOME OF OUR FRIENDS, as many of our enemies, I would not advise you, though you should be of the same opinion, to declare yourself too freely so. Could the Elector Palatine be satisfied, which I confess will be difficult, considering the nature of his pretensions, the tenaciousness and haughtiness of the court of Vienna (and our inability to do, as we have too often done, their work for them); I say, if the Elector Palatine could be engaged to give his vote, I should think it would be right to proceed to the election with a clear majority of five votes; and leave the King of Prussia and the Elector of Cologne, to protest and remonstrate as much as ever they please. The former is too wise, and the latter too weak in every respect, to act in consequence of these protests. The distracted situation of France, with its ecclesiastical and parliamentary quarrels, not to mention the illness and possibly the death of the Dauphin, will make the King of Prussia, who is certainly no Frenchman in his heart, very cautious how he acts as one. The Elector of Saxony will be influenced by the King of Poland, who must be determined by Russia, considering his views upon Poland, which, by the by, I hope he will never obtain; I mean, as to making that crown hereditary in his family. As for his sons having it by the precarious tenure of election, by which his father now holds it, ‘a la bonne heure’. But, should Poland have a good government under hereditary kings, there would be a new devil raised in Europe, that I do not know who could lay. I am sure I would not raise him, though on my own side for the present.
I do not know how I came to trouble my head so much about politics today, which has been so very free from them for some years: I suppose it was because I knew that I was writing to the most consummate politician of this, and his age. If I err, you will set me right; ‘si quid novisti rectius istis, candidus imperti’, etc.
I am excessively impatient for your next letter, which I expect by the first post from Hanover, to remove my anxiety, as I hope it will, not only with regard to your health, but likewise to OTHER THINGS; in the meantime in the language of a pedant, but with the tenderness of a parent, ‘jubeo te bene valere’.
Lady Chesterfield makes you many compliments, and is much concerned at your indisposition.
LETTER CLXXV
TO MONSIEUR DE VOLTAIRE, NOW STAYING AT BERLIN.
LONDON, August 27, O. S. 1752.
SIR: As a most convincing proof how infinitely I am interested in everything which concerns Mr. Stanhope, who will have the honor of presenting you this letter, I take the liberty of introducing him to you. He has read a great deal, he has seen a great deal; whether or not he has made a proper use of that knowledge, is what I do not know: he is only twenty years of age. He was at Berlin some years ago, and therefore he returns thither; for at present people are attracted toward the north by the same motives which but lately drew them to the south.
Permit me, Sir, to return you thanks for the pleasure and instruction I have received from your ‘History of Lewis XIV’. I have as yet read it but four times, because I wish to forget it a little before I read it a fifth; but I find that impossible: I shall therefore only wait till you give us the augmentation which you promised; let me entreat you not to defer it long. I thought myself pretty conversant in the history of the reign of Lewis XIV., by means of those innumerable histories, memoirs, anecdotes, etc., which I had read relative to that period of time. You have convinced me that I was mistaken, and had upon that subject very confused ideas in many respects, and very false ones in others. Above all, I cannot but acknowledge the obligation we have to you, Sir, for the light which you have thrown upon the follies and outrages of the different sects; the weapons you employ against those madmen, or those impostors, are the only suitable ones; to make use of any others would be imitating them: they must be attacked by ridicule, and, punished with contempt. ‘A propos’ of those fanatics; I send you here inclosed a piece upon that subject, written by the late Dean Swift: I believe you will not dislike it. You will easily guess why it never was printed: it is authentic, and I have the original in his own handwriting. His Jupiter, at the Day of judgment, treats them much as you do, and as they deserve to be treated.
Give me leave, Sir, to tell you freely, that I am embarrassed upon your account, as I cannot determine what it is that I wish from you. When I read your last history, I am desirous that you should always write history; but when I read your ‘Rome Sauvee’ (although ill-printed and disfigured), yet I then wish you never to deviate from poetry; however, I confess that there still remains one history worthy of your pen, and of which your pen alone is worthy. You have long ago given us the history of the greatest and most outrageous madman (I ask your pardon if I cannot say the greatest hero) of Europe; you have given us latterly the history of the greatest king; give us now the history of the greatest and most virtuous man in Europe; I should think it degrading to call him king. To you this cannot be difficult, he is always before your eyes: your poetical invention is not necessary to his glory, as that may safely rely upon your historical candor. The first duty of an historian is the only one he need require from his, ‘Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat’. Adieu, Sir! I find that I must admire you every day more and more; but I also know that nothing ever can add to the esteem and attachment with which I am actually, your most humble and most obedient servant, CHESTERFIELD.
LETTER CLXXVI
LONDON, September 19, 1752,
MY DEAR FRIEND: Since you have been at Hanover, your correspondence has been both unfrequent and laconic. You made indeed one great effort in folio on the 18th, with a postscript of the 22d August, N. S., and since that, ‘vous avez rate in quarto’. On the 3lst August, N. S., you give me no informations of what I want chiefly to know; which is, what Dr. Hugo (whom I charged you to consult) said of your asthmatic complaint, and what he prescribed you to prevent the returns of it; and also what is the company that, you keep there, who has been kind and civil to you, and who not.
You say that you go constantly to the parade; and you do very well; for though you are not of that trade, yet military matters make so great a part both of conversation and negotiation, that it is very proper not to be ignorant of them. I hope you mind more than the mere exercise of the troops you see; and that you inform yourself at the same time, of the more material details; such as their pay, and the difference of it when in and out of quarters; what is furnished them by the country when in quarters, and what is allowed them of ammunition, bread, etc., when in the field; the number of men and officers in the several troops and companies, together with the non-commissioned officers, as ‘caporals, frey-caporals, anspessades’, sergeants, quarter-masters, etc.; the clothing how frequent, how good, and how furnished; whether by the colonel, as here in England, from what we call the OFF-RECKONINGS, that is, deductions from the men’s pay, or by commissaries appointed by the government for that purpose, as in France and Holland. By these inquiries you will be able to talk military with military men, who, in every country in Europe, except England, make at least half of all the best companies. Your attending the parades has also another good effect, which is, that it brings you, of course, acquainted with the officers, who, when of a certain rank and service, are generally very polite, well- bred people, ‘et du bon ton’. They have commonly seen a great deal of the world, and of courts; and nothing else can form a gentleman, let people say what they will of sense and learning; with both which a man may contrive to be a very disagreeable companion. I dare say, there are very few captains of foot, who are not much better company than ever Descartes or Sir Isaac Newton were. I honor and respect such superior geniuses; but I desire to converse with people of this world, who bring into company their share, at least, of cheerfulness, good-breeding, and knowledge of mankind. In common life, one much oftener wants small money, and silver, than gold. Give me a man who has ready cash about him for present expenses; sixpences, shillings, half-crowns, and crowns, which circulate easily: but a man who has only an ingot of gold about him, is much above common purposes, and his riches are not handy nor convenient. Have as much gold as you please in one pocket, but take care always to keep change in the other; for you will much oftener have occasion for a shilling than for a guinea. In this the French must be allowed to excel all people in the world: they have ‘un certain entregent, un enjouement, un aimable legerete dans la conversation, une politesse aisee et naturelle, qui paroit ne leur rien couter’, which give society all its charms. I am sorry to add, but it is too true, that the English and the Dutch are the farthest from this, of all the people in the world; I do by no means except even the Swiss.
Though you do not think proper to inform me, I know from other hands that you were to go to the Gohr with a Comte Schullemburg, for eight or ten days only, to see the reviews. I know also that you had a blister upon your arm, which did you a great deal of good. I know too, you have contracted a great friendship with Lord Essex, and that you two were inseparable at Hanover. All these things I would rather have known from you than from others; and they are the sort of things that I am the most desirous of knowing, as they are more immediately relative to yourself.
I am very sorry for the Duchess of Newcastle’s illness, full as much upon your as upon her account, as it has hindered you from being so much known to the Duke as I could have wished; use and habit going a great way with him, as indeed they do with most people. I have known many people patronized, pushed up, and preferred by those who could have given no other reason for it, than that they were used to them. We must never seek for motives by deep reasoning, but we must find them out by careful observation and attention, no matter what they should be, but the point is, what they are. Trace them up, step by step, from the character of the person. I have known ‘de par le monde’, as Brantome says, great effects from causes too little ever to have been suspected. Some things must be known, and can never be guessed.
God knows where this letter will find you, or follow you; not at Hanover, I suppose; but wherever it does, may it find you in health and pleasure! Adieu.
LETTER CLXXVII
LONDON, September 22, O. S. 1752
MY DEAR FRIEND: The day after the date of my last, I received your letter of the 8th. I approve extremely of your intended progress, and am very glad that you go to the Gohr with Comte Schullemburg. I would have you see everything with your own eyes, and hear everything with your own ears: for I know, by very long experience, that it is very unsafe to trust to other people’s. Vanity and interest cause many misrepresentations, and folly causes many more. Few people have parts enough to relate exactly and judiciously: and those who have, for some reason or other, never fail to sink, or to add some circumstances.
The reception which you have met with at Hanover, I look upon as an omen of your being well received everywhere else; for to tell you the truth, it was the place that I distrusted the most in that particular. But there is a certain conduct, there are certaines ‘manieres’ that will, and must get the better of all difficulties of that kind; it is to acquire them that you still continue abroad, and go from court to court; they are personal, local, and temporal; they are modes which vary, and owe their existence to accidents, whim, and humor; all the sense and reason in the world would never point them out; nothing but experience, observation, and what is called knowledge of the world, can possibly teach them. For example, it is respectful to bow to the King of England, it is disrespectful to bow to the King of France; it is the rule to courtesy to the Emperor; and the prostration of the whole body is required by eastern monarchs. These are established ceremonies, and must be complied with: but why thev were established, I defy sense and reason to tell us. It is the same among all ranks, where certain customs are received, and must necessarily be complied with, though by no means the result of sense and reason. As for instance, the very absurd, though almost universal custom of drinking people’s healths. Can there be anything in the world less relative to any other man’s health, than my drinking a glass of wine? Common sense certainly never pointed it out; but yet common sense tells me I must conform to it. Good sense bids one be civil and endeavor to please; though nothing but experience and observation can teach one the means, properly adapted to time, place, and persons. This knowledge is the true object of a gentleman’s traveling, if he travels as he ought to do. By frequenting good company in every country, he himself becomes of every country; he is no longer an Englishman, a Frenchman, or an Italian; but he is an European; he adopts, respectively, the best manners of every country; and is a Frenchman at Paris, an Italian at Rome, an Englishman at London.
This advantage, I must confess, very seldom accrues to my countrymen from their traveling; as they have neither the desire nor the means of getting into good company abroad; for, in the first place, they are confoundedly bashful; and, in the next place, they either speak no foreign language at all, or if they do, it is barbarously. You possess all the advantages that they want; you know the languages in perfection, and have constantly kept the best company in the places where you have been; so that you ought to be an European. Your canvas is solid and strong, your outlines are good; but remember that you still want the beautiful coloring of Titian, and the delicate, graceful touches of Guido. Now is your time to get them. There is, in all good company, a fashionable air, countenance, manner, and phraseology, which can only be acquired by being in good company, and very attentive to all that passes there. When you dine or sup at any well-bred man’s house, observe carefully how he does the honors of his table to the different guests. Attend to the compliments of congratulation or condolence that you hear a well-bred man make to his superiors, to his equals, and to his inferiors; watch even his countenance and his tone of voice, for they all conspire in the main point of pleasing. There is a certain distinguishing diction of a man of fashion; he will not content himself with saying, like John Trott, to a new-married man, Sir, I wish you much joy; or to a man who lost his son, Sir, I am sorry for your loss; and both with a countenance equally unmoved; but he will say in effect the same thing in a more elegant and less trivial manner, and with a countenance adapted to the occasion. He will advance with warmth, vivacity, and a cheerful countenance, to the new-married man, and embracing him, perhaps say to him, “If you do justice to my attachment to you, you will judge of the joy that I feel upon this occasion, better than I can express it,” etc.; to the other in affliction, he will advance slowly, with a grave composure of countenance, in a more deliberate manner, and with a lower voice, perhaps say, “I hope you do me the justice to be convinced that I feel whatever you feel, and shall ever be affected where you are concerned.”
Your ‘abord’, I must tell you, was too cold and uniform; I hope it is now mended. It should be respectfully open and cheerful with your superiors, warm and animated with your equals, hearty and free with your inferiors. There is a fashionable kind of SMALL TALK which you should get; which, trifling as it is, is of use in mixed companies, and at table, especially in your foreign department; where it keeps off certain serious subjects, that might create disputes, or at least coldness for a time. Upon such occasions it is not amiss to know how to parley cuisine, and to be able to dissert upon the growth and flavor of wines. These, it is true, are very little things; but they are little things that occur very often, and therefore should be said ‘avec gentillesse et grace’. I am sure they must fall often in your way; pray take care to catch them. There is a certain language of conversation, a fashionable diction, of which every gentleman ought to be perfectly master, in whatever language he speaks. The French attend to it carefully, and with great reason; and their language, which is a language of phrases, helps them out exceedingly. That delicacy of diction is characteristical of a man of fashion and good company.
I could write folios upon this subject, and not exhaust it; but I think, and hope, that to you I need not. You have heard and seen enough to be convinced of the truth and importance of what I have been so long inculcating into you upon these points. How happy am I, and how happy are you, my dear child, that these Titian tints, and Guido graces, are all that you want to complete my hopes and your own character! But then, on the other hand, what a drawback would it be to that happiness, if you should never acquire them? I remember, when I was of age, though I had not near so good an education as you have, or seen a quarter so much of the world, I observed those masterly touches and irresistible graces in others, and saw the necessity of acquiring them myself; but then an awkward ‘mauvaise honte’, of which I had brought a great deal with me from Cambridge, made me ashamed to attempt it, especially if any of my countrymen and particular acquaintances were by. This was extremely absurd in me: for, without attempting, I could never succeed. But at last, insensibly, by frequenting a great deal of good company, and imitating those whom I saw that everybody liked, I formed myself, ‘tant bien que mal’. For God’s sake, let this last fine varnish, so necessary to give lustre to the whole piece, be the sole and single object now of your utmost attention. Berlin may contribute a great deal to it if you please; there are all the ingredients that compose it.
‘A Propos’ of Berlin, while you are there, take care to seem ignorant of all political matters between the two courts; such as the affairs of Ost Frise, and Saxe Lawemburg, etc., and enter into no conversations upon those points; but, however, be as well at court as you possibly can; live at it, and make one of it. Should General Keith offer you civilities, do not decline them; but return them, however, without being ‘enfant de la maison chez lui’: say ‘des chores flatteuses’ of the Royal Family, and especially of his Prussian Majesty, to those who are the most like to repeat them. In short, make yourself well there, without making yourself ill SOMEWHERE ELSE. Make compliments from me to Algarotti, and converse with him in Italian.
I go next week to the Bath, for a deafness, which I have been plagued with these four or five months; and which I am assured that pumping my head will remove. This deafness, I own, has tried my patience; as it has cut me off from society, at an age when I had no pleasures but those left. In the meantime, I have, by reading and writing, made my eyes supply the defect of my ears. Madame H—–, I suppose, entertained both yours alike; however, I am very glad that you were well with her; for she is a good ‘proneuse’, and puffs are very useful to a young fellow at his entrance into the world.
If you should meet with Lord Pembroke again, anywhere, make him many compliments from me; and tell him that I should have written to him, but that I knew how troublesome an old correspondent must be to a young one. He is much commended in the accounts from Hanover.
You will stay at Berlin just as long as you like it, and no longer; and from thence you are absolutely master of your own motions, either to The Hague, or to Brussels; but I think that you had better go to The Hague first, because that from thence Brussels will be in your way to Calais, which is a much better passage to England than from Helvoetsluys. The two courts of The Hague and Brussels are worth your seeing; and you will see them both to advantage, by means of Colonel Yorke and Dayrolles. Adieu. Here is enough for this time.
LETTER CLXXVIII
LONDON, September 26, 1752
MY DEAR FRIEND: As you chiefly employ, or rather wholly engross my thoughts, I see every day, with increasing pleasure, the fair prospect which you have before you. I had two views in your education; they draw nearer and nearer, and I have now very little reason to distrust your answering them fully. Those two were, parliamentary and foreign affairs. In consequence of those views, I took care, first, to give you a sufficient stock of sound learning, and next, an early knowledge of the world. Without making a figure in parliament, no man can make any in this country; and eloquence alone enables a man to make a figure in parliament, unless, it be a very mean and contemptible one, which those make there who silently vote, and who do ‘pedibus ire in sententiam’. Foreign affairs, when skillfully managed, and supported by a parliamentary reputation, lead to whatever is most considerable in this country. You have the languages necessary for that purpose, with a sufficient fund of historical and treaty knowledge; that is to say, you have the matter ready, and only want the manner. Your objects being thus fixed, I recommend to you to have them constantly in your thoughts, and to direct your reading, your actions, and your words, to those views. Most people think only ‘ex re nata’, and few ‘ex professo’: I would have you do both, but begin with the latter. I explain myself: Lay down certain principles, and reason and act consequently from them. As, for example, say to yourself, I will make a figure in parliament, and in order to do that, I must not only speak, but speak very well. Speaking mere common sense will by no means do; and I must speak not only correctly but elegantly; and not only elegantly but eloquently. In order to do this, I will first take pains to get an habitual, but unaffected, purity, correctness and elegance of style in my common conversation; I will seek for the best words, and take care to reject improper, inexpressive, and vulgar ones. I will read the greatest masters of oratory, both ancient and modern, and I will read them singly in that view. I will study Demosthenes and Cicero, not to discover an old Athenian or Roman custom, nor to puzzle myself with the value of talents, mines, drachms, and sesterces, like the learned blockheads in us; but to observe their choice of words, their harmony of diction, their method, their distribution, their exordia, to engage the favor and attention of their audience; and their perorations, to enforce what they have said, and to leave a strong impression upon the passions. Nor will I be pedant enough to neglect the modern; for I will likewise study Atterbury, Dryden, Pope, and Bolingbroke; nay, I will read everything that I do read in that intention, and never cease improving and refining my style upon the best models, till at last I become a model of eloquence myself, which, by care, it is in every man’s power to be. If you set out upon this principle, and keep it constantly in your mind, every company you go into, and every book you read, will contribute to your improvement, either by showing you what to imitate, or what to avoid. Are .you to give an account of anything to a mixed company? or are you to endeavor to persuade either man or woman? This principle, fixed in your mind, will make you carefully attend to the choice of your words, and to the clearness and harmony of your diction.
So much for your parliamentary object; now to the foreign one.
Lay down first those principles which are absolutely necessary to form a skillful and successful negotiator, and form yourself accordingly. What are they? First, the clear historical knowledge of past transactions of that kind. That you have pretty well already, and will have daily more and more; for, in consequence of that principle, you will read history, memoirs, anecdotes, etc., in that view chiefly. The other necessary talents for negotiation are: the great art of pleasing and engaging the affection and confidence, not only of those with whom you are to cooperate, but even of those whom you are to oppose: to conceal your own thoughts and views, and to discover other people’s: to engage other people’s confidence by a seeming cheerful frankness and openness, without going a step too far: to get the personal favor of the king, prince, ministers, or mistresses of the court to which you are sent: to gain the absolute command over your temper and your countenance, that no heat may provoke you to say, nor no change of countenance to betray, what should be a secret: to familiarize and domesticate yourself in the houses of the most considerable people of the place, so as to be received there rather as a friend to the family than as a foreigner. Having these principles constantly in your thoughts, everything you do and everything you say will some way or other tend to your main view; and common conversation will gradually fit you for it. You will get a habit of checking any rising heat; you will be upon your guard against any indiscreet expression; you will by degrees get the command of your countenance, so as not to change it upon any the most sudden accident; and you will, above all things, labor to acquire the great art of pleasing, without which nothing is to be done. Company is, in truth, a constant state of negotiation; and, if you attend to it in that view, will qualify you for any. By the same means that you make a friend, guard against an enemy, or gain a mistress; you will make an advantageous treaty, baffle those who counteract you, and gain the court you are sent to. Make this use of all the company you keep, and your very pleasures will make you a successful negotiator. Please all who are worth pleasing; offend none. Keep your own secret, and get out other people’s. Keep your own temper and artfully warm other people’s. Counterwork your rivals, with diligence and dexterity, but at the same time with the utmost personal civility to them; and be firm without heat. Messieurs d’Avaux and Servien did no more than this. I must make one observation, in confirmation of this assertion; which is, that the most eminent negotiators have allways been the politest and bestbred men in company; even what the women call the PRETTIEST MEN. For God’s sake, never lose view of these two your capital objects: bend everything to them, try everything by their rules, and calculate everything for their purposes. What is peculiar to these two objects, is, that they require nothing, but what one’s own vanity, interest, and pleasure, would make one do independently of them. If a man were never to be in business, and always to lead a private life, would he not desire to please and to persuade? So that, in your two destinations, your fortune and figure luckily conspire with your vanity and your pleasures. Nay more; a foreign minister, I will maintain it, can never be a good man of business if he is not an agreeable man of pleasure too. Half his business is done by the help of his pleasures; his views are carried on, and perhaps best and most unsuspectedly, at balls, suppers, assemblies, and parties of pleasure; by intrigues with women, and connections insensibly formed with men, at those unguarded hours of amusement.
These objects now draw very near you, and you have no time to lose in preparing yourself to meet them. You will be in parliament almost as soon as your age will allow, and I believe you will have a foreign department still sooner, and that will be earlier than ever any other body had one. If you set out well at one-and-twenty, what may you not reasonably hope to be at one-and-forty? All that I could wish you! Adieu.
LETTER CLXXIX
LONDON, September 29, 1752.
MY DEAR FRIEND: There is nothing so necessary, but at the same time there is nothing more difficult (I know it by experience) for you young fellows, than to know how to behave yourselves prudently toward those whom you do not like. Your passions are warm, and your heads are light; you hate all those who oppose your views, either of ambition or love; and a rival, in either, is almost a synonymous term for an enemy. Whenever you meet such a man, you are awkwardly cold to him, at best; but often rude, and always desirous to give him some indirect slap. This is unreasonable; for one man has as good a right to pursue an employment, or a mistress, as another; but it is, into the bargain, extremely imprudent; because you commonly defeat your own purpose by it, and while you are contending with each other, a third often prevails. I grant you that the situation is irksome; a man cannot help thinking as he thinks, nor feeling what he feels; and it is a very tender and sore point to be thwarted and counterworked in one’s pursuits at court, or with a mistress; but prudence and abilities must check the effects, though they cannot remove the cause. Both the pretenders make themselves disagreeable to their mistress, when they spoil the company by their pouting, or their sparring; whereas, if one of them has command enough over himself (whatever he may feel inwardly) to be cheerful, gay, and easily and unaffectedly civil to the other, as if there were no manner of competition between them, the lady will certainly like him the best, and his rival will be ten times more humbled and discouraged; for he will look upon such a behavior as a proof of the triumph and security of his rival, he will grow outrageous with the lady, and the warmth of his reproaches will probably bring on a quarrel between them. It is the same in business; where he who can command his temper and his countenance the best, will always have an infinite advantage over the other. This is what the French call un ‘procede honnete et galant’, to PIQUE yourself upon showing particular civilities to a man, to whom lesser minds would, in the same case, show dislike, or perhaps rudeness. I will give you an instance of this in my own case; and pray remember it, whenever you come to be, as I hope you will, in a like situation.
When I went to The Hague, in 1744, it was to engage the Dutch to come roundly into the war, and to stipulate their quotas of troops, etc.; your acquaintance, the Abbe de la Ville, was there on the part of France, to endeavor to hinder them from coming into the war at all. I was informed, and very sorry to hear it, that he had abilities, temper, and industry. We could not visit, our two masters being at war; but the first time I met him at a third place, I got somebody to present me to him; and I told him, that though we were to be national enemies, I flattered myself we might be, however, personal friends, with a good deal more of the same kind; which he returned in full as polite a manner. Two days afterward, I went, early in the morning, to solicit the Deputies of Amsterdam, where I found l’Abbe de la Ville, who had been beforehand with me; upon which I addressed myself to the Deputies, and said, smilingly, I am very sorry, Gentlemen, to find my enemy with you; my knowledge of his capacity is already sufficient to make me fear him; we are not upon equal terms; but I trust to your own interest against his talents. If I have not this day had the first word, I shall at least have the last. They smiled: the Abbe was pleased with the compliment, and the manner of it, stayed about a quarter of an hour, and then left me to my Deputies, with whom I continued upon the same tone, though in a very serious manner, and told them that I was only come to state their own true interests to them, plainly and simply, without any of those arts, which it was very necessary for my friend to make use of to deceive them. I carried my point, and continued my ‘procede’ with the Abbe; and by this easy and polite commerce with him, at third places, I often found means to fish out from him whereabouts he was.
Remember, there are but two ‘procedes’ in the world for a gentleman and a man of parts; either extreme politeness or knocking down. If a man notoriously and designedly insults and affronts you, knock him down; but if he only injures you, your best revenge is to be extremely civil to him in your outward behavior, though at the same time you counterwork him, and return him the compliment, perhaps with interest. This is not perfidy nor dissimulation; it would be so if you were, at the same time, to make professions of esteem and friendship to this man; which I by no means recommend, but on the contrary abhor. But all acts of civility are, by common consent, understood to be no more than a conformity to custom, for the quiet and conveniency of society, the ‘agremens’ of which are not to be disturbed by private dislikes and jealousies. Only women and little minds pout and spar for the entertainment of the company, that always laughs at, and never pities them. For my own part, though I would by no means give up any point to a competitor, yet I would pique myself upon showing him rather more civility than to another man. In the first place, this ‘procede’ infallibly makes all ‘les rieurs’ of your side, which is a considerable party; and in the next place, it certainly pleases the object of the competition, be it either man or woman; who never fail to say, upon such an occasion, that THEY MUST OWN YOU HAVE BEHAVED YOURSELF VERY, HANDSOMELY IN THE WHOLE AFFAIR. The world judges
from the appearances of things, and not from the reality, which few are able, and still fewer are inclined to fathom: and a man, who will take care always to be in the right in those things, may afford to be sometimes a little in the wrong in more essential ones: there is a willingness, a desire to excuse him. With nine people in ten, good- breeding passes for good-nature, and they take attentions for good offices. At courts there will be always coldnesses, dislikes, jealousies, and hatred, the harvest being but small in proportion to the number of laborers; but then, as they arise often, they die soon, unless they are perpetuated by the manner in which they have been carried on, more than by the matter which occasioned them. The turns and vicissitudes of courts frequently make friends of enemies, and enemies of friends; you must labor, therefore, to acquire that great and uncommon talent of hating with good-breeding and loving with prudence; to make no quarrel irreconcilable by silly and unnecessary indications of anger; and no friendship dangerous, in case it breaks, by a wanton, indiscreet, and unreserved confidence.
Few, (especially young) people know how to love, or how to hate; their love is an unbounded weakness, fatal to the person they love; their hate is a hot, rash, and imprudent violence, always fatal to themselves.
Nineteen fathers in twenty, and every mother, who had loved you half as well as I do, would have ruined you; whereas I always made you feel the weight of my authority, that you might one day know the force of my love. Now, I both hope and believe, my advice will have the same weight with you from choice that my authority had from necessity. My advice is just eight-and-twenty years older than your own, and consequently, I believe you think, rather better. As for your tender and pleasurable passions, manage them yourself; but let me have the direction of all the others. Your ambition, your figure, and your fortune, will, for some time at least, be rather safer in my keeping than in your own. Adieu.
LETTER CLXXX
BATH, October 4, 1752
MY DEAR FRIEND: I consider you now as at the court of Augustus, where, if ever the desire of pleasing animated you, it must make you exert all the means of doing it. You will see there, full as well, I dare say, as Horace did at Rome, how states are defended by arms, adorned by manners, and improved by laws. Nay, you have an Horace there as well as an Augustus; I need not name Voltaire, ‘qui nil molitur inept?’ as Horace himself said of another poet. I have lately read over all his works that are published, though I had read them more than once before. I was induced to this by his ‘Siecle de Louis XIV’, which I have yet read but four times. In reading over all his works, with more attention I suppose than before, my former admiration of him is, I own, turned into astonishment. There is no one kind of writing in which he has not excelled. You are so severe a classic that I question whether you will allow me to call his ‘Henriade’ an epic poem, for want of the proper number of gods, devils, witches and other absurdities, requisite for the machinery; which machinery is, it seems, necessary to constitute the ‘epopee’. But whether you do or not, I will declare (though possibly to my own shame) that I never read any epic poem with near so much pleasure. I am grown old, and have possibly lost a great deal of that fire which formerly made me love fire in others at any rate, and however attended with smoke; but now I must have all sense, and cannot, for the sake of five righteous lines, forgive a thousand absurd ones.
In this disposition of mind, judge whether I can read all Homer through ‘tout de suite’. I admire its beauties; but, to tell you the truth, when he slumbers, I sleep. Virgil, I confess, is all sense, and therefore I like him better than his model; but he is often languid, especially in his five or six last books, during which I am obliged to take a good deal of snuff. Besides, I profess myself an ally of Turnus against the pious AEneas, who, like many ‘soi-disant’ pious people, does the most flagrant injustice and violence in order to execute what they impudently call the will of Heaven. But what will you say, when I tell you truly, that I cannot possibly read our countryman Milton through? I acknowledge him to have some most sublime passages, some prodigious flashes of light; but then you must acknowledge that light is often followed by darkness visible, to use his own expression. Besides, not having the honor to be acquainted with any of the parties in this poem, except the Man and the Woman, the characters and speeches of a dozen or two of angels and of as many devils, are as much above my reach as my entertainment. Keep this secret for me: for if it should be known, I should be abused by every tasteless pedant, and every solid divine in England.
‘Whatever I have said to the disadvantage of these three poems, holds much stronger against Tasso’s ‘Gierusalemme’: it is true he has very fine and glaring rays of poetry; but then they are only meteors, they dazzle, then disappear, and are succeeded by false thoughts, poor ‘concetti’, and absurd impossibilities; witness the Fish and the Parrot; extravagancies unworthy of an heroic poem, and would much better have become Ariosto, who professes ‘le coglionerie’.
I have never read the “Lusiade of Camoens,” except in prose translation, consequently I have never read it at all, so shall say nothing of it; but the Henriade is all sense from the beginning to the end, often adorned by the justest and liveliest reflections, the most beautiful descriptions, the noblest images, and the sublimest sentiments; not to mention the harmony of the verse, in which Voltaire undoubtedly exceeds all the French poets: should you insist upon an exception in favor of Racine, I must insist, on my part, that he at least equals him. What hero ever interested more than Henry the Fourth; who, according to the rules of epic poetry, carries on one great and long action, and succeeds in it at last? What descriptions ever excited more horror than those, first of the Massacre, and then of the Famine at Paris? Was love ever painted with more truth and ‘morbidezza’ than in the ninth book? Not better, in my mind, even in the fourth of Virgil. Upon the whole, with all your classical rigor, if you will but suppose St. Louis a god, a devil, or a witch, and that he appears in person, and not in a dream, the Henriade will be an epic poem, according to the strictest statute laws of the ‘epopee’; but in my court of equity it is one as it is.
I could expatiate as much upon all his different works, but that I should exceed the bounds of a letter and run into a dissertation. How delightful is his history of that northern brute, the King of Sweden, for I cannot call him a man; and I should be sorry to have him pass for a hero, out of regard to those true heroes, such as Julius Caesar, Titus, Trajan, and the present King of Prussia, who cultivated and encouraged arts and sciences; whose animal courage was accompanied by the tender and social sentiments of humanity; and who had more pleasure in improving, than in destroying their fellow-creatures. What can be more touching, or more interesting–what more nobly thought, or more happily expressed, than all his dramatic pieces? What can be more clear and rational than all his philosophical letters? and whatever was so graceful, and gentle, as all his little poetical trifles? You are fortunately ‘a porte’ of verifying, by your knowledge of the man, all that I have said of his works.
Monsieur de Maupertius (whom I hope you will get acquainted with) is, what one rarely meets with, deep in philosophy and, mathematics, and yet ‘honnete et aimable homme’: Algarotti is young Fontenelle. Such men must necessarily give you the desire of pleasing them; and if you can frequent them, their acquaintance will furnish you the means of pleasing everybody else.
‘A propos’ of pleasing, your pleasing Mrs. F—–d is expected here in two or three days; I will do all that I can for you with her: I think you carried on the romance to the third or fourth volume; I will continue it to the eleventh; but as for the twelfth and last, you must come and conclude it yourself. ‘Non sum qualis eram’.
Good-night to you, child; for I am going to bed, just at the hour at which I suppose you are going to live, at Berlin.
LETTER CLXXXI
BATH, November 11, O. S. 1752
MY DEAR FRIEND: It is a very old and very true maxim, that those kings reign the most secure and the most absolute, who reign in the hearts of their people. Their popularity is a better guard than their army, and the affections of their subjects a better pledge of their obedience than their fears. This rule is, in proportion, full as true, though upon a different scale, with regard to private people. A man who possesses that great art of pleasing universally, and of gaining the affections of those with whom he converses, possesses a strength which nothing else can give him: a strength which facilitates and helps his rise; and which, in case of accidents, breaks his fall. Few people of your age sufficiently consider this great point of popularity; and when they grow older and wiser, strive in vain to recover what they have lost by their negligence. There are three principal causes that hinder them from acquiring this useful strength: pride, inattention, and ‘mauvaise honte’. The first I will not, I cannot suspect you of; it is too much below your understanding. You cannot, and I am sure you do not think yourself superior by nature to the Savoyard who cleans your room, or the footman who cleans your shoes; but you may rejoice, and with reason, at the difference that fortune has made in your favor. Enjoy all those advantages; but without insulting those who are unfortunate enough to want them, or even doing anything unnecessarily that may remind them of that want. For my own part, I am more upon my guard as to my behavior to my servants, and others who are called my inferiors, than I am toward my equals: for fear of being suspected of that mean and ungenerous sentiment of desiring to make others feel that difference which fortune has, and perhaps too, undeservedly, made between us. Young people do not enough attend to this; and falsely imagine that the imperative mood, and a rough tone of authority and decision, are indications of spirit and courage. Inattention is always looked upon, though sometimes unjustly, as the effect of pride and contempt; and where it is thought so, is never forgiven. In this article, young people are generally exceedingly to blame, and offend extremely. Their whole attention is engrossed by their particular set of acquaintance; and by some few glaring and exalted objects of rank, beauty, or parts; all the rest they think so little worth their care, that they neglect even common civility toward them. I will frankly confess to you, that this was one of my great faults when I was of your age. Very attentive to please that narrow court circle in which I stood enchanted, I considered everything else as bourgeois, and unworthy of common civility; I paid my court assiduously and skillfully enough to shining and distinguished figures, such as ministers, wits, and beauties; but then I most absurdly and imprudently neglected, and consequently offended all others. By this folly I made myself a thousand enemies of both sexes; who, though I thought them very insignificant, found means to hurt me essentially where I wanted to recommend myself the most. I was thought proud, though I was only imprudent. A general easy civility and attention to the common run of ugly women, and of middling men, both which I sillily thought, called, and treated, as odd people, would have made me as many friends, as by the contrary conduct I made myself enemies. All this too was ‘a pure perte’; for I might equally, and even more successfully, have made my court, when I had particular views to gratify. I will allow that this task is often very unpleasant, and that one pays, with some unwillingness, that tribute of attention to dull and tedious men, and to old and ugly women; but it is the lowest price of popularity and general applause, which are very well worth purchasing were they much dearer. I conclude this head with this advice to you: Gain, by particular assiduity and address, the men and women you want; and, by an universal civility and attention, please everybody so far as to have their good word, if not their goodwill; or, at least, as to secure a partial neutrality.
‘Mauvaise honte’ not only hinders young people from making, a great many friends, but makes them a great many enemies. They are ashamed of doing the thing they know to be right, and would otherwise do, for fear of the momentary laugh of some fine gentleman or lady, or of some ‘mauvais plaisant’. I have been in this case: and have often wished an obscure acquaintance at the devil, for meeting and taking notice of me when I was in what I thought and called fine company. I have returned their notice shyly, awkwardly, and consequently offensively; for fear of a momentary joke, not considering, as I ought to have done, that the very people who would have joked upon me at first, would have esteemed me the more for it afterward. An example explains a rule best: Suppose you were walking in the Tuileries with some fine folks, and that you should unexpectedly meet your old acquaintance, little crooked Grierson; what would you do? I will tell you what you should do, by telling you what I would now do in that case myself. I would run up to him, and embrace him; say some kind of things to him, and then return to my company. There I should be immediately asked: ‘Mais qu’est ce que c’est donc que ce petit Sapajou que vous avez embrasse si tendrement? Pour cela, l’accolade a ete charmante’; with a great deal more festivity of that sort. To this I should answer, without being the least ashamed, but en badinant: O je ne vous dirai tas qui c’est; c’est un petit ami que je tiens incognito, qui a son merite, et qui, a force d’etre connu, fait oublier sa figure. Que me donnerez-vous, et je vous le presenterai’? And then, with a little more seriousness, I would add: ‘Mais d’ailleurs c’est que je ne desavoue jamais mes connoissances, a cause de leur etat ou de leur figure. Il faut avoir bien peu de sentimens pour le faire’. This would at once put an end to that momentary pleasantry, and give them all a better opinion of me than they had before. Suppose another case, and that some of the finest ladies ‘du bon ton’ should come into a room, and find you sitting by, and talking politely to ‘la vieille’ Marquise de Bellefonds, the joke would, for a moment, turn upon that ‘tete-a-tete’: He bien! avez vous a la fin fixd la belle Marquise? La partie est-elle faite pour la petite maison? Le souper sera galant sans doute: Mais ne faistu donc point scrupule de seduire une jeune et aimable persone comme celle-la’? To this I should answer: ‘La partie n’etoit pas encore tout-a fait liee, vous nous avez interrompu; mais avec le tems que fait-on? D’ailleurs moquezvous de mes amours tant qu’il vous plaira, je vous dirai que je respecte tant les jeunes dames, que je respecte meme les vieilles, pour l’avoir ete. Apre cela il y a souvent des liaisons entre les vieilles et les jeunes’. This would at once turn the pleasantry into an esteem for your good sense and your good-breeding. Pursue steadily, and without fear or shame, whatever your reason tells you is right, and what you see is practiced by people of more experience than yourself, and of established characters of good sense and good-breeding.
After all this, perhaps you will say, that it is impossible to please everybody. I grant it; but it does not follow that one should not therefore endeavor to please as many as one can. Nay, I will go further, and admit that it is impossible for any man not to have some enemies. But this truth from long experience I assert, that he who has the most friends and the fewest enemies, is the strongest; will rise the highest with the least envy; and fall, if he does fall, the gentlest, and the most pitied. This is surely an object worth pursuing. Pursue it according to the rules I have here given you. I will add one observation more, and two examples to enforce it; and then, as the parsons say, conclude.
There is no one creature so obscure, so low, or so poor, who may not, by the strange and unaccountable changes and vicissitudes of human affairs, somehow or other, and some time or other, become an useful friend or a trouble-some enemy, to the greatest and the richest. The late Duke of Ormond was almost the weakest but at the same time the best-bred, and most popular man in this kingdom. His education in courts and camps, joined to an easy, gentle nature, had given him that habitual affability, those engaging manners, and those mechanical attentions, that almost supplied the place of every talent he wanted; and he wanted almost every one. They procured him the love of all men, without the esteem of any. He was impeached after the death of Queen Anne, only because that, having been engaged in the same measures with those who were necessarily to be impeached, his impeachment, for form’s sake, became necessary. But he was impeached without acrimony, and without the lest intention that he should suffer, notwithstanding the party violence of those times. The question for his impeachment, in the House of Commons, was carried by many fewer votes than any other question of impeachment; and Earl Stanhope, then Mr. Stanhope, and Secretary’ of State, who impeached him, very soon after negotiated and concluded his accommodation with the late King; to whom he was to have been presented the next day. But the late Bishop of Rochester, Atterbury, who thought that the Jacobite cause might suffer by losing the Duke of Ormond, went in all haste, and prevailed with the poor weak man to run away; assuring him that he was only to be gulled into a disgraceful submission, and not to be pardoned in consequence of it. When his subsequent attainder passed, it excited mobs and disturbances in town. He had not a personal enemy in the world; and had a thousand friends. All this was simply owing to his natural desire of pleasing, and to the mechanical means that his education, not his parts, had given him of doing it. The other instance is the late Duke of Marlborough, who studied the art of pleasing, because he well knew the importance of it: he enjoyed and used it more than ever man did. He gained whoever he had a mind to gain; and he had a mind to gain everybody, because he knew that everybody was more or less worth gaining. Though his power, as Minister and General, made him many political and party enemies, they did not make him one personal one; and the very people who would gladly have displaced, disgraced, and perhaps attainted the Duke of Marlborough, at the same time personally loved Mr. Churchill, even though his private character was blemished by sordid avarice, the most unamiable of all vices. He had wound up and turned his whole machine to please and engage. He had an inimitable sweetness and gentleness in his countenance, a tenderness in his manner of speaking, a graceful dignity in every motion, and an universal and minute attention to the least things that could possibly please the least person. This was all art in him; art of which he well knew and enjoyed the advantages; for no man ever had more interior ambition, pride, and avarice, than he had.
Though you have more than most people of your age, you have yet very little experience and knowledge of the world; now, I wish to inoculate mine upon you, and thereby prevent both the dangers and the marks of youth and inexperience. If you receive the matter kindly, and observe my prescriptions scrupulously, you will secure the future advantages of time and join them to the present inestimable ones of one-and-twenty.
I most earnestly recommend one thing to you, during your present stay at Paris. I own it is not the most agreeable; but I affirm it to be the most useful thing in the world to one of your age; and therefore I do hope that you will force and constrain yourself to do it. I mean, to converse frequently, or rather to be in company frequently with both men and women much your superiors in age and rank. I am very sensible that, at your age, ‘vous y entrez pour peu de chose, et meme souvent pour rien, et que vous y passerez meme quelques mauvais quart-d’heures’; but no matter; you will be a solid gainer by it: you will see, hear, and learn the turn and manners of those people; you will gain premature experience by it; and it will give you a habit of engaging and respectful attentions. Versailles, as much as possible, though probably unentertaining: the Palais Royal often, however dull: foreign ministers of the first rank, frequently, and women, though old, who are respectable and respected for their rank or parts; such as Madame de Pusieux, Madame de Nivernois, Madame d’Aiguillon, Madame Geoffrain, etc. This ‘sujetion’, if it be one to you, will cost you but very little in these three or four months that you are yet to pass in Paris, and will bring you in a great deal; nor will it, nor ought it, to hinder you from being in a more entertaining company a great part of the day. ‘Vous pouvez, si vous le voulex, tirer un grand parti de ces quatre mois’. May God make you so, and bless you! Adieu.
LETTER CLXXXII
BATH, November 16, O. S. 1752.
MY DEAR FRIEND: Vanity, or to call it by a gentler name, the desire of admiration and applause, is, perhaps, the most universal principle of human actions; I do not say that it is the best; and I will own that it is sometimes the cause of both foolish and criminal effects. But it is so much oftener the principle of right things, that though they ought to have a better, yet, considering human nature, that principle is to be encouraged and cherished, in consideration of its effects. Where that desire is wanting, we are apt to be indifferent, listless, indolent, and inert; we do not exert our powers; and we appear to be as much below ourselves as the vainest man living can desire to appear above what he really is.
As I have made you my confessor, and do not scruple to confess even my weaknesses to you, I will fairly own that I had that vanity, that weakness, if it be one, to a prodigious degree; and, what is more, I confess it without repentance: nay, I am glad I had it; since, if I have had the good fortune to please in the world, it is to that powerful and active principle that I owe it. I began the world, not with a bare desire, but with an insatiable thirst, a rage of popularity, applause, and admiration. If this made me do some silly things on one hand, it made me, on the other hand, do almost all the right things that I did; it made me attentive and civil to the women I disliked, and to the men I despised, in hopes of the applause of both: though I neither desired, nor would I have accepted the favors of the one, nor the friendship of the other. I always dressed, looked, and talked my best; and, I own, was overjoyed whenever I perceived, that by all three, or by any one of them, the company was pleased with me. To men, I talked whatever I thought would give them the best opinion of my parts and learning; and to women, what I was sure would please them; flattery, gallantry, and love. And, moreover, I will own to you, under the secrecy of confession, that my vanity has very often made me take great pains to make a woman in love with me, if I could, for whose person I would not have given a pinch of snuff. In company with men, I always endeavored to outshine, or at least, if possible, to equal the most shining man in it. This desire elicited whatever powers I had to gratify it; and where I could not perhaps shine in the first, enabled me, at least, to shine in a second or third sphere. By these means I soon grew in fashion; and when a man is once in fashion, all he does is right. It was infinite pleasure to me to find my own fashion and popularity. I was sent for to all parties of pleasure, both of men or women; where, in some measure, I gave the ‘ton’. This gave me the reputation of having had some women of condition; and that reputation, whether true or false, really got me others. With the men I was a Proteus, and assumed every shape, in order to please them all: among the gay, I was the gayest; among the grave, the gravest; and I never omitted the least attentions of good-breeding, or the least offices of friendship, that could either please, or attach them to me: and accordingly I was soon connected with all the men of any fashion or figure in town.
To this principle of vanity, which philosophers call a mean one, and which I do not, I owe great part of the figure which I have made in life. I wish you had as much, but I fear you have too little of it; and you seem to have a degree of laziness and listlessness about you that makes you indifferent as to general applause. This is not in character at your age, and would be barely pardonable in an elderly and philosophical man. It is a vulgar, ordinary saying, but it is a very true one, that one should always put the best foot foremost. One should please, shine, and dazzle, wherever it is possible. At Paris, I am sure you must observe ‘que chacun se fait valoir autant qu’il est possible’; and La Bruyere observes, very justly, qu’on ne vaut dans ce monde que ce qu’on veut valoir’: wherever applause is in question, you will never see a French man, nor woman, remiss or negligent. Observe the eternal attentions and politeness that all people have there for one another. ‘Ce n’est pas pour leurs beaux yeux au moins’. No, but for their own sakes, for commendations and applause. Let me then recommend this principle of vanity to you; act upon it ‘meo periculo’; I promise you it will turn to your account. Practice all the arts that ever coquette did, to please. Be alert and indefatigable in making every man admire, and every woman in love with you. I can tell you too, that nothing will carry you higher in the world.
I have had no letter from you since your arrival at Paris, though you must have been long enough there to have written me two or three. In about ten or twelve days I propose leaving this place, and going to London; I have found considerable benefit by my stay here, but not all that I want. Make my compliments to Lord Albemarle.
LETTER CLXXXIII
BATH, November 28, 1752
MY DEAR FRIEND: Since my last to you, I have read Madame Maintenon’s “Letters”; I am sure they are genuine, and they both entertained and informed me. They have brought me acquainted with the character of that able and artful lady; whom I am convinced that I now know much better than her directeur the Abby de Fenelon (afterward Archbishop of Cambray) did, when he wrote her the 185th letter; and I know him the better too for that letter. The Abby, though brimful of the divine love, had a great mind to be first minister, and cardinal, in order, NO DOUBT, to have an opportunity of doing the more good. His being ‘directeur’ at that time to Madame Maintenon, seemed to be a good step toward those views. She put herself upon him for a saint, and he was weak enough to believe it; he, on the other hand, would have put himself upon her for a saint too, which, I dare say, she did not believe; but both of them knew that it was necessary for them to appear saints to Lewis the Fourteenth, who they were very sure was a bigot. It is to be presumed, nay, indeed, it is plain by that 185th letter that Madame Maintenon had hinted to her directeur some scruples of conscience, with relation to her commerce with the King; and which I humbly apprehend to have been only some scruples of prudence, at once to flatter the bigot character, and increase the desires of the King. The pious Abbe, frightened out of his wits, lest the King should impute to the ‘directeur’ any scruples or difficulties which he might meet with on the part of the lady, writes her the above- mentioned letter; in which he not only bids her not tease the King by advice and exhortations, but to have the utmost submission to his will; and, that she may not mistake the nature of that submission, he tells her it is the same that Sarah had for Abraham; to which submission Isaac perhaps was owing. No bawd could have written a more seducing letter to an innocent country girl, than the ‘directeur’ did to his ‘penitente’; who I dare say had no occasion for his good advice. Those who would justify the good ‘directeur’, alias the pimp, in this affair, must not attempt to do it by saying that the King and Madame Maintenon were at that time privately married; that the directeur knew it; and that this was the meaning of his ‘enigme’. That is absolutely impossible; for that private marriage must have removed all scruples between the parties; nay, could not have been contracted upon any other principle, since it was kept private, and consequently prevented no public scandal. It is therefore extremely evident that Madame Maintenon could not be married to the King at the time when she scrupled granting, and when the ‘directeur’ advised her to grant, those favors which Sarah with so much submission granted to Abraham: and what the ‘directeur’ is pleased to call ‘le mystere de Dieu’, was most evidently a state of concubinage. The letters are very well worth your reading; they throw light upon many things of those times.
I have just received a letter from Sir William Stanhope, from Lyons; in which he tells me that he saw you at Paris, that he thinks you a little grown, but that you do not make the most of it, for that you stoop still: ‘d’ailleurs’ his letter was a panegyric of you.
The young Comte de Schullemburg, the Chambellan whom you knew at Hanover, is come over with the King, ‘et fait aussi vos eloges’.
Though, as I told you in my last, I have done buying pictures, by way of ‘virtu’, yet there are some portraits of remarkable people that would tempt me. For instance, if you could by chance pick up at Paris, at a reasonable price, and undoubted originals (whether heads, half lengths, or whole lengths, no matter) of Cardinals Richelieu, Mazarin, and Retz, Monsieur de Turenne, le grand Prince de Condo; Mesdames de Montespan, de Fontanges, de Montbazon, de Sevigne, de Maintenon, de Chevreuse, de Longueville, d’Olonne, etc., I should be tempted to purchase them. I am sensible that they can only be met with, by great accident, at family sales and auctions, so I only mention the affair to you eventually.
I do not understand, or else I do not remember, what affair you mean in your last letter; which you think will come to nothing, and for which, you say, I had once a mind that you should take the road again. Explain it to me.
I shall go to town in four or five days, and carry back with me a little more hearing than I brought; but yet, not half enough for common wants. One wants ready pocket-money much oftener than one wants great sums; and to use a very odd expression, I want to hear at sight. I love every-day senses, every-day wit and entertainment; a man who is only good on holydays is good for very little. Adieu.
LETTER CLXXXIV
Christmas Day, 1752
MY DEAR FRIEND: A tyrant with legions at his com mand may say, Oderint modo timeant; though he is a fool if he says it, and a greater fool if he thinks it. But a private man who can hurt but few, though he can please many, must endeavor to be loved, for he cannot be feared in general. Popularity is his only rational and sure foundation. The good-will, the affections, the love of the public, can alone raise him to any considerable height. Should you ask me how he is to acquire them, I will answer, By desiring them. No man ever deserved, who did not desire them; and no man both deserved and desired them who had them not, though many have enjoyed them merely by desiring, and without deserving them. You do not imagine, I believe, that I mean by this public love the sentimental love of either lovers or intimate friends; no, that is of another nature, and confined to a very narrow circle; but I mean that general good-will which a man may acquire in the world, by the arts of pleasing respectively exerted according to the rank, the situation, and the turn of mind of those whom he hath to do with. The pleasing impressions which he makes upon them will engage their affections and their good wishes, and even their good offices as far (that is) as they are not inconsistent with their own interests; for further than that you are not to expect from three people in the course of your life, even were it extended to the patriarchal term. Could I revert to the age of twenty, and carry back with me all the experience that forty years more have taught me, I can assure you, that I would employ much the greatest part of my time in engaging the good-will, and in insinuating myself into the predilection of people in general, instead of directing my endeavors to please (as I was too apt to do) to the man whom I immediately wanted, or the woman I wished for, exclusively of all others. For if one happens (and it will sometimes happen to the ablest man) to fail in his views with that man or that woman, one is at a loss to know whom to address one’s self to next, having offended in general, by that exclusive and distinguished particular application. I would secure a general refuge in the good-will of the multitude, which is a great strength to any man; for both ministers and mistresses choose popular and fashionable favorites. A man who solicits a minister, backed by the general good-will and good wishes of mankind, solicits with great weight and great probability of success; and a woman is strangely biassed in favor of a man whom she sees in fashion, and hears everybody speak well of. This useful art of insinuation consists merely of various little things. A graceful motion, a significant look, a trifling attention, an obliging word dropped ‘a propos’, air, dress, and a thousand other undefinable things, all severally little ones, joined together, make that happy and inestimable composition, THE ART OF PLEASING. I have in my life seen many a very handsome woman who has not pleased me, and many very sensible men who have disgusted me. Why? only for want of those thousand little means to please, which those women, conscious of their beauty, and those men of their sense, have been grossly enough mistaken to neglect. I never was so much in love in my life, as I was with a woman who was very far from being handsome; but then she was made up of graces, and had all the arts of pleasing. The following verses, which I have read in some congratulatory poem prefixed to some work, I have forgot which, express what I mean in favor of what pleases preferably to what is generally called mare solid and instructive:
“I would an author like a mistress try, Not by a nose, a lip, a cheek, or eye, But by some nameless power to give me joy.”
Lady Chesterfield bids me make you many compliments; she showed me your letter of recommendation of La Vestres; with which I was very well pleased: there is a pretty turn in it; I wish you would always speak as genteelly. I saw another letter from a lady at Paris, in which there was a high panegyrical paragraph concerning you. I wish it were every word of it literally true; but, as it comes from a very little, pretty, white hand, which is suspected, and I hope justly, of great partiality to you: ‘il en faut rabattre quelque chose, et meme en le faisant it y aura toujours d’assez beaux restes’. Adieu.
ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:
Art of pleasing is the most necessary Assenting, but without being servile and abject Assertion instead of argument
Attacked by ridicule, and, punished with contempt Bold, but with great seeming modesty
Close, without being costive
Command of our temper, and of our countenance Company is, in truth, a constant state of negotiation Consider things in the worst light, to show your skill Darkness visible
Defended by arms, adorned by manners, and improved by laws Doing nothing, and might just as well be asleep Endeavor to hear, and know all opinions
Enjoy all those advantages
Few people know how to love, or how to hate Fools, who can never be undeceived
Frank, but without indiscretion
Frequently make friends of enemies, and enemies of friends Grave without the affectation of wisdom
Horace
How troublesome an old correspondent must be to a young one I CANNOT DO SUCH A THING
Ignorant of their natural rights, cherished their chains Inattention
Infallibly to be gained by every sort of flattery Judges from the appearances of things, and not from the reality Keep your own temper and artfully warm other people’s King’s popularity is a better guard than their army Lay aside the best book
Le mystere de Dieu
Lewis XIV
Made him believe that the world was made for him Make every man I met with like me, and every woman love me Man or woman cannot resist an engaging exterior Man who is only good on holydays is good for very little Milton
Never seek for wit; if it presents itself, well and good Not making use of any one capital letter Notes by which dances are now pricked down as well as tunes Old fellow ought to seem wise whether he really’ be so or not Please all who are worth pleasing; offend none Pleasures do not commonly last so long as life Polite, but without the troublesome forms and stiffness Prejudices are our mistresses
Quarrel with them when they are grown up, for being spoiled Read with caution and distrust
Reason is at best our wife
Ruined their own son by what they called loving him Secret, without being dark and mysterious Seeming inattention to the person who is speaking to you Talent of hating with good-breeding and loving with prudence The longest life is too short for knowledge Trifles that concern you are not trifles to me Truth, but not the whole truth, must be the invariable principle Useful sometimes to see the things which one ought to avoid Vanity
Voltaire
Where one would gain people, remember that nothing is little Wife, very often heard indeed, but seldom minded Wit may create many admirers but makes few friends Work there as a volunteer in that bureau Yahoos
Young fellow ought to be wiser than he should seem to be