Here end the letters to Mr. Stanhope, as he died the 16th of November following.
Here end the letters to Mr. Stanhope, as he died the 16th of November following.
To Mrs. Stanhope, then at Paris.
Madam:—A troublesome and painful inflammation in my eyes obliges me to use another hand than my own to acknowledge the receipt of your letter from Avignon, of the 27th past.
I am extremely surprised that Mrs. du Bouchet should have any objection to the manner in whichyour late husband desired to be buried, and which you, very properly, complied with. All I desire for my own burial is not to be buried alive; but how or where, I think, must be entirely indifferent to every rational creature.
I have no commission to trouble you with during your stay at Paris, from whence I wish you and the boys a good journey home, where I shall be very glad to see you all, and assure you of my being, with great truth, your faithful, humble servant,Chesterfield. [March 16, 1769.]
To the same, at London.
Madam:—The last time I had the pleasure of seeing you I was so taken up in playing with the boys that I forgot their more important affairs. How soon would you have them placed at school? When I know your pleasure as to that, I will send to Monsieur Perny to prepare everything for their reception. In the meantime, I beg that you will equip them thoroughly with clothes, linen, etc., all good, but plain, and give me the account, which I will pay, for I do not intend that from this time forward, the two boys should cost you one shilling. I am, with great truth, madam, your faithful, humble servant,Chesterfield. [Wednesday.]
Stanhope’s Children.—Charles will be a scholar, if you please, but our little Philip, without being one, will be something or other as good, though I do not yet guess what. I am not of the opinion generally entertained in this country, that man lives by Greek and Latin alone; that is, by knowing a great many words of two dead languages, which nobody living knows perfectly, and which are of no use in the common intercourse of life. Useful knowledge, in my opinion, consists of modern languages, history, and geography; some Latin may be thrown into the bargain, in compliance with custom, and for closet amusement.
You are by this time certainly tired with this long letter, which I could prove to you from Horace’s own words (for I am ascholar) to be a bad one; he says that water drinkers can write nothing good, so I am, with real truth and esteem, your most faithful, humble servant,Chesterfield. [Nov. 4, 1770.]
To Charles and Philip Stanhope.
The Last Letter.—I received, a few days ago, two, the best-written letters that I ever saw in my life: the one signed Charles Stanhope, the other Philip Stanhope. As for you, Charles, I do notwonder at it; for you will take pains, and are a lover of letters: but you idle rogue, you Phil, how came you to write so well, that one can almost say of you two,et cantare pares et respondere parati? Charles will explain this Latin to you.
I am told, Phil, that you have got a nickname at school, from your intimacy with MasterStrangeways; and that they call you Master Strangerways; for, to be sure, you are a strange boy. Is this true?
Tell me what you would have me bring you both from hence, and I will bring it to you when I come to town. In the meantime, God bless you both!—Chesterfield.[Bath, Oct. 27, 1771.]
A proper secrecy is the only mystery of able men; mystery is the only secrecy of weak and cunning ones.
A man who tells nothing, or who tells all, will equally have nothing told him.
If a fool knows a secret, he tells it because he is a fool; if a knave knows one, he tells it wherever it is his interest to tell it. But women and young menare very apt to tell what secrets they know, from the vanity of having been trusted. Trust none of these, whenever you can help it.
Inattention to the present business, be it what it will; the doing one thing, and thinking at the same time of another, or the attempting to do two things at once, are the never-failing signs of a little, frivolous mind.
A man who cannot command his temper, his attention, and his countenance, should not think of being a man of business. The weakest man in the world can avail himself of the passion of the wisest. The inattentive man cannot know the business, and consequently cannot do it. And he who cannot command his countenance, may e’en as well tell his thoughts as show them.
Distrust all those who love you extremely upon a very slight acquaintance, and without any visible reason. Be upon your guard, too, against those, who confess, as their weaknesses, all the cardinal virtues.
In your friendships, and in your enmities, let your confidence and your hostilities have certain bounds: make not the former dangerous, nor the latter irreconcilable. There are strange vicissitudes in business!
Smooth your way to the head, through the heart.The way of reason is a good one; but it is commonly something longer, and perhaps not so sure.
Spirit is now a very fashionable word: to act with spirit, to speak with spirit, means only, to act rashly, and to talk indiscreetly. An able man shows his spirit by gentle words and resolute actions: he is neither hot nor timid.
When a man of sense happens to be in that disagreeable situation, in which he is obliged to ask himself more than once,What shall I do?he will answer himself, Nothing. When his reason points out to him no good way, or at least no one way less bad than another, he will stop short, and wait for light. A little busy mind runs on at all events, must be doing; and, like a blind horse, fears no dangers because he sees none.Il faut savoir s’ennuyer.
Patience is a most necessary qualification for business; many a man would rather you heard his story than granted his request. One must seem to hear the unreasonable demands of the petulant, unmoved, and the tedious details of the dull, untired. That is the least price a man must pay for a high station.
It is always right to detect a fraud, and to perceive a folly; but it is often very wrong to expose either. A man of business should always have his eyes open; but must often seem to have them shut.
In courts, nobody should be below your management and attention: the links that form the court-chain are innumerable and inconceivable. You must hear with patience the dull grievances of a gentleman usher, or a page of the back-stairs; who, very probably, lies with some near relation of the favorite maid, of the favorite mistress, of the favorite minister, or perhaps of the king himself; and who, consequently, may do you more dark or indirect good, or harm, than the first man of quality.
One good patron at court may be sufficient, provided you have no personal enemies; and, in order to have none, you must sacrifice (as the Indians do to the Devil) most of your passions, and much of your time, to the numberless evil beings that infest it; in order to prevent and avert the mischiefs they can do you.
A young man, be his merit what it will, can never raise himself; but must, like the ivy round the oak, twine himself round some man of great power and interest. You must belong to a minister some time, before anybody will belong to you. And an inviolable fidelity to that minister, even in his disgrace, will be meritorious, and recommend you to the next. Ministers love a personal, much more than a party attachment.
As kings are begotten and born like other men,it is to be presumed that they are of the human species; and perhaps, had they the same education, they might prove like other men. But, flattered from their cradles, their hearts are corrupted, and their heads are turned, so that they seem to be a species by themselves. No king ever said to himself:Homo sum, nihil humani a me alienum puto.
Flattery cannot be too strong for them; drunk with it from their infancy, like old drinkers, they require drams.
They prefer a personal attachment to a public service, and reward it better. They are vain and weak enough to look upon it as a free-will offering to their merit, and not as a burnt sacrifice to their power.
If you would be a favorite of your king, address yourself to his weaknesses. An application to his reason will seldom prove very successful.
In courts, bashfulness and timidity are as prejudicial on one hand, as impudence and rashness are on the other. A steady assurance, and a cool intrepidity, with an exterior modesty, are the true and necessary medium.
Never apply for what you see very little probability of obtaining; for you will, by asking improper and unattainable things, accustom the ministers to refuse you so often, that they will find it easy torefuse you the properest and most reasonable ones. It is a common but a most mistaken rule at court, to ask for everything, in order to get something: you do get something by it, it is true; but that something is refusals and ridicule.
There is a court jargon, a chit-chat, a small talk, which turns singly upon trifles; and which, in a great many words, says little or nothing. It stands fools instead of what they cannot say, and men of sense instead of what they should not say. It is the proper language of levees, drawing-rooms, and ante-chambers; it is necessary to know it.
Whatever a man is at court, he must be genteel and well-bred; that cloak covers as many follies, as that of charity does sins. I knew a man of great quality, and in a great station at court, considered and respected, whose highest character was, that he was humbly proud, and genteelly dull.
It is hard to say which is the greatest fool; he who tells the whole truth, or he who tells no truth at all. Character is as necessary in business as in trade. No man can deceive often in either.
At court, people embrace without acquaintance, serve one another without friendship, and injure one another without hatred. Interest, not sentiment, is the growth of that soil.
A difference of opinion, though in the meresttrifles, alienates little minds, especially of high rank. It is full as easy to commend as to blame a great man’s cook, or his tailor; it is shorter, too; and the objects are no more worth disputing about, than the people are worth disputing with. It is impossible to inform, but very easy to displease them.
A cheerful, easy countenance and behavior are very useful at court; they make fools think you are a good-natured man; and they make designing men think you are an undesigning one.
There are some occasions in which a man must tell half his secret, in order to conceal the rest; but there is seldom one in which a man should tell it all. Great skill is necessary to know how far to go, and where to stop.
Ceremony is necessary in courts, as the outwork and defence of manners.
Flattery, though a base coin, is the necessary pocket-money at court; where, by custom and consent, it has obtained such a currency, that it is no longer a fraudulent, but a legal payment.
If a minister refuses you a reasonable request, and either slights or injures you, if you have not the power to gratify your resentment, have the wisdom to conceal and dissemble it. Seeming good humor on your part may prevent rancor on his, and perhaps bring things aright again: but if you have the powerto hurt, hint modestly that, if provoked, you may possibly have the will too. Fear, when real, and well founded, is perhaps a more prevailing motive at courts than love.
At court, many more people can hurt, than can help you; please the former, but engage the latter.
Awkwardness is a more real disadvantage than it is generally thought to be; it often occasions ridicule, it always lessens dignity.
A man’s own good breeding is his best security against other people’s ill-manners.
Good breeding carries along with it a dignity, that is respected by the most petulant. Ill breeding invites and authorizes the familiarity of the most timid. No man ever said a pert thing to the Duke of Marlborough. No man ever said a civil one (though many a flattering one) to Sir Robert Walpole.
When the old clipped money was called in for a new coinage in King William’s time, to prevent the like for the future, they stamped on the edges of the crown pieces these words,et decus et tutamen. That is exactly the case of good breeding.
Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments only give lustre; and many more people see than weigh.
Most arts require long study and application; butthe most useful art of all, that of pleasing, requires only the desire.
It is to be presumed that a man of common-sense, who does not desire to please, desires nothing at all, since he must know that he cannot obtain anything without it.
A skilful negotiator will most carefully distinguish between the little and the great objects of his business, and will be as frank and open in the former as he will be secret and pertinacious in the latter.
He will, by his manners and address, endeavor, at least, to make his public adversaries his personal friends. He will flatter and engage the man, while he counterworks the minister; and he will never alienate people’s minds from him, by wrangling for points, either absolutely unattainable, or not worth attaining. He will make even a merit of giving up what he could not or would not carry, and sell a trifle for a thousand times its value.
A foreign minister, who is concerned in great affairs, must necessarily have spies in his pay; but he must not too easily credit their informations, which are never exactly true, often very false. His best spies will always be those whom he does not pay, but whom he has engaged in his service by his dexterity and address, and who think themselves nothing less than spies.
There is a certain jargon which in French I should callun persiflage d’affaires, that a foreign minister ought to be perfectly master of, and may use very advantageously at great entertainments in mixed companies, and in all occasions where he must speak and should say nothing. Well turned and well spoken, it seems to mean something, though in truth it means nothing. It is a kind of politicalbadinage, which prevents or removes a thousand difficulties to which a foreign minister is exposed in mixed conversations.
If ever thevolto scioltoand thepensieri strettiare necessary, they are so in these affairs. A grave, dark, reserved, and mysterious air hasfœnum in cornu. An even, easy, unembarrassed one invites confidence, and leaves no room for guesses and conjectures.
Both stimulation and dissimulation are absolutely necessary for a foreign minister; and yet they must stop short of falsehood and perfidy: that middle point is the difficult one: there ability consists. He must often seem pleased, when he is vexed; and grave, when he is pleased; but he must never say either: that would be falsehood—an indelible stain to character.
A foreign minister should be a most exact economist. An expense proportioned to his appointmentsand fortune is necessary; but, on the other hand, debt is inevitable ruin to him. It sinks him into disgrace at the court where he resides, and into the most servile and abject dependence on the court that sent him. As he cannot resent ill usage, he is sure to have enough of it.
The Duc de Sully observes very justly, in his Memoirs, that nothing contributed more to his rise, than that prudent economy which he had observed from his youth, and by which he had always a sum of money beforehand, in case of emergencies.
It is very difficult to fix the particular point of economy; the best error of the two is on the parsimonious side. That may be corrected; the other cannot.
The reputation of generosity is to be purchased pretty cheap; it does not depend so much upon a man’s general expense, as it does upon his giving handsomely where it is proper to give at all. A man, for instance, who should give a servant four shillings would pass for covetous, while he who gave him a crown would be reckoned generous; so that the difference of those two opposite characters turns upon one shilling. A man’s character, in that particular, depends a great deal upon the report of his own servants; a mere trifle above common wages makes their report favorable.
Take care always to form your establishment so much within your income as to leave a sufficient fund for unexpected contingencies and a prudent liberality. There is hardly a year, in any man’s life, in which a small sum of ready money may not be employed to great advantage.
It is often madness to engage in a conspiracy; but nothing is so effectual to bring people afterward to their senses, at least for a time. As in such undertakings, the danger subsists, even after the business is over; this obliges to be prudent and circumspect in the succeeding moments.
2. A middling understanding, being susceptible of unjust suspicions, is consequently, of all characters, the least fit to head a faction; as the most indispensable qualification in such a chief is to suppress, in many occasions, and to conceal in all, even the best grounded suspicions.
3. Nothing animates and gives strength to a commotion so much as the ridicule of him against whom it is raised.
4. Among people used to affairs of moment, secrecy is much less uncommon than is generally believed.
5. Descending to the little is the surest way of attaining to an equality with the great.
6. Fashion, though powerful in all things, is not more so in any, than in being well or ill at court. There are times when disgrace is a kind of fire, that purifies all bad qualities, and illuminates every good one. There are others, in which the being out of favor is unbecoming a man of character.
7. Sufferings, in people of the first rank, supply the want of virtue.
8. There is a confused kind of jumble, which practice sometimes teaches; but it is never to be understood by speculation.
9. The greatest powers cannot injure a man’s character, whose reputation is unblemished among his party.
10. We are as often duped by diffidence, as by confidence.
11. The greatest evils are not arrived at their utmost period until those who are in power have lost all sense of shame. At such a time those whoshould obey shake off all respect and subordination. Then is lethargic indolence roused; but roused by convulsions.
12. A veil ought always to be drawn over whatever may be said or thought concerning the rights of the people, or of kings; which agree best when least mentioned.58
13. There are, at times, situations so very unfortunate, that whatever is undertaken must be wrong. Chance, alone, never throws people into such dilemmas; and they happen only to those who bring them upon themselves.
14. It is more unbecoming a minister to say, than to do, silly things.
15. The advice given to a minister, by an obnoxious person, is always thought bad.
16. It is as dangerous, and almost as criminal, with princes, to have the power of doing good, as the will of doing evil.
17. Timorous minds are much more inclined to deliberate than to resolve.
18. It appears ridiculous to assert, but it is not the less true, that at Paris, during the popular commotions, the most violent will not quit their homes past a stated hour.
19. Flexibility is the most requisite qualification for the management of great affairs.
20. It is more difficult for the member of a faction to live with those of his own party, than to act against those who oppose it.
21. The greatest dangers have their allurements, if the want of success is likely to be attended with a degree of glory. Middling dangers are horrid, when the loss of reputation is the inevitable consequence of ill success.
22. Violent measures are always dangerous, but when necessary, may then be looked upon as wise. They have, however, the advantage of never being matter of indifferency; and, when well concerted, must be decisive.
23. There may be circumstances, in which even prudence directs us to trust entirely to chance.
24. Everything in this world has its critical moment, and the height of good conduct consists in knowing and seizing it.
25. Profligacy, joined to ridicule, forms the most abominable and most dangerous of all characters.
26. Weak minds never yield when they ought.
27. Variety of sights have the greatest effect upon the mob, and also upon numerous assemblies, who, in many respects, resemble mobs.
28. Examples taken from past times have infinitelymore power over the minds of men, than any of the age in which they live. Whatever we see, grows familiar; and perhaps the consulship of Caligula’s horse might not have astonished us so much as we are apt to imagine.
29. Weak minds are commonly overpowered by clamor.
30. We ought never to contend for what we are not likely to obtain.
31. The instant in which we receive the most favorable accounts, is just that wherein we ought to redouble our vigilance, even in regard to the most trifling circumstances.
32. It is dangerous to have a known influence over people; as thereby we become responsible even for what is done against our will.
33. One of the greatest difficulties in civil war is, that more art is required to know what should be concealed from our friends, than what ought to be done against our enemies.
34. Nothing lowers a great man so much, as not seizing the decisive moment of raising his reputation. This is seldom neglected, but with a view to fortune; by which mistake, it is not unusual to miss both.
35. The possibility of remedying imprudent actions is commonly an inducement to commit them.
36. Every numerous assembly is a mob; consequently everything there depends upon instantaneous turns.
37. Whatever measure seems hazardous, and is in reality not so, is generally a wise one.
38. Irresolute minds always adopt with facility whatever measure can admit of different issues, and consequently do not require an absolute decision.
39. In momentous affairs, no step is indifferent.
40. There are times in which certain people are always in the right.
41. Nothing convinces persons of a weak understanding so effectually as what they do not comprehend.
42. When factions are only upon the defensive, they ought never to do that which may be delayed. Upon such occasions, nothing is so troublesome as the restlessness of subalterns; who think a state of inaction total destruction.
43. Those who head factions have no way of maintaining their authority, but by preventing or quieting discontent.
44. A certain degree of fear produces the same effects as rashness.
45. In affairs of importance, the choice of words is of as much consequence, as it would be superfluous in those of little moment.
46. During those calms which immediately succeed violent storms, nothing is more difficult for ministers than to act properly; because, while flattery increases, suspicions are not yet subsided.
47. The faults of our friends ought never to anger us so far as to give an advantage to our enemies.
48. The talent of insinuation is more useful than that of persuasion, as everybody is open to insinuation, but scarce any to persuasion.
49. In matters of a delicate nature, all unnecessary alterations are dangerous, because odious.
50. The best way to compel weak-minded people to adopt our opinion, is to frighten them from all others, by magnifying their danger.
51. We must run all hazards, where we think ourselves in a situation to reap some advantage, even from the want of success.
52. Irresolute men are diffident in resolving upon the means, even when they are determined upon the end.
53. It is almost a sure game, with crafty men, to make them believe we intend to deceive those whom we mean to serve.
54. One of the greatest difficulties with princes is in the being often obliged, in order to serve them,to give advice, the true reasons of which we dare not mention.
55. The saying things which we foresee will not be pleasing, can only be softened by the greatest appearance of sincerity.
56. We ought never to trifle with favor. If real, we should hastily seize the advantage; if pretended, avoid the allurement.
57. It is very inconsequent to enter into engagements upon suppositions we think impossible, and yet it is very usual.
58. The generality of mankind pay less attention to arguments urged against their opinion, than to such as may engage the disputant to adopt their own.
59. In times of faction and intrigue, whatever appears inert is reckoned mysterious by those who are not accustomed to affairs of moment.
60. It is never allowable in an inferior to equal himself in words to a superior, although he may rival him in actions.
61. Every man whom chance alone has, by some accident, made a public character, hardly ever fails of becoming, in a short time, a ridiculous private one.
62. The greatest imperfection of men is the complacency with which they are willing to think othersnot free from faults, of which they are themselves conscious.
63. Experience only can teach men not to prefer what strikes them for the present moment, to what will have much greater weight with them hereafter.
64. In the management of important business, all turn to raillery must be more carefully avoided than in any other.
65. In momentous transactions, words cannot be sufficiently weighed.
66. The permanency of most friendships depends upon the continuity of good fortune.
67. Whoever assembles the multitude will raise commotions.
I have taken the trouble of extracting and collecting, for your use, the foregoing Political Maxims of the Cardinal de Retz, in his Memoirs. They are not aphorisms of his invention, but the true and just observations of his own experience, in the course of great business. My own experience attests the truth of them all. Read them over with attention as here above, and then read with thesame attention, andtout de suite, the Memoirs, where you will find the facts and characters from whence those observations are drawn, or to which they are applied; and they will reciprocally help to fix each other in your mind. I hardly know any book so necessary for a young man to read and remember. You will there find how great business is really carried on; very differently from what people, who have never been concerned in it, imagine. You will there see what courts and courtiers really are, and observe that they are neither so good as they should be, nor so bad as they are thought by most people. The court poet, and the sullen, cloistered pedant, are equally mistaken in their notions, or at least in the accounts they give us of them. You will observe the coolness in general, the perfidy in some cases, and the truth in a very few, of court friendships. This will teach you the prudence of a general distrust, and the imprudence of making no exception to that rule, upon good and tried grounds. You will see the utility of good breeding toward one’s greatest enemies, and the high imprudence and folly of either insulting or injurious expressions.