MY DEAR FRIEND: What success with the graces, and in the accomplishments, elegancies, and all those little nothings so indispensably necessary to constitute an amiable man? Do you take them, do you make a progress in them? The great secret is the art of pleasing; and that art is to be attained by every man who has a good fund of common sense. If you are pleased with any person, examine why; do as he does; and you will charm others by the same things which please you in him. To be liked by women, you must be esteemed by men; and to please men, you must be agreeable to women. Vanity is unquestionably the ruling passion in women; and it is much flattered by the attentions of a man who is generally esteemed by men; when his merit has received the stamp of their approbation, women make it current, that is to say, put him in fashion. On the other hand, if a man has not received the last polish from women, he may be estimable among men, but will never be amiable. The concurrence of the two sexes is as necessary to the perfection of our being, as to the formation of it. Go among women with the good qualities of your sex, and you will acquire from them the softness and the graces of theirs. Men will then add affection to the esteem which they before had for you. Women are the only refiners of the merit of men; it is true, they cannot add weight, but they polish and give lustre to it. ‘A propos’, I am assured, that Madame de Blot, although she has no great regularity of features, is, notwithstanding, excessively pretty; and that, for all that, she has as yet been scrupulously constant to her husband, though she has now been married above a year. Surely she does not reflect, that woman wants polishing. I would have you polish one another reciprocally. Force, assiduities, attentions, tender looks, and passionate declarations, on your side will produce some irresolute wishes, at least, on hers; and when even the slightest wishes arise, the rest will soon follow.
As I take you to be the greatest ‘juris peritus’ and politician of the whole Germanic body, I suppose you will have read the King of Prussia’s letter to the Elector of Mayence, upon the election of a King of the Romans; and on the other side, a memorial entitled, IMPARTIAL REPRESENTATION OF WHAT IS JUST WITH REGARD TO THE ELECTION OF A KING OF THE ROMANS, etc. The first is extremely well written, but not grounded upon the laws and customs of the empire. The second is very ill written (at least in French), but well grounded. I fancy the author is some German, who has taken into his head that he understands French. I am, however, persuaded that the elegance and delicacy of the King of Prussia’s letter will prevail with two-thirds of the public, in spite of the solidity and truth contained in the other piece. Such is the force of an elegant and delicate style!
I wish you would be so good as to give me a more particular and circumstantial account of the method of passing your time at Paris. For instance, where it is that you dine every Friday, in company with that amiable and respectable old man, Fontenelle? Which is the house where you think yourself at home? For one always has such a one, where one is better established, and more at ease than anywhere else. Who are the young Frenchmen with whom you are most intimately connected? Do you frequent the Dutch Ambassador’s. Have you penetrated yet into Count Caunitz’s house? Has Monsieur de Pignatelli the honor of being one of your humble servants? And has the Pope’s nuncio included you in the jubilee? Tell me also freely how you are with Lord Huntingdon: Do you see him often? Do you connect yourself with him? Answer all these questions circumstantially in your first letter.
I am told that Du Clos’s book is not in vogue at Paris, and that it is violently criticised: I suppose that is because one understands it; and being intelligible is now no longer the fashion. I have a very great respect for fashion, but a much greater for this book; which is, all at once, true, solid, and bright. It contains even epigrams; what can one wish for more?
Mr.———will, I suppose, have left Paris by this time for his residence at Toulouse. I hope he will acquire manners there; I am sure he wants them. He is awkward, he is silent, and has nothing agreeable in his address,—most necessary qualifications to distinguish one’s self in business, as well as in the POLITE WORLD! In truth, these two things are so connected, that a man cannot make a figure in business, who is not qualified to shine in the great world; and to succeed perfectly in either the one or the other, one must be in ‘utrumque paratus’. May you be that, my dear friend! and so we wish you a good night.
P. S. Lord and Lady Blessington, with their son Lord Mountjoy, will be at Paris next week, in their way to the south of France; I send you a little packet of books by them. Pray go wait upon them, as soon as you hear of their arrival, and show them all the attentions you can.
MY DEAR FRIEND: I apply to you now, as to the greatest virtuoso of this, or perhaps any other age; one whose superior judgment and distinguishing eye hindered the King of Poland from buying a bad picture at Venice, and whose decisions in the realms of ‘virtu’ are final, and without appeal. Now to the point. I have had a catalogue sent me, ‘d’une Trente a l’aimable de Tableaux des plus Grands Maitres, appartenans au Sieur Araignon Aperen, valet de chambre de la Reine, sur le quai de la Megisserie, au coin de Arche Marion’. There I observe two large pictures of Titian, as described in the inclosed page of the catalogue, No. 18, which I should be glad to purchase upon two conditions: the first is, that they be undoubted originals of Titian, in good preservation; and the other that they come cheap. To ascertain the first (but without disparaging your skill), I wish you would get some undoubted connoisseurs to examine them carefully: and if, upon such critical examination, they should be unanimously allowed to be undisputed originals of Titian, and well preserved, then comes the second point, the price: I will not go above two hundred pounds sterling for the two together; but as much less as you can get them for. I acknowledge that two hundred pounds seems to be a very small sum for two undoubted Titians of that size; but, on the other hand, as large Italian pictures are now out of fashion at Paris, where fashion decides of everything, and as these pictures are too large for common rooms, they may possibly come within the price above limited. I leave the whole of this transaction (the price excepted, which I will not exceed) to your consummate skill and prudence, with proper advice joined to them. Should you happen to buy them for that price, carry them to your own lodgings, and get a frame made to the second, which I observe has none, exactly the same with the other frame, and have the old one new gilt; and then get them carefully packed up, and sent me by Rouen.
I hear much of your conversing with ‘les beaux esprits’ at Paris: I am very glad of it; it gives a degree of reputation, especially at Paris; and their conversation is generally instructive, though sometimes affected. It must be owned, that the polite conversation of the men and women of fashion at Paris, though not always very deep, is much less futile and frivolous than ours here. It turns at least upon some subject, something of taste, some point of history, criticism, and even philosophy; which, though probably not quite so solid as Mr. Locke’s, is, however, better, and more becoming rational beings, than our frivolous dissertations upon the weather, or upon whist. Monsieur du Clos observes, and I think very justly, ‘qu’il y a a present en France une fermentation universelle de la raison qui tend a se developper’. Whereas, I am sorry to say, that here that fermentation seems to have been over some years ago, the spirit evaporated, and only the dregs left. Moreover, ‘les beaux esprits’ at Paris are commonly well-bred, which ours very frequently are not; with the former your manners will be formed; with the latter, wit must generally be compounded for at the expense of manners. Are you acquainted with Marivaux, who has certainly studied, and is well acquainted with the heart; but who refines so much upon its ‘plis et replis’, and describes them so affectedly, that he often is unintelligible to his readers, and sometimes so, I dare say, to himself? Do you know ‘Crebillon le fils’? He is a fine painter and a pleasing writer; his characters are admirable and his reflections just. Frequent these people, and be glad, but not proud of frequenting them: never boast of it, as a proof of your own merit, nor insult, in a manner, other companies by telling them affectedly what you, Montesquieu and Fontenelle were talking of the other day; as I have known many people do here, with regard to Pope and Swift, who had never been twice in company with either; nor carry into other companies the ‘ton’ of those meetings of ‘beaux esprits’. Talk literature, taste, philosophy, etc., with them, ‘a la bonne heure’; but then, with the same ease, and more ‘enjouement’, talk ‘pom-pons, moires’, etc., with Madame de Blot, if she requires it. Almost every subject in the world has its proper time and place; in which no one is above or below discussion. The point is, to talk well upon the subject you talk upon; and the most trifling, frivolous subjects will still give a man of parts an opportunity of showing them. ‘L’usage du grand monde’ can alone teach that. That was the distinguishing characteristic of Alcibiades, and a happy one it was, that he could occasionally, and with so much ease, adopt the most different, and even the most opposite habits and manners, that each seemed natural to him. Prepare yourself for the great world, as the ‘athletae’ used to do for their exercises: oil (if I may use that expression) your mind and your manners, to give them the necessary suppleness and flexibility; strength alone will not do, as young people are too apt to think.
How do your exercises go on? Can you manage a pretty vigorous ‘sauteur’ between the pillars? Are you got into stirrups yet? ‘Faites-vous assaut aux armes? But, above all, what does Marcel say of you? Is he satisfied? Pray be more particular in your accounts of yourself, for though I have frequent accounts of you from others, I desire to have your own too. Adieu. Yours, truly and friendly.
DEAR FRIEND: Two accounts, which I have very lately received of you, from two good judges, have put me into great spirits, as they have given me reasonable hopes that you will soon acquire all that I believe you want: I mean the air, the address; the graces, and the manners of a man of fashion. As these two pictures of you are very unlike that which I received, and sent you some months ago, I will name the two painters: the first is an old friend and acquaintance of mine, Monsieur d’Aillon. His picture is, I hope, like you; for it is a very good one: Monsieur Tollot’s is still a better, and so advantageous a one, that I will not send you a copy of it, for fear of making you too vain. So far only I will tell you, that there was but one BUT in either of their accounts; and it was this: I gave d’Aillon the question ordinary and extraordinary, upon the important article of manners; and extorted this from him: But, since you will know it, he still wants that last beautiful varnish, which raises the colors, and gives brilliancy to the piece. Be persuaded that he will acquire it: he has too much sense not to know its value; and if I am not greatly mistaken, more persons than one are now endeavoring to give it him. Monsieur Tollot says: “In order to be exactly all that you wish him, he only wants those little nothings, those graces in detail, and that amiable ease, which can only be acquired by usage of the great world. I am assured that he is, in that respect, in good hands. I do not know whether that does not rather imply in fine arms.” Without entering into a nice discussion of the last question, I congratulate you and myself upon your being so near that point at which I so anxiously wish you to arrive. I am sure that all your attention and endeavors will be exerted; and, if exerted, they will succeed. Mr. Tollot says, that you are inclined to be fat, but I hope you will decline it as much as you can; not by taking anything corrosive to make you lean, but by taking as little as you can of those things that would make you fat. Drink no chocolate; take your coffee without cream: you cannot possibly avoid suppers at Paris, unless you avoid company too, which I would by no means have you do; but eat as little at supper as you can, and make even an allowance for that little at your dinners. Take occasionally a double dose of riding and fencing; and now that summer is come, walk a good deal in the Tuileries. It is a real inconvenience to anybody to be fat, and besides it is ungraceful for a young fellow. ‘A propos’, I had like to have forgot to tell you, that I charged Tollot to attend particularly to your utterence and diction; two points of the utmost importance. To the first he says: “His enunciation is not bad, but it is to be wished that it were still better; and he expresses himself with more fire than elegance. Usage of good company will instruct him likewise in that.” These, I allow, are all little things, separately; but aggregately, they make a most important and great article in the account of a gentleman. In the House of Commons you can never make a figure without elegance of style, and gracefulness of utterance; and you can never succeed as a courtier at your own Court, or as a minister at any other, without those innumerable ‘petite riens dans les manieres, et dans les attentions’. Mr. Yorke is by this time at Paris; make your court to him, but not so as to disgust, in the least, Lord Albemarle, who may possibly dislike your considering Mr. Yorke as the man of business, and him as only ‘pour orner la scene’. Whatever your opinion may be upon THAT POINT, take care not to let it appear; but be well with them both by showing no public preference to either.
Though I must necessarily fall into repetitions by treating the same subject so often, I cannot help recommending to you again the utmost attention to your air and address. Apply yourself now to Marcel’s lectures, as diligently as you did formerly to Professor Mascow’s; desire him to teach you every genteel attitude that the human body can be put into; let him make you go in and out of his room frequently, and present yourself to him, as if he were by turns different persons; such as a minister, a lady, a superior, an equal, and inferior, etc. Learn to seat genteelly in different companies; to loll genteelly, and with good manners, in those companies where you are authorized to be free, and to sit up respectfully where the same freedom is not allowable. Learn even to compose your countenance occasionally to the respectful, the cheerful, and the insinuating. Take particular care that the motions of your hands and arms be easy and graceful; for the genteelness of a man consists more in them than in anything else, especially in his dancing. Desire some women to tell you of any little awkwardness that they observe in your carriage; they are the best judges of those things; and if they are satisfied, the men will be so too. Think now only of the decorations. Are you acquainted with Madame Geoffrain, who has a great deal of wit; and who, I am informed, receives only the very best company in her house? Do you know Madame du Pin, who, I remember, had beauty, and I hear has wit and reading? I could wish you to converse only with those who, either from their rank, their merit, or their beauty, require constant attention; for a young man can never improve in company where he thinks he may neglect himself. A new bow must be constantly kept bent; when it grows older, and has taken the right turn, it may now and then be relaxed.
I have this moment paid your draft of L89 75s.; it was signed in a very good hand; which proves that a good hand may be written without the assistance of magic. Nothing provokes me much more, than to hear people indolently say that they cannot do, what is in everybody’s power to do, if it be but in their will. Adieu.
MY DEAR FRIEND: The best authors are always the severest critics of their own works; they revise, correct, file, and polish them, till they think they have brought them to perfection. Considering you as my work, I do not look upon myself as a bad author, and am therefore a severe critic. I examine narrowly into the least inaccuracy or inelegance, in order to correct, not to expose them, and that the work may be perfect at last. You are, I know, exceedingly improved in your air, address, and manners, since you have been at Paris; but still there is, I believe, room for further improvement before you come to that perfection which I have set my heart upon seeing you arrive at; and till that moment I must continue filing and polishing. In a letter that I received by last post, from a friend of yours at Paris, there was this paragraph: “I have the honor to assure you, without flattery, that Mr. Stanhope succeeds beyond what might be expected from a person of his age. He goes into very good company; and that kind of manner, which was at first thought to be too decisive and peremptory, is now judged otherwise; because it is acknowledged to be the effect of an ingenuous frankness, accompanied by politeness, and by a proper deference. He studies to please, and succeeds. Madame du Puisieux was the other day speaking of him with complacency and friendship. You will be satisfied with him in all respects.” This is extremely well, and I rejoice at it: one little circumstance only may, and I hope will, be altered for the better. Take pains to undeceive those who thought that ‘petit ton un peu delcide et un peu brusque’; as it is not meant so, let it not appear so. Compose your countenance to an air of gentleness and ‘douceur’, use some expressions of diffidence of your own opinion, and deference to other people’s; such as, “If I might be permitted to say—I should think—Is it not rather so? At least I have the greatest reason to be diffident of myself.” Such mitigating, engaging words do by no means weaken your argument; but, on the contrary, make it more powerful by making it more pleasing. If it is a quick and hasty manner of speaking that people mistake ‘pour decide et brusque’, prevent their mistakes for the future by speaking more deliberately, and taking a softer tone of voice; as in this case you are free from the guilt, be free from the suspicion, too. Mankind, as I have often told you, are more governed by appearances than by realities; and with regard to opinion, one had better be really rough and hard, with the appearance of gentleness and softness, than just the reverse. Few people have penetration enough to discover, attention enough to observe, or even concern enough to examine beyond the exterior; they take their notions from the surface, and go no deeper: they commend, as the gentlest and best-natured man in the world, that man who has the most engaging exterior manner, though possibly they have been but once in his company. An air, a tone of voice, a composure of countenance to mildness and softness, which are all easily acquired, do the business: and without further examination, and possibly with the contrary qualities, that man is reckoned the gentlest, the modestest, and the best-natured man alive. Happy the man, who, with a certain fund of parts and knowledge, gets acquainted with the world early enough to make it his bubble, at an age when most people are the bubbles of the world! for that is the common case of youth. They grow wiser when it is too late; and, ashamed and vexed at having been bubbles so long, too often turn knaves at last. Do not therefore trust to appearances and outside yourself, but pay other people with them; because you may be sure that nine in ten of mankind do, and ever will trust to them. This is by no means a criminal or blamable simulation, if not used with an ill intention. I am by no means blamable in desiring to have other people’s good word, good-will, and affection, if I do not mean to abuse them. Your heart, I know, is good, your sense is sound, and your knowledge extensive. What then remains for you to do? Nothing, but to adorn those fundamental qualifications, with such engaging and captivating manners, softness, and gentleness, as will endear you to those who are able to judge of your real merit, and which always stand in the stead of merit with those who are not. I do not mean by this to recommend to you ‘le fade doucereux’, the insipid softness of a gentle fool; no, assert your own opinion, oppose other people’s when wrong; but let your manner, your air, your terms, and your tone of voice, be soft and gentle, and that easily and naturally, not affectedly. Use palliatives when you contradict; such as I MAY BE MISTAKEN, I AM NOT SURE, BUT I BELIEVE, I SHOULD RATHER THINK, etc. Finish any argument or dispute with some little good-humored pleasantry, to show that you are neither hurt yourself, nor meant to hurt your antagonist; for an argument, kept up a good while, often occasions a temporary alienation on each side. Pray observe particularly, in those French people who are distinguished by that character, ‘cette douceur de moeurs et de manieres’, which they talk of so much, and value so justly; see in what it consists; in mere trifles, and most easy to be acquired, where the heart is really good. Imitate, copy it, till it becomes habitual and easy to you. Without a compliment to you, I take it to be the only thing you now want: nothing will sooner give it you than a real passion, or, at least, ‘un gout vif’, for some woman of fashion; and, as I suppose that you have either the one or the other by this time, you are consequently in the best school. Besides this, if you were to say to Lady Hervey, Madame Monconseil, or such others as you look upon to be your friends, It is said that I have a kind of manner which is rather too decisive and too peremptory; it is not, however, my intention that it should be so; I entreat you to correct, and even publicly to punish me whenever I am guilty. Do not treat me with the least indulgence, but criticise to the utmost. So clear-sighted a judge as you has a right to be severe; and I promise you that the criminal will endeavor to correct himself. Yesterday I had two of your acquaintances to dine with me, Baron B. and his companion Monsieur S. I cannot say of the former, ‘qu’il est paitri de graces’; and I would rather advise him to go and settle quietly at home, than to think of improving himself by further travels. ‘Ce n’est pas le bois don’t on en fait’. His companion is much better, though he has a strong ‘tocco di tedesco’. They both spoke well of you, and so far I liked them both. How go you on with the amiable little Blot? Does she listen to your Battering tale? Are you numbered among the list of her admirers? Is Madame———your Madame de Lursay? Does she sometimes knot, and are you her Meilcour? They say she has softness, sense, and engaging manners; in such an apprenticeship much may be learned.—[This whole passage, and several others, allude to Crebillon’s ‘Egaremens du Coeur et de l’Esprit’, a sentimental novel written about that time, and then much in vogue at Paris.]
A woman like her, who has always pleased, and often been pleased, can best teach the art of pleasing; that art, without which, ‘ogni fatica vana’. Marcel’s lectures are no small part of that art: they are the engaging forerunner of all other accomplishments. Dress is also an article not to be neglected, and I hope you do not neglect it; it helps in the ‘premier abord’, which is often decisive. By dress, I mean your clothes being well made, fitting you, in the fashion and not above it; your hair well done, and a general cleanliness and spruceness in your person. I hope you take infinite care of your teeth; the consequences of neglecting the mouth are serious, not only to one’s self, but to others. In short, my dear child, neglect nothing; a little more will complete the whole. Adieu. I have not heard from you these three weeks, which I think a great while.
MY DEAR FRIEND: I received yesterday, at the same time, your letters of the 4th and 11th, N. S., and being much more careful of my commissions than you are of yours, I do not delay one moment sending you my final instructions concerning the pictures. The man you allow to be a Titian, and in good preservation; the woman is an indifferent and a damaged picture; but as I want them for furniture for a particular room, companions are necessary; and therefore I am willing to take the woman for better for worse, upon account of the man; and if she is not too much damaged, I can have her tolerably repaired, as many a fine woman is, by a skillful hand here; but then I expect that the lady should be, in a manner, thrown into the bargain with the man; and, in this state of affairs, the woman being worth little or nothing, I will not go above fourscore Louis for the two together. As for the Rembrandt you mention, though it is very cheap, if good, I do not care for it. I love ‘la belle nature’; Rembrandt paints caricatures. Now for your own commissions, which you seem to have forgotten. You mention nothing of the patterns which you received by Monsieur Tollot, though I told you in a former letter, which you must have had before the date of your last, that I should stay till I received the patterns pitched upon by your ladies; for as to the instructions which you sent me in Madame Monconseil’s hand, I could find no mohairs in London that exactly answered that description; I shall, therefore, wait till you send me (which you may easily do in a letter) the patterns chosen by your three graces.
I would, by all means, have you go now and then, for two or three days, to Marechal Coigny’s, at Orli; it is but a proper civility to that family, which has been particularly civil to you; and, moreover, I would have you familiarize yourself with, and learn the interior and domestic manners of, people of that rank and fashion. I also desire that you will frequent Versailles and St. Cloud, at both of which courts you have been received with distinction. Profit of that distinction, and familiarize yourself at both. Great courts are the seats of true good-breeding; you are to live at courts, lose no time in learning them. Go and stay sometimes at Versailles for three or four days, where you will be domestic in the best families, by means of your friend Madame de Puisieux; and mine, l’Abbe de la Ville. Go to the King’s and the Dauphin’s levees, and distinguish yourself from the rest of your countrymen, who, I dare say, never go there when they can help it. Though the young Frenchmen of fashion may not be worth forming intimate connections with, they are well worth making acquaintance of; and I do not see how you can avoid it, frequenting so many good French houses as you do, where, to be sure, many of them come. Be cautious how you contract friendships, but be desirous, and even industrious, to obtain a universal acquaintance. Be easy, and even forward, in making new acquaintances; that is the only way of knowing manners and characters in general, which is, at present, your great object. You are ‘enfant de famille’ in three ministers’ houses; but I wish you had a footing, at least, in thirteen and that, I should think, you might easily bring about, by that common chain, which, to a certain degree, connects those you do not with those you do know.
For instance, I suppose that neither Lord Albemarle, nor Marquis de St. Germain, would make the least difficulty to present you to Comte Caunitz, the Nuncio, etc. ‘Il faut etre rompu du monde’, which can only be done by an extensive, various, and almost universal acquaintance.
When you have got your emaciated Philomath, I desire that his triangles, rhomboids, etc., may not keep you one moment out of the good company you would otherwise be in. Swallow all your learning in the morning, but digest it in company in the evenings. The reading of ten new characters is more your business now, than the reading of twenty old books; showish and shining people always get the better of all others, though ever so solid. If you would be a great man in the world when you are old, shine and be showish in it while you are young, know everybody, and endeavor to please everybody, I mean exteriorly; for fundamentally it is impossible. Try to engage the heart of every woman, and the affections of almost every man you meet with. Madame Monconseil assures me that you are most surprisingly improved in your air, manners, and address: go on, my dear child, and never think that you are come to a sufficient degree of perfection; ‘Nil actum reputans, si quid superesset agendum’; and in those shining parts of the character of a gentleman, there is always something remaining to be acquired. Modes and manners vary in different places, and at different times; you must keep pace with them, know them, and adopt them, wherever you find them. The great usage of the world, the knowledge of characters, the brillant dun ‘galant homme,’ is all that you now want. Study Marcel and the ‘beau monde’ with great application, but read Homer and Horace only when you have nothing else to do. Pray who is ‘la belle Madame de Case’, whom I know you frequent? I like the epithet given her very well: if she deserves it, she deserves your attention too. A man of fashion should be gallant to a fine woman, though he does not make love to her, or may be otherwise engaged. On ‘lui doit des politesses, on fait l’eloge de ses charmes, et il n’en est ni plus ni moins pour cela’: it pleases, it flatters; you get their good word, and you lose nothing by it. These ‘gentillesses’ should be accompanied, as indeed everything else should, with an air: ‘un air, un ton de douceur et de politesse’. Les graces must be of the party, or it will never do; and they are so easily had, that it is astonishing to me that everybody has them not; they are sooner gained than any woman of common reputation and decency. Pursue them but with care and attention, and you are sure to enjoy them at last: without them, I am sure, you will never enjoy anybody else. You observe, truly, that Mr.———is gauche; it is to be hoped that will mend with keeping company; and is yet pardonable in him, as just come from school. But reflect what you would think of a man, who had been any time in the world, and yet should be so awkward. For God’s sake, therefore, now think of nothing but shining, and even distinguishing yourself in the most polite courts, by your air, your address, your manners, your politeness, your ‘douceur’, your graces. With those advantages (and not without them) take my word for it, you will get the better of all rivals, in business as well as in ‘ruelles’. Adieu. Send me your patterns, by the next post, and also your instructions to Grevenkop about the seal, which you seem to have forgotten.
MY DEAR FRIEND: In about three months from this day, we shall probably meet. I look upon that moment as a young woman does upon her bridal night; I expect the greatest pleasure, and yet cannot help fearing some little mixture of pain. My reason bids me doubt a little, of what my imagination makes me expect. In some articles I am very sure that my most sanguine wishes will not be disappointed; and those are the most material ones. In others, I fear something or other, which I can better feel than describe. However, I will attempt it. I fear the want of that amiable and engaging ‘je ne sais quoi’, which as some philosophers have, unintelligibly enough, said of the soul, is all in all, and all in every part; it should shed its influence over every word and action. I fear the want of that air, and first ‘abord’, which suddenly lays hold of the heart, one does not know distinctly how or why. I fear an inaccuracy, or, at least, inelegance of diction, which will wrong, and lower, the best and justest matter. And, lastly, I fear an ungraceful, if not an unpleasant utterance, which would disgrace and vilify the whole. Should these fears be at present founded, yet the objects of them are (thank God) of such a nature, that you may, if you please, between this and our meeting, remove everyone of them. All these engaging and endearing accomplishments are mechanical, and to be acquired by care and observation, as easily as turning, or any mechanical trade. A common country fellow, taken from the plow, and enlisted in an old corps, soon lays aside his shambling gait, his slouching air, his clumsy and awkward motions: and acquires the martial air, the regular motions, and whole exercise of the corps, and particularly of his right and left hand man. How so? Not from his parts; which were just the same before as after he was enlisted; but either from a commendable ambition of being like, and equal to those he is to live with; or else from the fear of being punished for not being so. If then both or either of these motives change such a fellow, in about six months’ time, to such a degree, as that he is not to be known again, how much stronger should both these motives be with you, to acquire, in the utmost perfection, the whole exercise of the people of fashion, with whom you are to live all your life? Ambition should make you resolve to be at least their equal in that exercise, as well as the fear of punishment; which most inevitably will attend the want of it. By that exercise, I mean the air, the manners, the graces, and the style of people of fashion. A friend of yours, in a letter I received from him by the last post, after some other commendations of you, says, “It is surprising that, thinking with so much solidity as he does, and having so true and refined a taste, he should express himself with so little elegance and delicacy. He even totally neglects the choice of words and turn of phrases.”
This I should not be so much surprised or concerned at, if it related only to the English language; which hitherto you have had no opportunity of studying, and but few of speaking, at least to those who could correct your inaccuracies. But if you do not express yourself elegantly and delicately in French and German, (both which languages I know you possess perfectly and speak eternally) it can be only from an unpardonable inattention to what you most erroneously think a little object, though, in truth, it is one of the most important of your life. Solidity and delicacy of thought must be given us: it cannot be acquired, though it may be improved; but elegance and delicacy of expression may be acquired by whoever will take the necessary care and pains. I am sure you love me so well; that you would be very sorry when we meet, that I should be either disappointed or mortified; and I love you so well, that I assure you I should be both, if I should find you want any of those exterior accomplishments which are the indispensably necessary steps to that figure and fortune, which I so earnestly wish you may one day make in the world.
I hope you do not neglect your exercises of riding, fencing, and dancing, but particularly the latter: for they all concur to ‘degourdir’, and to give a certain air. To ride well, is not only a proper and graceful accomplishment for a gentleman, but may also save you many a fall hereafter; to fence well, may possibly save your life; and to dance well, is absolutely necessary in order to sit, stand, and walk well. To tell you the truth, my friend, I have some little suspicion that you now and then neglect or omit your exercises, for more serious studies. But now ‘non est his locus’, everything has its time; and this is yours for your exercises; for when you return to Paris I only propose your continuing your dancing; which you shall two years longer, if you happen to be where there is a good dancing-master. Here I will see you take some lessons with your old master Desnoyers, who is our Marcel.
What says Madame du Pin to you? I am told she is very handsome still; I know she was some few years ago. She has good parts, reading, manners, and delicacy: such an arrangement would be both creditable and advantageous to you. She will expect to meet with all the good-breeding and delicacy that she brings; and as she is past the glare and ‘eclat’ of youth, may be the more willing to listen to your story, if you tell it well. For an attachment, I should prefer her to ‘la petite Blot’; and, for a mere gallantry, I should prefer ‘la petite Blot’ to her; so that they are consistent, et ‘l’un n’emplche pas l’autre’. Adieu. Remember ‘la douceur et les graces’.
MY DEAR FRIEND: I have this moment received your letter of the 25th N. S., and being rather something more attentive to my commissions than you are to yours, return you this immediate answer to the question you ask me about the two pictures: I will not give one livre more than what I told you in my last; having no sort of occasion for them, and not knowing very well where to put them if I had them.
I wait with impatience for your final orders about the mohairs; the mercer persecuting me every day for three pieces which I thought pretty, and which I have kept by me eventually, to secure them in case your ladies should pitch upon them.
If I durst! what should hinder you from daring? One always dares if there are hopes of success; and even if there are none, one is no loser by daring. A man of fashion knows how, and when, to dare. He begins his approaches by distant attacks, by assiduities, and by attentions. If he is not immediately and totally repulsed, he continues to advance. After certain steps success is infallible; and none but very silly fellows can then either doubt, or not attempt it. Is it the respectable character of Madame de la Valiere which prevents your daring, or are you intimidated at the fierce virtue of Madame du Pin? Does the invincible modesty of the handsome Madame Case discourage, more than her beauty invites you? Fie, for shame! Be convinced that the most virtuous woman, far from being offended at a declaration of love, is flattered by it, if it is made in a polite and agreeable manner. It is possible that she may not be propitious to your vows; that is to say, if she has a liking or a passion for another person. But, at all events, she will not be displeased with you for it; so that, as there is no danger, this cannot even be called daring. But if she attends, if she listens, and allows you to repeat your declaration, be persuaded that if you do not dare all the rest, she will laugh at you. I advise you to begin rather by Madame du Pin, who has still more than beauty enough for such a youngster as you. She has, besides, knowledge of the world, sense, and delicacy. As she is not so extremely young, the choice of her lovers cannot be entirely at her option. I promise you, she will not refuse the tender of your most humble services. Distinguish her, then, by attentions and by tender looks. Take favorable opportunities of whispering that you wish esteem and friendship were the only motives of your regard for her; but that it derives from sentiments of a much more tender nature: that you made not this declaration without pain; but that the concealing your passion was a still greater torment.
I am sensible, that in saying this for the first time, you will look silly, abashed, and even express yourself very ill. So much the better; for, instead of attributing your confusion to the little usage you have of the world, particularly in these sort of subjects, she will think that excess of love is the occasion of it. In such a case, the lover’s best friend is self-love. Do not then be afraid; behave gallantly. Speak well, and you will be heard. If you are not listened to the first time, try a second, a third, and a fourth. If the place is not already taken, depend upon it, it may be conquered.
I am very glad you are going to Orli, and from thence to St. Cloud; go to both, and to Versailles also, often. It is that interior domestic familiarity with people of fashion, that alone can give you ‘l’usage du monde, et les manieres aisees’. It is only with women one loves, or men one respects, that the desire of pleasing exerts itself; and without the desire of pleasing no man living can please. Let that desire be the spring of all your words and actions. That happy talent, the art of pleasing, which so few do, though almost all might possess, is worth all your learning and knowledge put together. The latter can never raise you high without the former; but the former may carry you, as it has carried thousands, a great way without the latter.
I am glad that you dance so well, as to be reckoned by Marcel among his best scholars; go on, and dance better still. Dancing well is pleasing ‘pro tanto’, and makes a part of that necessary whole, which is composed of a thousand parts, many of them of ‘les infiniment petits quoi qu’infiniment necessaires’.
I shall never have done upon this subject which is indispensably necessary toward your making any figure or fortune in the world; both which I have set my heart upon, and for both which you now absolutely want no one thing but the art of pleasing; and I must not conceal from you that you have still a good way to go before you arrive at it. You still want a thousand of those little attentions that imply a desire of pleasing: you want a ‘douceur’ of air and expression that engages: you want an elegance and delicacy of expression, necessary to adorn the best sense and most solid matter: in short, you still want a great deal of the ‘brillant’ and the ‘poli’. Get them at any rate: sacrifice hecatombs of books to them: seek for them in company, and renounce your closet till you have got them. I never received the letter you refer to, if ever you wrote it. Adieu, et bon soir, Monseigneur.
MY DEAR FRIEND: Solicitous and anxious as I have ever been to form your heart, your mind, and your manners, and to bring you as near perfection as the imperfection of our natures will allow, I have exhausted, in the course of our correspondence, all that my own mind could suggest, and have borrowed from others whatever I thought could be useful to you; but this has necessarily been interruptedly and by snatches. It is now time, and you are of an age to review and to weigh in your own mind all that you have heard, and all that you have read, upon these subjects; and to form your own character, your conduct, and your manners, for the rest of your life; allowing for such improvements as a further knowledge of the world will naturally give you. In this view I would recommend to you to read, with the greatest attention, such books as treat particularly of those subjects; reflecting seriously upon them, and then comparing the speculation with the practice.
For example, if you read in the morning some of La Rochefoucault’s maxims; consider them, examine them well, and compare them with the real characters you meet with in the evening. Read La Bruyere in the morning, and see in the evening whether his pictures are like. Study the heart and the mind of man, and begin with your own. Meditation and reflection must lay the foundation of that knowledge: but experience and practice must, and alone can, complete it. Books, it is true, point out the operations of the mind, the sentiments of the heart, the influence of the passions; and so far they are of previous use: but without subsequent practice, experience, and observation, they are as ineffectual, and would even lead you into as many errors in fact, as a map would do, if you were to take your notions of the towns and provinces from their delineations in it. A man would reap very little benefit by his travels, if he made them only in his closet upon a map of the whole world. Next to the two books that I have already mentioned, I do not know a better for you to read, and seriously reflect upon, than ‘Avis d’une Mere d’un Fils, par la Marquise de Lambert’. She was a woman of a superior understanding and knowledge of the world, had always kept the best company, was solicitous that her son should make a figure and a fortune in the world, and knew better than anybody how to point out the means. It is very short, and will take you much less time to read, than you ought to employ in reflecting upon it, after you have read it. Her son was in the army, she wished he might rise there; but she well knew, that, in order to rise, he must first please: she says to him, therefore, With regard to those upon whom you depend, the chief merit is to please. And, in another place, in subaltern employments, the art of pleasing must be your support. Masters are like mistresses: whatever services they may be indebted to you for, they cease to love when you cease to be agreeable. This, I can assure you, is at least as true in courts as in camps, and possibly more so. If to your merit and knowledge you add the art of pleasing, you may very probably come in time to be Secretary of State; but, take my word for it, twice your merit and knowledge, without the art of pleasing, would, at most, raise you to the IMPORTANT POST of Resident at Hamburgh or Ratisbon. I need not tell you now, for I often have, and your own discernment must have told you, of what numberless little ingredients that art of pleasing is compounded, and how the want of the least of them lowers the whole; but the principal ingredient is, undoubtedly, ‘la douceur dans le manieres’: nothing will give you this more than keeping company with your superiors. Madame Lambert tells her son, Let your connections be with people above you; by that means you will acquire a habit of respect and politeness. With one’s equals, one is apt to become negligent, and the mind grows torpid. She advises him, too, to frequent those people, and to see their inside; In order to judge of men, one must be intimately connected; thus you see them without, a veil, and with their mere every-day merit. A happy expression! It was for this reason that I have so often advised you to establish and domesticate yourself, wherever you can, in good houses of people above you, that you may see their EVERY-DAY character, manners, habits, etc. One must see people undressed to judge truly of their shape; when they are dressed to go abroad, their clothes are contrived to conceal, or at least palliate the defects of it: as full-bottomed wigs were contrived for the Duke of Burgundy, to conceal his hump back. Happy those who have no faults to disguise, nor weaknesses to conceal! there are few, if any such; but unhappy those who know little enough of the world to judge by outward appearances. Courts are the best keys to characters; there every passion is busy, every art exerted, every character analyzed; jealousy, ever watchful, not only discovers, but exposes, the mysteries of the trade, so that even bystanders ‘y apprennent a deviner’. There too the great art of pleasing is practiced, taught, and learned with all its graces and delicacies. It is the first thing needful there: It is the absolutely necessary harbinger of merit and talents, let them be ever so great. There is no advancing a step without it. Let misanthropes and would-be philosophers declaim as much as they please against the vices, the simulation, and dissimulation of courts; those invectives are always the result of ignorance, ill-humor, or envy. Let them show me a cottage, where there are not the same vices of which they accuse courts; with this difference only, that in a cottage they appear in their native deformity, and that in courts, manners and good-breeding make them less shocking, and blunt their edge. No, be convinced that the good-breeding, the ‘tournure, la douceur dans les manieres’, which alone are to be acquired at courts, are not the showish trifles only which some people call or think them; they are a solid good; they prevent a great deal of real mischief; they create, adorn, and strengthen friendships; they keep hatred within bounds; they promote good-humor and good-will in families, where the want of good-breeding and gentleness of manners is commonly the original cause of discord. Get then, before it is too late, a habit of these ‘mitiores virtutes’: practice them upon every the least occasion, that they may be easy and familiar to you upon the greatest; for they lose a great degree of their merit if they seem labored, and only called in upon extraordinary occasions. I tell you truly, this is now the only doubtful part of your character with me; and it is for that reason that I dwell upon it so much, and inculcate it so often. I shall soon see whether this doubt of mine is founded; or rather I hope I shall soon see that it is not.
This moment I receive your letter of the 9th N. S. I am sorry to find that you have had, though ever so slight a return of your Carniolan disorder; and I hope your conclusion will prove a true one, and that this will be the last. I will send the mohairs by the first opportunity. As for the pictures, I am already so full, that I am resolved not to buy one more, unless by great accident I should meet with something surprisingly good, and as surprisingly cheap.
I should have thought that Lord———-, at his age, and with his parts and address, need not have been reduced to keep an opera w—-e, in such a place as Paris, where so many women of fashion generously serve as volunteers. I am still more sorry that he is in love with her; for that will take him out of good company, and sink him into bad; such as fiddlers, pipers, and ‘id genus omne’; most unedifying and unbecoming company for a man of fashion!
Lady Chesterfield makes you a thousand compliments. Adieu, my dear child.