第222章 LETTER CXLV(2)

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 Idwell 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.