INTRODUCTION O.S. and N.S. On consultation with several specialists, I have learned that the abbreviations O.S. and N.S. relate to the difference between the old Julian calendar used in England and the Gregorian calendar which was the standard in Europe. In the mid-eighteenth century it is said that this once amounted to a difference of eleven days. To keep track of the chronology of letters back and forth from England to France or other countries in mainland Europe, Chesterfield inserted in dates the designation O.S. Old Style and N.S. New Style, D.W. SPECIAL INTRODUCTION The proud Lord Chesterfield would have turned in his grave had he known that he was to go down to posterity as a teacher and preacher of the Gospel not of grace, but the graces the graces the graces, natural gifts, social status, open opportunities, and his ambition all conspired to destined him for high statesmanship. If anything was lacking in his qualifications he had the pluck and good sense to work hard and persistently until the deficiency was made up. Something remained lacking and not all his consummate mastery of arts could conceal that conspicuous want, the want of heart. Preacher and preacher he assuredly is, and long will be, yet no thanks are due from a posterity of the common people whom he so sublimely despised. His pious mission was not to raise the level of the multitude, but to lift a single individual upon a pedestal so high that his lowly origin should not betray itself. That individual was his, Lord Chesterfield's illegitimate son, whose inferior blood should be given the true blue hue by concentrating upon him all the externals of aristocratic education. Never had pupil so devoted, persistent, lavish, and brilliant a guide, philosopher, and friend, for the parental relation was shrewdly merged in these. Never were devotion and uphill struggle against doubts of success more bitterly repaid. Philip's stand-hope was born in 1732, when his father was thirty-eight. He readily absorbed enough the solids of the ideal education supplied him, but by perversity of fate he cared not a fig for the graces, the graces, the graces, which his father so wisely deemed by far the superior qualities to be cultivated by the budding courtier and statesmen. A few years of minor services to his country were rendered, though Chesterfield was breaking his substitute for a heart, because his son could not or would not play the superfine gentleman, on the paternal model, and then came the news of his death, when only thirty-six. What was a still greater shock to the lordly father, now deaf, gouty, fretful, and at outs with the world, his informant reported that she had been secretly married for several years to young hopeful, and was left penniless with two boys. Lord Chesterfield was above all things a practical philosopher, as hard and as exquisitely rounded and polished as a granite column. He accepted the vanishing of his life-long dream with the admirable solidity of a fatalist, and in those last days of his radically artificial life he disclosed a welcome tenderness, a touch of the divine, none the less so for being common duty, shown in the few brief letters to his son's widow and to our boys. This and his enviable gift of being able to view the downs as well as the ups of life in the consoling, humorous light must modify the sterner judgment so easily passed upon his characteristic inculcation, if not practice of heartlessness. The thirteenth-century mother-church in the town from which Lord Chesterfield's title came has a peculiar steeple, graceful in its lines, but it points a skew from whatever corner it is seen. The writer of these letters, which he never dreamed would be published, is the best self-portrayed gentleman in literature. In everything he was naturally a stylist, perfected by assiduous art, yet the graceful steeple somehow warped out of the beauty of the perpendicular. His ideal gentleman is the frigid product of a rigid mechanical drill, with the mean of a posture-master, the skin-deep graciousness of a French marachel, the calculating adventurer who cuts unpretentious worthies to toady-to-society magnets, who affects the supercilious air of a shallow dandy, and cherishes the heart of a frog. True, he repeatedly insists on the obligation of truthfulness in all things, and of honor in dealing with the world. His gentleman may, nay, he must sail with the stream, gamble in moderation if it is the fashion, must stoop to wear ridiculous clothes and ornaments if they are the mode, though despising his weakness, all to himself, and no true gentleman could afford to keep out of the little gallantries which so effectively advertised him as a man of spirit and charm. Those repeated injunctions of honor are to be the rule, subject to these exceptions, which transcend the common proprieties when the subject is the rising young gentleman of the period, and his goal social success. If an undercurrent of shady morality is traceable in this Chesterfieldian philosophy, it must, of course, be explained away by the less perfect moral standard of his period, as compared with that of our day. Whether this holds strictly true of men may be open to discussion, but his lordship's worldly instructions as to the utility of women as stepping-stones to favor in high places are equally at variance with the principles he so impressively inculcates, and with modern conceptions of social honor. The externals of good breeding cannot be overestimated, if honestly come by, nor is it necessary to examine too deeply into the prime motives of those who urge them upon a generation in whose eyes matter is more important than manner. Superficial refinement is better than none, but the Chesterfield pulpit cannot afford to shirk the duty of proclaiming loud and far that the only courtesy worthy of respect is that of the politest du coeur, the politeness of the heart, which finds expression in consideration for others as the ruling principle of conduct. This mitigates to some extent against the assumption of fine heirs without the backing of fine behavior, and if it tends to discourage the effort to use others for selfish ends, it nevertheless pays better in the long run. Chesterfield's frankness in so many confessions of sharp practice almost merits his canonization as a minor saint of society. Dr. Johnson has indeed placed him on a Simeon Stylitz pillar, an immortality of penance from which no good member of the Writers Guild is likely to pray his deliverance. He commends the fine art and high science of dissimilation, with the gusto of an apostle and the authority of an expert. Dissimulate, but do not simulate. Disguise your real sentiments, but do not falsify them.  When new or stale gossip is brought to you, never let on that you know it already, nor that it really interests you. The reading of these letters is better than hearing the average comedy, in which the wit of a single sentence of Chesterfield suffices to carry and act. His Man of the World philosophy is as old as the proverbs of Solomon, but will always be fresh and true, and enjoyable at any age, thanks to his pithy expression, his unfailing common sense, his sparkling wit, and charming humor. This latter gift shows in the seeming lapses from his rigid rule requiring absolute elegance of expression at all times, when an unexpected coarseness, in some provincial colloquialism, crops out with picturesque force. The beau-ideal of superfineness occasionally enjoys the bliss of harking back to mother English. Above all the defects that can be charged against the letters, there rises the substantial merit of an honest effort to exalt the gentle and woman and man, above the merely gentile. He that is gentile doeth gentile deeds, runs the medieval saying, which marks the distinction between the genuine and the sham in behavior. A later age had it thus, handsome is as handsome does. And in this larger sense we have agreed to accept the motto of William of Wickham, which declares that manners maketh man. Oliver H. G. Lee. Section 1 of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. 1746 to 1747. Letter 1. Bath. October 9. Old Style. 1746. Dear Boy.  And if one had a mind to moralize, one might call them the samples of the accidents, rubs, and difficulties which every man meets with in his journey through life. In this journey the understanding is the voiture that must carry you through, and in proportion, as that is stronger or weaker, more or less in repair, your journey will be better or worse. Though at best you will now and then find some bad roads and some bad ins. Take care, therefore, to keep that necessary voiture in perfect good repair. Examine, improve, and strengthen it every day. It is in the power and ought to be the care of every man to do it. He that neglects it deserves to feel, and certainly will feel, the fatal effects of that negligence. Apropos of negligence, I must say something to you upon that subject. You know I have often told you that my affection for you was not a weak, womanish one, and far from blinding me it makes me but more quick-sided as to your faults. Those it is not only my right but my duty to tell you of, and it is your duty and your interest to correct them. In the strict scrutiny which I have made into you, I have, thank God, hitherto not discovered any vice of the heart, or any peculiar weakness of the head. But I have discovered laziness, inattention, and indifference, faults which are only pardonable in old men, who in the decline of life, when health and spirits fail, have a kind of claim to that sort of tranquility. But a young man should be ambitious to shine and excel, alert, active, and indefatagable in the means of doing it, like Caesar, Neil Actum Reputans, Sid Quid Suppressant Agendum. You seem to want that vivida vis animi, which spurs and excites most young men to please, to shine, to excel. Without the desire and the pains necessary to be considerable, depend upon it, you can never be so. As without the desire and attention necessary to please, you can never please. Nulom numen abist, si sit prudentia, is unquestionably true, with regard to everything except poetry. And I am very sure that any man of common understanding may, by proper culture, care, attention, and labor, make himself whatever he pleases, except a good poet. Your destination is the great and busy world. Your immediate object is the affairs, the interests, and the history, the constitutions, the customs, and manners of the several parts of Europe. In this any man of common sense may, by common application, be sure to excel. Ancient and modern history are, by attention, easily attainable. Geography and chronology the same, none of them requiring any uncommon share of genius or invention. Speaking and writing, clearly, correctly, and with ease and grace, are certainly to be acquired, by reading the best authors with care, and by attention to the best living models.  Because, as you have the means in your hands, it will be your own fault only. If care and application are necessary to the acquiring of those qualifications, without which you can never be considerable, nor make a figure in the world, there are not less necessary with regard to the lesser accomplishments, which are requisite to make you agreeable and pleasing in society. In truth, whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well, and nothing can be done well without attention. I therefore carry the necessity of attention down to the lowest things, even to dancing and dress. Custom has made dancing sometimes necessary for a young man. Therefore, mind it while you learn it that you may learn to do it well and not be ridiculous, so in a ridiculous act. Dress is of the same nature. You must dress. Therefore, attend to it. Not in order to rival or to excel afop in it, but in order to avoid singularity, and consequently ridicule. Take great care always to be dressed like the reasonable people of your own age, in the place where you are, whose dress is never spoken of one way or another, as either too negligent or too much studied. What is commonly called an absent man is commonly either a very weak or a very effective man, but be he which he will, he is, I am sure, a very disagreeable man in company. He fails in all the common offices of civility. He seems not to know those people to-day whom yesterday he appeared to live in intimacy with. He takes no part in the general conversation, but on the contrary, breaks into it from time to time with some start of his own, as if he waked from a dream. This, as I said before, is a sure indication, either of a mind so weak that it is not able to bear above one object at a time, or so affected, that it would be supposed to be wholly engrossed by, and directed to, some very great and important objects. Sir Isaac Newton, Mr. Locke, and it may be, five or six more, since the creation of the world, may have had a right to absence, from that intense thought which the things they were investigating required. But if a young man, and a man of the world, who has no such avocations to plead, will claim and exercise that right of absence in company, his pretended right should, in my mind, be turned into an involuntary absence by his perpetual exclusion out of company. However frivolous a company may be, still, while you are among them, do not show them by your inattention that you think them so, but rather take their tone and conform in some degree to their weakness, instead of manifesting your contempt for them. There is nothing that people bear more impatiently or forgive less than contempt, and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult. If, therefore, you would rather please than offend, rather be well than ill-spoken of, rather be loved than hated, remember to have that constant attention about you which flatters every man's little vanity, and the want of which, by mortifying his pride, never fails to excite his resentment, or at least his ill-will. For instance, most people, I might say all people, have their weaknesses, they have their aversions and their likings, to such or such things, so that if you were to laugh at a man for his aversion to a cat or cheese, which are common antipathies, or by inattention and negligence, to let them come in his way, where you could prevent it, he would, in the first case, think himself insulted, and in the second slighted, and would remember both.  With regard to women, attention still below these are necessary, and by the custom of the world, in some measure do, according to the laws of good breeding. My long and frequent letters, which I send you, in great doubt of their success, put me in mind of certain papers, which you have very lately, and I formerly, sent up to kites, along the string, which we called messengers. Some of them the wind used to blow away, others were torn by the string, and but few of them got up and stuck to the kite. But I will content myself now, as I did then, if some of my present messengers do but stick to you. Adieu. End of Section 1. Read by Professor Heathern Bye. For more free audio books or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Section 2 of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Letter 2. Dear boy, you are by this time, I suppose, quite settled and at home at Luson.  I take it for granted that you inform yourself daily of the nature of the government and constitution of the thirteen cantons, and as I am ignorant of them myself, must apply to you for information. I know the names, but I do not know the nature of some of the most considerable offices there, such as the avoyés, the saizaniers, the bandirés, and the gros satiers. I desire therefore that you will let me know what is the particular business, department, or province of these several magistrates. But as I imagine that there may be some, though I believe no essential difference, in the governments of the several cantons, I would not give you the trouble of informing yourself of each of them, but confine my inquiries, as you may your informations, to the canton you reside in, that of Bern, which I take to be the principle one. I am not sure whether the païs devote, where you are, being a conquered country, and taken from the dukes of Savoy in the year fifteen thirty-six, has the same share in the government of the canton as the German part of it has. Pray inform yourself and me about it. I have this moment received yours from Bern of the second October news-style, and also one from Mr. Hart of the same date under Mr. Bernabies' cover. I find by the latter, and indeed I thought so before, that some of your letters and some of Mr. Hart's have not reached me. Wherefore, for the future, I desire that both he and you will direct your letters for me, to be left that she, M. Walters, a gent to S. M. Britannique, a Rotterdam, who will take care to send them to me safe. The reason why you have not received letters, either from me or from Grevenkopp, is that we directed them to Luzon, where we thought you long ago, and we thought it to no purpose to direct you upon your route, where it was little likely that our letters would meet with you. But you have, since your arrival at Luzon, I believe, found letters enough for me, and it may be more than you have read, at least with attention. I am glad that you like Switzerland so well, and I am impatient to hear how other matters go, after your settlement at Luzon. God bless you. Letter III London, December 2nd, Old Style, 1746 Dear Boy, I have not, in my present situation, his lordship was, in the year 1746, appointed one of his Majesty's Secretaries of State, time to write to you, either so much or so often as I used, while I was in a place of much more leisure and profit, but my affection for you must not be judged of by the number of my letters, and though the one lessons the other I assure you does not. I have just now received your letter of the twenty-fifth past, New Style, and by the former post, one for Mr. Hart, with both which I am very well pleased, with Mr. Hart's, for the good account which he gives me of you, with yours, for the good account which you gave me of what I desired to be informed of. Pray continue to give me further information of the form of government of the country you are now in, which I hope you will know most minutely before you leave it. The inequality of the town of Luzon seems to be very convenient in this cold weather, because going uphill and down will keep you warm. You say there is a good deal of good company. Pray, are you got into it? Have you made acquaintances and with whom? Let me know some of their names. Do you learn German yet, to read, write, and speak it? Yesterday I saw a letter from Monsieur Beauchat to a friend of mine, which gave me the greatest pleasure that I have felt this great while, because it gives so very good an account of you. Among other things which Monsieur Beauchat says to your advantage, he mentions the tender uneasiness and concern that you showed during my illness, for which, though I will say that you owe it to me, I am obliged to you, sentiments of gratitude not being universal, nor even common. As your affection for me can only proceed from your experience and conviction of my fondness for you, for talk of natural affection is talking nonsense, the only return I desire is, what it is chiefly your interest to make to me.  Adieu, and be persuaded that I shall love you extremely while you deserve it, but not one moment longer. LETTER IV London, December 9, old style, 1746 Dear boy, though I have very little time, and though I write by this post to Mr. Hart, yet I cannot send a packet to Lusanne without a word or two to yourself. I thank you for your letter of congratulation which you wrote me, not withstanding the pain it gave you. The accident that caused the pain was, I presume, owing to that degree of giddiness, of which I have sometimes taken the liberty to speak to you. The post I am now in, though the object of most people's views and desires, was in some degree inflicted upon me, and a certain concurrence of circumstances obliged me to engage in it. But I feel that to go through with it requires more strength of body and mind than I have. Were you three or four years older, you should share in my trouble, and I would have taken you into my office. But I hope you will employ these three or four years so well as to make yourself capable of being of use to me if I should continue in it so long. The reading, writing, and speaking the modern languages correctly, the knowledge of the laws of nations and the particular constitution of the empire, of history, geography, and chronology are absolutely necessary to this business for which I have always intended you. With these qualifications you may very possibly be my successor, though not my immediate one. I hope you employ your whole time, which few people do, and that you put every moment to profit of some kind or other. I call company, walking, riding, etc., employing once time, and upon proper occasions very usefully. But what I cannot forgive in anybody is sauntering and doing nothing at all, with a thing so precious as time and so irrecoverable when lost. Are you acquainted with any ladies at Lucent?  I must finish. God bless you. Letter 5 London, February 24, Old Style, 1747 Sir, in order that we may reciprocally keep up our French, which for want of practice we might forget, you will permit me to have the honor of assuring you of my respects in that language, and be so good to answer me in the same. Not that I am apprehensive of your forgetting to speak French, since it is probable that two-thirds of our daily prattle is in that language, and because, if you leave off writing French, you may perhaps neglect that grammatical purity and accurate orthography, which in other languages you excel in. And really, even in French, it is better to write well than ill. However, as this is a language very proper for sprightly gay subjects, I shall conform to that, and reserve those which are serious for English. I shall not, therefore, mention to you at present your Greek or Latin, your study of the laws of nature, or the law of nations, the rights of people or of individuals, but rather discuss the subject of your amusements and pleasures. For to say the truth, one must have some. May I be permitted to inquire of what nature yours are? Do they consist in little commercial play at cards in good company? Are they little agreeable suppers at which cheerfulness and decency are united? Or do you pay court to some fair one who requires such attentions as may be of use in contributing to polish you? Make me your confidant upon this subject. You shall not find a severe censor. On the contrary, I wish to obtain the employment of minister to your pleasures. I will point them out and even contribute to them. Many young people adopt pleasures for which they have not the least taste, only because they are called by that name. They often mistake so totally as to imagine that debauchery is pleasure. You must allow that drunkenness, which is equally destructive to body and mind, is a fine pleasure. Gaming that draws you into a thousand scrapes, leaves you penniless and gives you the air and manners of an outrageous madman, is another most exquisite pleasure, is it not? As to running after women, the consequences of that vice are only the loss of one's nose, the total destruction of health, and not infrequently the being run through the body. These you see are all trifles, yet this is the catalogue of pleasures of most of those young people, who, never reflecting themselves, adopt indiscriminately what others choose to call by the seducing name of pleasure. I am thoroughly persuaded that you will not fall into such errors, and that in the choice of your amusements you will be directed by reason, and a discerning taste. The true pleasures of gentlemen are those of the table, but within the bound of moderation, good company, that is to say people of merit, moderate play, which amuses, without any interested views, and sprightly gallant conversations with women of fashion and sense. These are the real pleasures of a gentleman, which occasion neither sickness, shame, nor repentance. Whatever exceeds them becomes low vice, brutal passion, debauchery, and insanity of mind, all of which, far from giving satisfaction, bring on dishonor and disgrace. Adieu. End of Section 2. Read by Professor Heather and Bye. For more free audio books or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Section 3 of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Letter 6. London. March 6. Old Style. 1747. Dear boy, whatever you do will always affect me, very sensibly, one way or another, and now I am most agreeably affected by two letters which I have lately seen from Luzan upon your subject, the one from Madame Saint-Germain, the other from Monsieur Pompany. They both give so good an account of you that I thought myself obliged, injustice to both of them, and to you to let you know it. Those who deserve a good character ought to have the satisfaction of knowing that they have it, both as a reward and as an encouragement. They write that you are not only decrot, but tolerably well-bred, and that the English crust of awkward bashfulness, shyness, and roughness, of which, by the by, you had your share, is pretty well rubbed off. I am most heartily glad of it, for as I have told you, those lesser talents of an engaging, insinuating manner, and easy good-breeding, agenteal behavior and address, are of infinitely more advantage than they are generally thought to be, especially here in England. Virtue and learning, like gold, have their intrinsic value, but if they are not polished, they certainly lose a great deal of their luster, and even polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold. What number of sins does the cheerful, easy good-breeding of the French frequently cover? Many of them want common sense, many more common learning, but in general they make up so much by their manner, for those defects, that frequently they pass undiscovered. I have often said, and I do think, that a Frenchman, who with a fund of virtue, learning in good sense, has the manners and good-breeding of his country, is the perfection of human nature. This perfection you may, if you please, and I hope you will, arrive at. You know what virtue is, you may have it if you will. It is in every man's power, and miserable is the man who has it not. Good sense God has given you, learning you already possess enough of, to have, in a reasonable time, all that a man need have. With this you are thrown out early into the world, where it will be your own fault if you do not acquire all the other accomplishments necessary to complete and adorn your character. You will do well to make your compliments to Madame Saint-Germain and Monsieur Pimpagnier, and tell them how sensible you are of their partiality to you. In the advantageous testimony switch, you are informed they have given of you here. Adieu! Continue to deserve such testimonies, and then you will not only deserve, but enjoy my truest affection. LETTER VII London, March 27, old-style, 1747 Dear Boy! Pleasure is the rock which most young people split upon. They launch out with crowded sails in quest of it, but without a compass to direct their course, or reason sufficient to steer the vessel, or want of which, pain and shame instead of pleasure, are the returns of their voyage. Do not think that I mean to snarl at pleasure like a stoic, or to preach against it like a parson. No, I mean to point it out, and recommend it to you, like an Epicurean. I wish you a great deal, and my only view is to hinder you from mistaking it. The character which most young men first aim at is that of a man of pleasure, but they generally take it upon trust, and instead of consulting their own taste in inclinations, they blindly adopt whatever those with whom they chiefly converse are pleased to call by the name of pleasure. And a man of pleasure in the vulgar acceptation of that phrase means only a beastly drunkard, an abandoned whoremaster, and a profligate swearer and cursor. As it may be of use to you, I am not unwilling, though at the same time ashamed to own, that the vices of my youth proceeded much more from my silly resolution of being, what I heard called a man of pleasure, than from my own inclinations. I always naturally hated drinking, and yet I have often drunk, with disgust at the time, attended by great sickness the next day, only because I then considered drinking as a necessary qualification for a fine gentleman, and a man of pleasure. The same as to gaming. I did not want money, and consequently had no occasion to play for it. But I thought play another necessary ingredient in the composition of a man of pleasure, and accordingly I plunged into it without desire at first, sacrificed a thousand real pleasures to it, and made myself solidly uneasy by it, for thirty of the best years of my life. I was even absurd enough for a little while to swear, by way of adorning and completing the shining character which I affected, but this folly I soon laid aside, upon finding both the guilt and the indecency of it. Thus seduced by fashion, and blindly adopting nominal pleasures, I lost real ones, and my fortune impaired, and my constitution shattered, are, I must confess, the just punishment of my errors. Take warning, then, by them. Choose your pleasures for yourself, and do not let them be imposed upon you. Follow nature and not fashion. Weigh the present enjoyment of your pleasures against the necessary consequences of them, and then let your own common sense determine your choice. Were I to begin the world again, with the experience which I now have of it, I would lead a life of real, not of imaginary pleasures. I would enjoy the pleasures of the table and of wine, but stop short of the pains inseparably annexed to an excess of either. I would not, at twenty years, be a preaching missionary of abstemiousness and sobriety, and I should let other people do as they would, without formally and sententiously rebuking them for it. But I would be most firmly resolved not to destroy my own faculties and constitution, in complacence to those who have no regard to their own. I would play to give me pleasure, but not to give me pain. That is, I would play for trifles in mixed companies, to amuse myself and to conform to custom. But I would take care not to venture for sums, which if I won I should not be the better for, but if I lost I should be under a difficulty to pay, and when paid would oblige me to retrench in several other articles, not to mention the quarrels which deep play commonly occasions. I would pass some of my time in reading and the rest in the company of people of sense and learning, and chiefly those above me, and I would frequent the mixed companies of men and women of fashion, which, though often frivolous, yet they unbend and refresh the mind, not uselessly, because they certainly polish and soften the manners. These would be my pleasures and amusements, if I were to live the last thirty years over again. They are rational ones, and, moreover, I will tell you, they are really the fashionable ones, for the others are not in truth the pleasures of what I call people of fashion, but of those who only call themselves so. Does good company care to have a man reeling drunk among them, or to see another tearing his hair and blaspheming for having lost at play more than he is able to pay? Or a whoremaster with half a nose and crippled by coarse and infamous debauchery? No, those who practice, and much more those who brag of them, make no part of good company, and are most unwillingly, if ever, admitted into it. A real man of fashion and pleasures observes decency, at least neither borrows nor affects vices, and if he unfortunately has any, he gratifies them with choice, delicacy, and secrecy. I have not mentioned the pleasures of the mind, which are the solid and permanent ones, because they do not come under the head of what people commonly call pleasures, which they seem to confine to the senses. The pleasure of virtue, of charity, and of learning, is true and lasting pleasure, with which I hope you will be well and long acquainted. 8 London, April 3, Old Style, 1747 Dear Boy. If I am rightly informed, I am now writing to a fine gentleman in a scarlet coat laced with gold, a brocade waistcoat, and all other suitable ornaments. The natural partiality of every author for his own works makes me very glad to hear that Mr. Hard has thought this last edition of mine worth so fine a binding, and as he has bound it in red, and guilt it upon the back, I hope he will take care that it shall be lettered, too. A showish binding attracts the eyes, and engages the attention of everybody, but with this difference, that women and men who are like women, mind the binding more than the book, whereas men of sense in learning immediately examine the inside, and if they find that it does not answer the finery on the outside, they throw it by with the greater indignation and contempt. I hope that, when this edition of my work shall be opened in red, the best judges will find connection, consistency, solidity, and spirit in it. Mr. Hardt may be recenseur and emmendaire, as much as he pleases, but it will be to little purpose if you do not cooperate with him. The work will be imperfect. I thank you for your last information of our success in the Mediterranean, and you say very rightly that a Secretary of State ought to be well informed. I hope, therefore, that you will take care that I shall. You are near the busy scene in Italy, and I doubt not but that, by frequently looking at the map, you have all that theatre of the war very perfect in your mind. I like your account of the salt works, which shows that you gave some attention while you were seeing them. But notwithstanding that, by your account, the Swiss salt is, I dare say, very good, yet I am apt to suspect that it falls a little short of the true Attic salt, in which there was a peculiar quickness and delicacy. That same Attic salt seasoned almost all Greece, except Boshia, and a great deal of it was exported afterward to Rome, where it was counterfeited by a composition called Urbanity, which in some time was brought to very near the perfection of the original Attic salt. The more you are powdered with these two kinds of salt, the better you will keep, and the more you will be relished. Adjou, my compliments to Mr. Hart and Mr. Elliot. LETTER IX London, April 14, old style, 1747 DEAR BOY If you feel half the pleasure from the consciousness of doing well, that I do, from the informations I have lately received in your favour for Mr. Hart, I shall have little occasion to exhort or admonish you any more to do what your own satisfaction and self-love will sufficiently prompt you to. Mr. Hart tells me that you attend, and that you apply to your studies, and that beginning to understand you begin to taste them. This pleasure will increase and keep pace with your attention, so that the balance will be greatly to your advantage. You may remember that I have always earnestly recommended to you to do what you are about, be that what it will, and to do nothing else at the same time. Do not imagine that I mean by this that you should attend to and plot at your book all day long, far from it. I mean that you should have your pleasures, too, and that you should attend to them for the time as much as to your studies, and if you do not attend equally to both, you will neither have improvement nor satisfaction from either. A man is fit for neither business nor pleasure, who either cannot or does not command and direct his attention to the present object, and in some degree, banish for that time all other objects from his thoughts. If at a ball, a supper, or a party of pleasure, a man were to be solving, in his own mind, a problem in Euclid, he would be a very bad companion, and make a very poor figure in that company. Or if, in studying a problem in his closet, he were to think of a minuet, I am apt to believe that he would make a very poor mathematician. There is time enough for everything, in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once. But there is not time enough in the year if you will do two things at a time. The pensionary, DeWitt, who was torn to pieces in the year 1672, did the whole business of the Republic, and yet had time to go to assemblies in the evening and sup in company. Being asked how he could possibly find time to go through so much business, and yet amuse himself in the evenings as he did, he answered, there was nothing so easy, for that it was only doing one thing at a time and never putting off anything till to-morrow that could be done to-day. This steady and undissipated attention to one object is a sure mark of a superior genius, as hurry, bustle, and agitation are the never-failing symptoms of a weak and frivolous mind. When you read Horace, attend to the justness of his thoughts, the happiness of his diction, and the beauty of his poetry, and do not think of Puffendorf de Hominé, El-Siou, and when you are reading Puffendorf, do not think of Madame de Saint Jumein, nor of Puffendorf when you are talking to Madame de Saint Jumein. Mr.  I shall grud you nothing, nor shall you want anything that you desire, provided you deserve it. So that, you see, it is in your own power to have whatever you please. There is a little book which you read here with Monsieur Cordaire, entitled Manière de bien penser dans l'ouvrage d'espérée, written by Pierre Bonheur. I wish you would read this book again at your leisure hours, for it will not only divert you, but likewise form your taste, and give you a just manner of thinking. Adieu. Letter 10. London, June 30, old style, 1747. Dear boy, I was extremely pleased with the account which you gave me in your last, of the civilities that you received in your Swiss progress, and I have written by this post to Mr. Burnaby, and to the avoyer, to thank them for their parts. If the attention you met with pleased you, as I dare say it did, you will, I hope, draw this general conclusion from it, that attention and civility please all those to whom they are paid, and that you will please others in proportion as you are attentive and civil to them. Bishop Burnett has wrote his travels through Switzerland, and Mr. Stanyan, from a long residence there, has written the best account yet extant of the thirteen cantons. But those books will be read no more, I presume, after you shall have published your account of that country. I hope you will favour me with one of the first copies. To be serious, though I do not desire that you should immediately turn author and oblige the world with your travels, yet wherever you go I would have you as curious and inquisitive as if you did intend to write them. I do not mean that you should give yourself so much trouble to know the number of houses, inhabitants, signposts, and tombstones of every town that you go through, but that you should inform yourself, as well as your stay will permit you, whether the town is free, or to whom it belongs, or in what manner, whether it has any peculiar privileges or customs, what trade or manufactures, and other such particulars as people of sense desire to know. And there would be no manner of harm if you were to take memorandums of such things in a paper book to help your memory. The only way of knowing all these things is to keep the best company, who can best inform you of them. I am just now called away, so good night. LETTER XI. London, July 20th, old style, 1747 DEAR BOY. In your mamma's letter, which goes here enclosed, you will find one from my sister, to thank you for the arc-busade water which you sent her and which she takes very kindly. She would not show me her letter to you, but told me that it contained good wishes and good advice. And as I know she will show your letter in answer to hers, I send you here enclosed the draft of the letter which I would have you write to her. I hope you will not be offended at my offering you my assistance upon this occasion, because I presume that as yet you are not much used to write to ladies. I propose of letter writing the best models that you can form yourself upon are Cicero, Cardinal Dossat, Madame Savigne, and Comte Bussis Rebutin. Cicero's epistles to Atticus and to his familiar friends are the best examples that you can imitate, in the friendly and in the familiar style. The simplicity and the clearness of Cardinal Dossat's letters show how letters of business ought to be written. No affected turns, no attempts at wit, obscure or perplexus matter, which is always plainly and clearly stated, as business always should be. For gay and amusing letters, for enjoyment and badinage, there are none that equal Comte Bussis and Madame Savigne. They are so unnatural that they seem to be the extempore conversations of two people of wit, rather than letters which are commonly studied, though they ought not to be so. I would advise you to let that book be one in your itinerant library. It will both amuse and inform you. I have not time to add any more now, so good night. Letter 12 London, July 30, Old Style, 1747 Dear Boy It is now four posts since I have received any letter, either from you or from Mr. Hart. I impute this to the rapidity of your travels through Switzerland, which I suppose are by this time finished. You will have found by my late letters, both to you and Mr. Hart, that you are to be at Leipzig by next Mikkelmus, where you will be lodged in the house of Professor Mascow, and boarded in the neighborhood of it, with some young men of fashion. The Professor will read you letters upon Grosius de Jure Belli et Passis, the Institutes of Justinian, and the Juice Publicum Imperie, which I expect that you shall not only hear but attend to and retain. I also expect that you make yourself perfectly master of the German language, which you may very soon do there, if you please. I give you fair warning that at Leipzig I shall have an hundred invisible spies about you, and shall be exactly informed of everything that you do, and of almost everything that you say. I hope that, in consequence of those minute informations, I may be able to say of you what Velius Patrykoulis says of Scipio, that in his whole life nihil nonladenum octixit, octfesit octsensit. There is a great deal of good company in Leipzig which I would have you frequent in the evenings, when the studies of the day are over. There is likewise a kind of court kept there by a Duchess Dowager of Corland, at which you should get introduced. The King of Poland and his court go likewise to the fair at Leipzig twice a year, and I shall write to Sir Charles Williams, the King's minister there, to have you presented and introduced into good company. But I must remind you at the same time that it will be to a very little purpose for you to frequent good company, if you do not conform to and learn their manners, if you are not attentive to pleas and well-bred with the easiness of a man of fashion. As you must attend to your manners, so you must not neglect your person, but take care to be very clean, well-dressed and gentile, to have no disagreeable attitudes, nor awkward tricks, which many people use themselves to, and then cannot leave them off. Do you take care to keep your teeth very clean by washing them constantly every morning and after every meal? This is very necessary, both to preserve your teeth a great while and to save you a great deal of pain. Mine have plagued me long and are now falling out, merely from want of care when I was your age. Do you dress well and not too well? Do you consider your air and manner of presenting yourself enough and not too much? Neither negligent nor stiff? All these things deserve a great deal of care, a second rate of tension. They give an additional luster to real merit. My Lord Bacon says that a pleasing figure is a perpetual letter of recommendation. It is certainly an agreeable forerunner of merit, and smooths the way for it. Remember that I shall see you at hen over next summer, and shall expect perfection, which if I do not meet with, or at least something very near it, you and I shall not be very well together. I shall dissect and analyze you with a microscope, so that I shall discover the least speck or blemish. This is fair warning. Therefore, take your measures accordingly. Yours. Letter 13, London, August 21st, Old Style, 1747 Dear Boy, I reckon that this letter has but a bare chance of finding you at Lucent, but I was resolved to risk it, as it is the last I shall write to you till you are settled at Leipzig. I sent you by the last post, undercover to Mr. Hart, a letter of recommendation to one of the first people at Munich, which you will take care to present to him in the politest manner. He will certainly have you presented to the electoral family, and I hope you will go through that ceremony with great respect, good-breeding and ease. As this is the first court that ever you will have been at, take care to inform yourself if there be any particular customs or forms to be observed, that you may not commit any mistake. At Vienna men always make curtsies instead of bows, to the emperor. In France nobody bows at all to the king, nor kisses his hand, but in Spain and England bows are made and hands are kissed. Thus every court has some peculiarity or other, of which those who go to them ought previously to inform themselves, to avoid blunders and awkwardnesses. I have not time to say any more now, than to wish you good journey to Leipzig, and great attention, both there and in going there. Adieu. I received, by the last post, your letter of the Eighth, new style, and I do not wonder that you are surprised at the credulity and superstition of the papest at Ein Seideland, and at their absurd stories of their chapel. But remember at the same time that errors and mistakes, however gross, in matters of opinion, if they are sincere, are to be pitied, but not punished, nor laughed at. The blindness of the understanding is as much to be pitied as the blindness of the eye, and there is neither jest nor guilt in a man's losing his way in either case. Charity bids us set him right, if we can, by arguments and persuasions, but charity at the same time forbids either to punish or ridicule his misfortune. Every man's reason is, and must be, his guide, and I may as well expect that every man should be of my size and complexion as that he should reason just as I do. Every man seeks for truth, but God only knows who has found it. It is, therefore, as unjust to persecute as it is absurd to ridicule, people, for those several opinions, which they cannot help entertaining upon the conviction of their reason.  I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity, and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views, for lies are always detected sooner or later. If I tell a malicious lie in order to affect any man's fortune or character, I may indeed injure him for some time, but I shall be sure to be the greatest sufferer myself at last, for as soon as I am ever detected, and detected I most certainly shall be, I am blasted for the infamous attempt, and whatever is said afterward to the disadvantage of that person, however true, passes for Calumny. If I lie or equivocate, for it is the same thing, in order to excuse myself for something that I have said or done, and to avoid the danger and the shame that I apprehend from it, I discover at once my fear as well as my falsehood, and only increase instead of avoiding the danger and the shame. I show myself to be the lowest and the meanest of mankind, and am sure to be always treated as such. Fear, instead of avoiding, invites danger, for concealing cowards will insult known ones. If one has them as fortune to be in the wrong, there is something noble in frankly owning it. It is the only way of atoning for it, and the only way of being forgiven. Equivocating, evading, shuffling, in order to remove a present danger or inconvenience is something so mean and betrays so much fear that whoever practices them always deserves to be, and often will be, kicked. There is another sort of lies, inoffensive enough in themselves, but wonderfully ridiculous. I mean those lies which a mistaken vanity suggests, that defeat the very end for which they are calculated, and terminate in the humiliation and confusion of their author, who is sure to be detected. These are chiefly narrative and historical lies, all intended to do infinite honour to their author. He is always the hero of his own romances. He has been in dangers from which nobody but himself ever escaped.  He has had more bon fortune than ever he knew women, and has ridden more miles post in one day than ever courier went into.  Remember, then, as long as you live, that nothing but strict truth can carry you through the world, with either your conscience or your honour unwounded. It is not only your duty but your interest, as a proof of which you may always observe that the greatest fools are the greatest liars. For my own part I judge of every man's truth by his degree of understanding. This letter will, I suppose, find you at Leipzig, where I expect and require from you attention and accuracy, in both which you have hitherto been very deficient. Remember that I shall see you in the summer, shall examine you most narrowly, and will never forget nor forgive those faults, which it has been in your own power to prevent or cure.  Adieu. LONDON, OCTOBER SECOND, OLD STYLE, 1747 DEAR BOY! By your letter of the eighteenth past, new style, I find that you are a tolerably good landscape painter, and can present the several views of Switzerland to the curious. I am very glad of it, as it is a proof of some attention, but I hope you will be as good a portrait painter, which is a much more noble science. By portraits you will easily judge that I do not mean the outlines and the colouring of the human figure, but the inside of the heart and mind of man. This science requires more attention, observation, and penetration than the other, as indeed it is infinitely more useful. Search, therefore, with the greatest care, into the characters of those whom you converse with. Endeavour to discover their predominant passions, their prevailing weaknesses, their vanities, their follies, and their humours, with all the right and wrong, wise and silly springs of human actions, which make such inconsistent and whimsical beings of us rational creatures. A moderate share of penetration, with great attention, will infallibly make these necessary discoveries. This is the true knowledge of the world, and the world is a country which nobody ever yet knew by description. One must travel through it oneself to be acquainted with it. The scholar, who in the dust of his closet talks or writes of the world, knows no more of it, than that orator of war did, who judiciously endeavoured to instruct Hannibal in it. Courts and camps are the only places to learn the world in. There alone all kinds of characters resort, and human nature is seen in all the various shapes and modes, which education, custom, and habit give it. Whereas in all other places, one local mode generally prevails, and producing a seeming, though not a real sameness of character. For example, one general mode distinguishes and university, another a trading town, a third a seaport town, and so on. Whereas at a capital, where the prince or the supreme power resides, some of all these various modes are to be seen and seen in action too, exerting their utmost skill in pursuit of their several objects. Human nature is the same all over the world, but its operations are so varied by education and habit, that one must see it in all its stresses in order to be intimately acquainted with it. The passion of ambition, for instance, is the same in a courtier, a soldier, or an ecclesiastic, but from their different educations and habits they will take very different methods to gratify it. Civility, which is a disposition to accommodate and oblige others, is essentially the same in every country, but good breeding, as it is called, which is the manner of exerting that disposition, is different in almost every country, and merely local. And every man of sense imitates and conforms to that local good-breeding of the place which he is at. A conformity and flexibility of manners is necessary in the course of the world, that is, with regard to all things which are not wrong in themselves. The versatile ingenium is the most useful of all. It can turn itself instantly from one object to another, assuming the proper manner for each. It can be serious with the grave, cheerful with the gay, and trifling with the frivolous. Endeavor by all means to acquire this talent, for it is a very great one. As I hardly know anything more useful than to see from time to time pictures of one self drawn by different hands, I send you here a sketch of yourself, drawn at Le Saint, while you were there, and sent over here by a person who little thought that it would ever fall into my hands, and indeed it was by the greatest accident in the world that it did. LONDON, October 9, old style, 1747. Dear boy, people of your age have, commonly, an unguarded frankness about them, which makes them the easy prey and bubbles of the world. They look upon every nave or fool who tells them that he is their friend, to be really so, and pay that profession of simulated friendship with an indiscreet and unbounded confidence, always to their loss, often to their ruin. Beware, therefore, now that you are coming into the world of these preferred friendships. Receive them with great civility, but with great incredulity, too, and pay them with compliments, but not with confidence. Do not let your vanity and self-love make you suppose that people become your friends at first sight, or even upon a short acquaintance. Real friendship is a slow grower, and never thrives unless engrafted upon a stock of known and reciprocal merit. There is another kind of nominal friendship among young people, which is warm for the time, but by good luck of short duration. This friendship is hastily produced, by their being accidentally thrown together, and pursuing the course of riot and debauchery. A fine friendship, truly, and well cemented by drunkenness and lewdness. It should rather be called a conspiracy against morals and good manners, and be punished as such by the civil magistrate. However, they have the impudence and folly to call this confederacy a friendship. They lend one another money for bad purposes, they engage in quarrels, offensive and defensive for their accomplices, they tell one another all they know, and often more too, when of a sudden some accident disperses them, and they think no more of each other, unless it be to betray and laugh at their imprudent confidence. Remember to make a great difference between companions and friends, for a very complacent and agreeable companion may, and often does, prove a very improper and a very dangerous friend. People will, in a great degree, and not without reason, form their opinion of you, upon that which they have of your friends, and there is a Spanish proverb which says very justly, tell me who you live with, and I will tell you who you are. One may fairly suppose, then, that the man who makes a knave or fool his friend has something very bad to do or to conceal. But at the same time that you carefully decline the friendship of knaves and fools, if it can be called friendship, there is no occasion to make either of them your enemies, wantonly and unprovoked, for they are numerous bodies, and I would rather choose a secure neutrality than alliance or war with either of them. You may be a declared enemy to their vices and follies, without being marked out by them as a personal one. Their enmity is the next dangerous thing to their friendship. Have a real reserve with almost everybody, and have a seeming reserve with almost nobody, for it is very disagreeable to seem reserved, and very dangerous not to be so. Few people find the true medium. Many are ridiculously mysterious and reserved upon trifles, and many imprudently communicative of all they know. The next thing to the choice of your friends is the choice of your company. Endeavour as much as you can to keep company with people above you. There you rise as much as you sink with people below you. For as I have mentioned before, you are whatever the company you keep is. Do not mistake, when I say company above you and think that I mean with regard to their birth, that is the least consideration, but I mean with regard to their merit, and the light in which the world considers them. There are two sorts of good company, one which is called the Beaumont, and consists of the people who have the lead in courts and in the gay parts of life. The other consists of those who are distinguished by some peculiar merit, or who excel in some particular invaluable art or science. For my own part, I used to think myself and company as much above me when I was with Mr. Addison and Mr. Pope as if I had been with all the princes in Europe. What I mean by low company, which should by all means be avoided, is the company of those who, absolutely insignificant and contemptible in themselves, think they are honored by being in your company, and who flatter every vice and every folly you have in order to engage you to converse with them. The pride of being the first of the company is but too common, but it is very silly and very prejudicial. Nothing in the world lets down a character quicker than that wrong turn. You may probably ask me whether a man has it always in his power to get the best company, and how. I say yes he has by deserving it, providing he is but in circumstances which enable him to appear upon the footing of a gentleman. Merit and good breeding will make their way everywhere. Knowledge will introduce him, and good breeding will endear him to the best companies. For as I have often told you, politeness and good breeding are absolutely necessary to adorn any or all other good qualities and talents. Without them, no knowledge, no perfection whatever, is seen in its best light. The scholar, without good breeding, is a pedant, the philosopher, a cynic, the soldier, a brute, and every man disagreeable. I long to hear from my several correspondents at Leipzig of your arrival there and what impression you make on them at first, for I have arguses with a hundred eyes each who will watch you narrowly and relate to me faithfully. My accounts will certainly be true.  Adjou. End of Section 7. Read by Professor Heather Mby. For more free audiobooks or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Section 8 of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Letter 17. London. October 16th. Old Style. 1747. Dear Boy. The art of pleasing is a very necessary one to possess, but a very difficult one to acquire. It can hardly be reduced to rules, and your own good sense and observation will teach you more of it than I can. Do as you would be done by is the surest method that I know of pleasing. Observe carefully what pleases you in others, and probably the same thing in you will please others. If you are pleased with the complacence and attention of others to your humours, your tastes, or your weaknesses, depend upon it the same complacence and attention on your part to theirs, will equally please them. Take the tone of the company that you are in, and do not pretend to give it. Be serious, gay, or even trifling as you find the present humour of the company. This is an attention due from every individual to the majority. Do not tell stories in company. There is nothing more tedious and disagreeable. If by chance you know a very short story, and exceedingly applicable to the present subject of conversation, tell it in as few words as possible. And even then, throw out that you do not love to tell stories, but that the shortness of it tempted you. Of all things, banish egotism out of your conversation, and never think of entertaining people with your own personal concerns, or private affairs. Though they are interesting to you, they are tedious and impertinent to everybody else. Besides that, one cannot keep one's own private affairs too secret. Whatever you think your own excellencies may be, do not effectively display them in company, nor labour as many people do, to give that turn to the conversation, which may supply you with an opportunity of exhibiting them. If they are real, they will infallibly be discovered, without your pointing them out yourself, and with much more advantage. Never maintain an argument with heat and clamour, though you think or know yourself to be in the right. But give your opinion modestly and coolly, which is the only way to convince. And if that does not do, try to change the conversation by saying, with good humour, we shall hardly convince one another, nor is it necessary that we should, so let us talk of something else. Remember that there is a local propriety to be observed in all companies, and that what is extremely proper in one company may be, and often is, highly improper in another. The jokes, the bonmots, the little adventures, which may do very well in one company, will seem flat and tedious when related in another. The particular characters, the habits, the cant of one company, may give merit to a word or a gesture, which would have none at all if divested of those accidental circumstances. Hear people very commonly err, and fond of something that has entertained them in one company, and in certain circumstances, repeat it with emphasis in another, where it is either insipid, or it may be offensive, by being ill-timed or misplaced. Nay, they will often do it with this silly preamble. I will tell you an excellent thing, or I will tell you the best thing in the world.  If you would particularly gain the affection and friendship of particular people, whether men or women, endeavour to find out the predominant excellency, if they have one, and their prevailing weaknesses, which everybody has. And do justice to the one, and something more than justice to the other. Men have various objects in which they may excel, or at least would be thought to excel, and though they love to hear justice done to them, where they know that they excel, yet they are most and best flattered upon those points where they wish to excel, and yet are doubtful whether they do or not. As, for example, Cardinal Richelieu, who was undoubtedly the ablest statesman of his time, or perhaps of any other, had the idle vanity of being thought to be the best poet, too, he envied the great Cornel, his reputation, and ordered a criticism to be written upon the Sid. Those, therefore, who flattered skillfully said little to him of his abilities in state affairs, or at least but ampeissant, and as it might naturally occur. But the instance which they gave him, the smoke of which they knew would turn his head in their favour, was as a belle esprit and a poet. Why? Because he was sure of one excellency and distrustful as to the other. You will easily discover every man's prevailing vanity by observing his favourite topic of conversation, for every man talks most of what he has most a mind to be thought to excel in. Touch him but there, and you touch him to the quick. The late Sir Robert Walpole, who was certainly an able man, was little open to flattery upon that head, for he was in no doubt himself about it. But his prevailing weakness was to be thought to have a polite and happy turn to gallantry, of which he had undoubtedly less than any man living. It was his favourite and frequent subject of conversation, which proved, to those who had any penetration, that it was his prevailing weakness, and they applied to it with success. Women have in general but one object which is their beauty, upon which scarce any flattery is too gross for them to swallow.  If her face is so shocking, that she must in some degree be conscious of it, her figure and her air she trusts make ample amends for it. If her figure is deformed, her face, she thinks, counterbalances it. If they are both bad, she comforts herself that she has graces, a certain matter, a je ne sais quoi, still more engaging than beauty. This truth is evident from the studied and elaborate dress of the ugliest women in the world. An undoubted, uncontested, conscious beauty is of all women the least sensible to flattery upon that head. She knows that it is her do, and is therefore obliged to nobody forgiving at her. She must be flattered upon her understanding, which though she may possibly not doubt of herself, yet she suspects that men may distrust. Do not mistake me and think that I mean to recommend to you abject and criminal flattery. No, flatter nobody's vices or crimes. On the contrary, abhor and discourage them. But there is no living in the world without a complacent indulgence for people's weaknesses, and innocent though ridiculous vanities. If a man has a mind to be thought wiser, and a woman handsomer than they really are, their error is a comfortable one to themselves, and an innocent one with regard to other people, and I would rather make them my friends by indulging them in it than my enemies by endeavouring and that to no purpose to undercede them. There are little attentions likewise which are infinitely engaging, and which sensibly affect that degree of pride and self-love, which is inseparable from human nature, as they are unquestionable proofs of the regard and consideration which we have for the person to whom we pay them. As, for example, to observe the little habits, the likings, the antipathies, and the taste of those whom we would gain, and then take care to provide them with the one, and to secure from them the other, giving them genteel-y to understand that you had observed that they liked such a dish or such a room for which reason you had prepared it, or on the contrary, having observed that they had an aversion to such a dish, a dislike to such a person, etc. you had taken care to avoid presenting them. Such attention to trifles, flatters, self-love, much more than greater things, as it makes people think themselves almost the only objects of your thoughts and care. These are some of the arcana necessary for your initiation in the great society of the world. I wish I had known them better at your age. I have paid the price of three and fifty years for them, and shall not grudge it if you reap the advantage. Adieu. End of Section 8. Read by Professor Heather Mby. For more free audiobooks or to volunteer, please visit Librebox.org. Section 9 of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son. Read for Librebox.org into the public domain. Letter 18. London. October 30th. Old Style. 1747. Dear boy, I am very well pleased with your itinerarium which you sent me from Redisbonne. It shows me that you observe and inquire as you go, which is the true end of travelling. Those who travel heedlessly from place to place, observing only their distance from each other, and attending only to their accommodation at the inn at night, set out fools, and will certainly return so. Those who mind only the rary shows of the places which they go through, such as steeples, clocks, townhouses, etc., get so little by their travels that they might as well stay home. But those who observe and inquire into the situations, the strength, the weakness, the trade, the manufacturers, the government, and constitution of every place they go to, who frequent the best companies and attend to their several manners and characters, those alone travel with advantage, and as they set out wise, return wiser. I would advise you always to get the shortest description or history of every place where you make any stay, and such a book, however imperfect, will still suggest to you matter for inquiry, upon which you may get better informations from the people of the place. For example, while you are at Leipzig, get some short account, and to be sure there are many such, of the present state of the town, with regard to its magistrates, its police, its privileges, etc., and then inform yourself more minutely upon all those heads in conversation with the most intelligent people. Do the same thing afterward with regard to the electorate of Saxony. You will find a short history of it in Puffendorf's introduction, which will give you a general idea of it, and point out to you the proper objects of a more minute inquiry. In short, be curious, attentive, inquisitive, as to everything. Listlessness and indolence are always blamable, but at your age they are unpardonable. Consider how precious, and how important, for all the rest of your life are your moments for these next three or four years, and do not lose one of them. Do not think I mean that you should study all day long. I am far from advising or desiring it. But I desire that you would be doing something or other all day long, and not neglect half hours and quarters of hours, which at the year's end may amount to a great sum. For instance, there are many short intervals during the day between studies and pleasures. Instead of sitting idle and yawning in those intervals, take up any book, though ever so trifling a one, even down to a jest book. It is still better than doing nothing. Nor do I call pleasures idleness or time lost, provided they are the pleasures of a rational being. On the contrary, a certain portion of your time, employed in those pleasures, is very usefully employed. Such are public spectacles, assemblies of good company, cheerful suppers, and even balls. But then these require attention or else your time is quite lost. There are great many people who think themselves employed all day, and who, if they were to cast up their accounts at night, would find that they had done just nothing. They have read two or three hours mechanically, without attending to what they read, and consequently without either retaining it or reasoning upon it. From thence they saunter into company, without taking any part in it, and without observing the characters of the persons or the subjects of the conversation, but are either thinking of some trifle, foreign to the present purpose, or often not thinking at all, which silly and idle suspension of thought they would dignify with the name of absence and distraction. They go afterwards it may be to the play, where they gape at the company in the lights, but without minding the very thing they went to, the play. Why do you be as attentive to your pleasures as to your studies? In the latter observe and reflect upon all you read, and in the former be watchful and attentive to all that you see and hear, and never have it to say, as a thousand fools do, of things that were said and done before their faces, that truly they did not mind them because they were thinking of something else. Why were they thinking of something else? And if they were, why did they come there? The truth is that the fools were thinking of nothing. Remember the haq'aj, do what you are about, be what it will. It is either worth doing well or not at all.  Listen to everything that is said, and see everything that is done. Observe the looks and countenance of those who speak, which is often a sureer way of discovering the truth from what they say. But then keep all those observations to yourself, for your own private use, and rarely communicate them to others. Observe without being thought an observer, for otherwise people will be upon their guard before you. Consider seriously and follow carefully. I beseech you, my dear child, the advice which from time to time I have given, and shall continue to give you. It is at once the result of my long experience and the effect of my tenderness for you. I can have no interest in it but yours. You are not yet capable of wishing yourself half so well as I wish you. Follow, therefore, for a time at least, implicitly, advice which you cannot suspect, though possibly you may not yet see the particular advantages of it. But one day you will feel them. Adjou. Letter 19 Dear boy. Three males are now due from Holland, so that I have no letter from you to acknowledge. I write you, therefore, now, as usual, by way of flapper, to put you in mind of yourself. Dr. Swift, in his account of the island of Laputa, describes some philosophers there who were so wrapped up and absorbed in their true, obtuse speculations, that they would have forgotten all the common and necessary duties of life, if they had not been reminded of them by persons who flapped them, whenever they observed them continue too long in any of those learned trances. I do not indeed suspect you of being absorbed in obtuse speculations, but with great submission to you, may I not suspect that levity, inattention, and too little thinking require a flapper, as well as too deep thinking? If my letters should happen to get to you when you are sitting by the fire and doing nothing, or when you are gaping at the window, may they not be very proper flaps to put you in mind that you might employ your time much better? I knew once a very covetous, sordid fellow, who used frequently to say, take care of the pence, for the pounds will take care of themselves. This was a just and sensible reflection in a miser. I recommend to you to take care of the minutes, for hours will take care of themselves. I am very sure that many people lose two or three hours every day by not taking care of the minutes. Never think any portion of time whatsoever too short to be employed. Something or other may always be done in it. While you are in Germany, let all your historical studies be relative to Germany. Not only the general history of the empire as a collective body, but the respective electorates, principalities, and towns, and also the genealogy of the most considerable families. A genealogy is no trifle in Germany, and they would rather prove their two-and-thirty quarters than two-and-thirty cardinal virtues, if there were so many. They are not of Ulysses' opinion, who says, very truly. Genus et provos et qua non fecima sipsi vix ea nostra voco. Good night. Section 10 of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Letter 20 London, November 24, Old Style, 1747 Dear boy, as often as I write to you, and that, you know, is pretty often, so often I am in doubt whether it is to any purpose, and whether it is not labor and paper lost. This entirely depends upon the degree of reason and reflection which you are master of, or think proper to exert. If you give yourself time to think, and have sense enough to think right, two reflections must necessarily occur to you. The one is that I have a great deal of experience, and that you have none. The other is that I am the only man living who cannot have, directly or indirectly, any interest concerning you but your own. From which two undeniable principles the obvious and necessary conclusion is that you ought, for your own sake, to attend to and follow my advice. If, by the application which I recommend to you, you acquire a great knowledge, you are alone the gainer, I pay for it. If you should deserve either a good or a bad character, mine will be exactly what it is now, and will neither be the better in the first case nor worse in the latter.  Whatever your pleasures may be, I neither can nor shall envy them, as old people are sometimes suspected by young people to do, and I shall only lament if they should prove such as are unbecoming a man of honour or below a man of sense. But you will be the real sufferer, if they are such.  True friendship requires certain proportions of age and manners, and can never subsist where they are extremely different, except in the relations of parent and child, where affection on one side and regard on the other make up the difference. The friendship which you may contract with people of your own age may be sincere, may be warm, but must be, for some time, reciprocally unprofitable, as there can be no experience on either side. The young leading the young is like the blind leading the blind, they will both fall into the ditch.  Let me be that guide, who have gone all roads, and who can consequently point out to you the best. If you ask me why I went by any of the bad roads myself, I will answer you very truly, that it was for want of a good guide. Ill example invited me one way, and a good guide was wanting to show me a better. But if anybody, capable of advising me, had taken the same pains with me, which I have taken and will continue to take with you, I should have avoided many follies and inconveniences which undirected youth run me into. My father was neither desirous nor able to advise me, which is what I hope you cannot say of yours. You see that I make use, only of the word advice, because I would much rather have the ascent of your reason to my advice than the submission of your will to my authority. This I persuade myself will happen, from that degree of sense which I think you have, and therefore I will go on advising and with hopes of success. You are now settled for some time at Leipzig. The principal object of your stay there is the knowledge of books and sciences, which if you do not, by attention and application, make yourself master of while you are there, you will be ignorant of them all the rest of your life.  Redouble your attention, then, to Mr. Hart, in your private studies of the literary humanior, especially Greek. State your difficulties whenever you have any, and do not suppress them, either from some mistake and shame, lazy indifference, or in order to have done the sooner. Do the same when you are at lectures with Professor Mascow or any other professor. Let nothing pass till you are sure that you understand it thoroughly, and accustom yourself to write down the capital points of what you learn. When you have thus usefully employed your mornings, you may with a safe conscience divert yourself in the evenings, and make those evenings very useful too, by passing them in good company, and by observation and attention learning as much of the world as Leipzig can teach you. You will observe and imitate the manners of the people of the best fashion there. Not that they are, it may be, the best manners in the world, but because they are the best manners of the place where you are, to which a man of sense always conforms. The nature of things, as I have often told you, is always and everywhere the same, but the modes of them vary more or less in every country, and an easy and genteel conformity to them, or rather the assuming of them at proper times and in proper places, is what particularly constitutes a man of the world and a well-bred man. Here is advice enough, I think, and too much it may be you will think, for one letter. If you follow it, you will get knowledge, character and pleasure by it. If you do not, I only lose operum et oleum, which in all events I do not grudge you. I send you, by a person who sets out this day for Leipzig, a small packet from your mamma, containing some valuable gifts which you left behind, to which I have added, by way of a New Year's gift, a very pretty toothpick case, and by the way, pray take great care of your teeth and keep them extremely clean. I have likewise sent you the Greek roots, lately translated into English from the French of the Port Royal. Inform yourself what the Port Royal is. To conclude with a quibble, I hope you will not only feed upon these Greek roots, but likewise digest them perfectly. Adieu. Letter 21 London, December 15, Old Style, 1747 Dear boy, there is nothing which I more wish that you should know, and which fewer people do know, than the true use and value of time. It is in everybody's mouth but in few people's practice. Every fool, who slatterns away his whole time in nothings, utters however some trite commonplace sentence, of which there are millions, to prove at once the value and the fleetness of time. The sundials, likewise all over Europe, have some ingenious inscription to that effect, so that nobody squanders away their time, without hearing and seeing daily how necessary it is to employ it well, and how irrecoverable it is if lost. But all these admonitions are useless, where there is not a fund of good sense and reason to suggest them, rather than receive them.  That is the fund which will make you rich indeed. I do not, therefore, mean to give you a critical essay upon the use and abuse of time, but I will only give you some hints with regard to the use of one particular period of that long time which, I hope, you have before you. I mean the next two years.  Knowledge is a comfortable and necessary retreat and shelter for us in an advanced age, and if we do not plant it while young it will give us no shade when we grow old. I neither require nor expect from you great application to books, after you are once thrown out into the great world. I know it is impossible, and it may even in some cases be improper. This, therefore, is your time, and your only time, for unwearyed and uninterrupted application. If you should sometimes think it a little laborious, consider that labor is the unavoidable fatigue of a necessary journey. The more hours a day you travel, the sooner you will be at your journey's end. The sooner you are qualified for your liberty, the sooner you shall have it, and your manumission will entirely depend upon the manner in which you employ the intermediate time.  I knew a gentleman who was so good a manager of his time that he would not even lose that small portion of it which the calls of nature obliged him to pass in the necessary house, but gradually went through all the Latin poets in those moments. He bought, for example, a common edition of Horus, of which he tore off gradually a couple of pages, carried them with him to that necessary place, read them first, and then sent them down as a sacrifice to Cloesina. This was so much time fairly gained, and I recommend you to follow his example. It is better than only doing what you cannot help at those moments, and it will make any book which you shall read in that manner very present in your mind. Books of science, and of a grave sort, must be read with continuity, but there are very many, and even very useful ones, which may be read with advantage by snatches, and unconnectedly. Such are all the good Latin poets, except Virgil in his Aeneid, and such are most of the modern poets, in which you will find many pieces worth reading that will not take up above seven or eight minutes.  Good night. Letter 22 London, December 18, old style, 1747 Dear Boy As two males are now due from Holland, I have no letters of yours or Mr. Hart's to acknowledge, so that this letter is the effect of that scribbendi cathoesis, which my fears, my hopes, and my doubts concerning you give me. When I have wrote you a very long letter upon any subject, it is no sooner gone, but I think I have omitted something in it, which might be of use to you, and then I prepare the supplement for the next post, or else some new subject occurs to me, upon which I fancy I can give you some informations, or point out some rules which may be advantageous to you. This sets me to writing again, though God knows whether to any purpose or not, a few years more can only ascertain that. But whatever my success may be, my anxiety and my care can only be the effects of that tender affection which I have for you, and which you cannot represent to yourself greater than it really is. But do not mistake the nature of that affection, and think it of a kind that you may with impunity abuse. It is not natural affection, there being in reality no such thing. For if it were, some inward sentiment must necessarily and reciprocally discover the parent to the child, and the child to the parent, without any exterior indications, knowledge, or acquaintance whatsoever, which never happened since the creation of the world, whatever poets, romance, and novel writers, and such sentiment mongers may be pleased to say to the contrary. Neither is my affection for you that of a mother, of which the only, or at least the chief objects, are health and life. I wish you them both most heartily, but at the same time I confess they are by no means my principal care. My object is to have you fit to live, which if you are not, I do not desire that you should live it all. My affection for you then is, and only will be, proportion to your merit, which is the only affection that the rational being ought to have for another. Hitherto I have discovered nothing wrong in your heart or your head. On the contrary, I think I see sense in the one and sentiments in the other. This persuasion is the only motive of my present affection, which will either increase or diminish according to your merit or demerit. If you have the knowledge, the honor, and probity, which you may have, the marks and warmth of my affection shall amply reward them. But if you have them not, my aversion and indignation will rise in the same proportion. And in that case, remember that I am under no further obligation than to give you the necessary means of subsisting. If ever we quarrel, do not expect or depend upon any weakness in my nature for a reconciliation, as children frequently do, and often meet with, from silly parents. I have no such weakness about me, and as I will never quarrel with you but on some essential point, if once we quarrel I will never forgive. But I hope and believe that this declaration, for it is no threat, will prove unnecessary. You are no stranger to the principles of virtue, and surely, whoever knows virtue must love it. As for knowledge, you have already enough of it to engage you to acquire more. The ignorant only either despise it or think that they have enough. Those who have the most are always the most desirous to have more, and know that the most they can have is alas, but too little. Reconsider from time to time, and retain the friendly advice which I send you. The advantage will be all your own. London, December 29, old style, 1747 Dear boy, I have received two letters from you of the seventeenth and twenty-second new style, by the last of which I find that some of mine to you must have miscarried, for I have never been above two posts without writing to you or to Mr. Hart, and even very long letters. I have also received a letter from Mr. Hart, which gives me great satisfaction.  I thank you for your offer of the new edition of Adamus Ademy, but I do not want it, having a good edition of it at present. When you have read that, you will do well to follow it with Père Bougance, Histoire du Trait du Monster, in two volumes, which contains many important anecdotes concerning that famous treaty that are not in Adamus Ademy. You tell me that your lectures upon the juice publicum will be ended at Easter, but then I hope that Mr. Moscow will begin them again, for I would not have you discontinue that study one day while you are at Leipzig. I suppose that Mr. Moscow will likewise give you lectures upon the instrumentum pacus, and upon the capitulation of the late emperors. Your German will go on of course, and I take it for granted that your stay at Leipzig will make you a perfect master of that language, both as to speaking and writing. For remember, that knowing any language imperfectly is very little better than not knowing it at all, people being as unwilling to speak in a language which they do not possess thoroughly, as others are to hear them. Your thoughts are cramped, and appear to great disadvantage, in any language of which you are not perfect master. Let modern history share part of your time, and that always accompanied with maps of the places in question. Geography and history are very imperfect separately, and, to be useful, must be joined. Go to the Duchess of Cortlands as often as she and your leisure will permit. The company of women of fashion will improve your manners, though not your understanding, and that complacence and politeness which are so useful in men's company can only be acquired in women's. Remember always what I have told you a thousand times, that all the talents in the world will want all their luster, and some part of their use too, if they are not adorned with that easy good-breeding, that engaging manner and those graces which seduce and prepossess people in your favorite first sight. A proper care of your person is by no means to be neglected. Always extremely clean, upon proper occasions fine. Your carriage genteel and your motions graceful. Take particular care of your manner and address when you present yourself in company. Let them be respectful without meanness, easy without too much familiarity, genteel without affectation, and insinuating without any seeming art or design. You need not send me any more extracts of the German constitution, which by the course of your present studies I know you must soon be acquainted with. But I would now rather that your letters should be a sort of journal of your own life. As, for instance, what company you keep, what new acquaintances you make, what your pleasures are, with your own reflections upon the whole, likewise what Greek and Latin books you read and understand. Adieu. Seventeen-forty-eight. Letter twenty-four. January second. Old style. Seventeen-forty-eight. Dear boy, I am edified with the allotment of your time at Leipzig, which is so well employed from morning till night that a fool would say you had none left for yourself, whereas I am sure you have sense enough to know that such a right use of your time is having it all to yourself. Nay, it is even more, for it is laying it out to immense interest, which in a very few years will amount to a prodigious capital. Though twelve of your fourteen comments so may not be the liveliest people in the world, and may want, as I easily conceive that they do, le temps de la bonne campagne et les grosses, which I wish you, yet pray take care not to express any contempt or throw out any ridicule, which I can assure you is not more contrary to good manners than to good sense, but endeavor rather to get all the good you can out of them, and something or other is to be got out of everybody. They will at least improve you in the German language, and as they come from different countries, you may put them upon subjects, concerning which they must necessarily be able to give you some useful information. Let them be ever so dull or disagreeable in general. They will know something at least of the laws, customs, government, and considerable families of their respective countries, all which are better known than not, and consequently not worth inquiring into. There is hardly anybody good for everything, and there is scarcely anybody who is absolutely good for nothing. A good chemist will extract some spirit or other out of every substance, and a man of parts will, by his dexterity and management, elicit something worth knowing out of every being he converses with. As you have been introduced to the Duchess of Cortland, pray go there as often as ever your more necessary occupations will allow you. I am told she is extremely well bred and has parts. Now, though I would not recommend to you to go into women's company in search of solid knowledge or judgment, yet it has its use in other respects. For it certainly polishes the manners, and gives une certain tenue, which is very necessary in the course of the world, and which Englishmen have generally less of than any people in the world. I cannot say that your suppers are luxurious, but you must own that they are solid, and a quart of soup and two pounds of potatoes will enable you to pass the night without any great impatience for your breakfast next morning. One part of your supper, the potatoes, is the constant diet of my old friends and countrymen. End footnote. Lord Chesterfield, from the time he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 1775, used always to call the Irish his countrymen. End footnote. The Irish, who are the healthiest and the strongest bodies of men that I know in Europe. As I believe that many of my letters to you and to Mr. Hart have miscarried, as well as some of yours and his to me, particularly one of his from Leipzig to which he refers in a subsequent one, and which I never received, I would have you for the future acknowledge the dates of all the letters which either of you shall receive from me, and I will do the same on my part. That which I received by the last mail from you was of the 25th November new style. The mail before that brought me yours, of which I have forgot the date, but which enclosed one to Lady Chesterfield. She will answer it soon, and in the meantime, thanks you for it. My disorder was only a very great cold, of which I am entirely recovered. You shall not complain for want of accounts for Mr. Grevenkopf, who will frequently write you whatever passes here, in the German language and character, which will improve you in both. Adieu. Letter 25 Dear boy, I willingly accept the New Year's gift which you promised me for next year, and the more valuable you make it, the more thankful I shall be. That depends entirely upon you, and therefore I hope to be presented every year with a new edition of you, and more correct than the former, and considerably enlarged and amended. Since you do not care to be an assessor of the Imperial Chamber, and that you desire an establishment in England, what do you think of being Greek professor at one of our universities? It is a very pretty sinicure, and requires very little knowledge, much less than I hope you have already of that language. If you do not approve of this, I am at a loss to know what else to propose to you, and therefore desire that you will inform me what sort of destination you propose for yourself. For it is now time to fix it, and take our measures accordingly. Mr. Hart tells me that you set up for a— If so, I presume it is in the view of succeeding me in my office as the Secretary of State, which I will very willingly resign to you, whenever you shall call upon me for it. But if you intend to be the—or the—there are some trifling circumstances upon which you should previously take your resolution. The first of which is to be fit for it, and then, in order to be so, make yourself master of ancient and modern history and languages. To know perfectly the constitution and form of government of every nation, the growth and the decline of ancient and modern empires, and to trace out and reflect upon the causes of both. To know the strength, the riches, and the commerce of every country. These little things, trifling as they may seem, are yet very necessary for a politician to know, and which therefore I presume you will condescend to apply yourself to. There are some additional qualifications necessary in the practical part of business which may deserve some consideration in your leisure moments, such as an absolute command of your temper so as not to be provoked to passion upon any account. Patience to hear frivolous, impertinent, and unreasonable applications, with address enough to refuse without offending, or by your manner of granting, to double the obligation. Dexterity enough to conceal a truth without telling a lie, sagacity enough to read other people's countenances, and serenity enough not to let them discover anything by yours. A seeming frankness with a real reserve. These are the rudiments of a politician. The world must be your grammar. Three mails are now due from Holland, so that I have no letters from you to acknowledge. I therefore conclude with recommending myself to your favour and protection when you succeed. Yours. Letter 26 London, January 29, Old Style, 1748 Dear Boy, I find by Mr. Hart's last letter that many of my letters to you and him have been frozen up on their way to Leipzig. The thaw has, I suppose, by this time set them at liberty to pursue their journey to you, and you will receive a glut of them at once. Hoodabras alludes, in this verse, like words congealed in northern air, to a vulgar notion, that in Greenland words were frozen in their utterance, and that upon a thaw a very mixed conversation was heard in the air of all those words set at liberty. This conversation was, I presume, too various and extensive to be much attended to, and may not that be the case of half a dozen of my long letters when you received them all at once? I think that I can eventually answer that question, thus. If you consider my letters in their true light, as conveying to you the advice of a friend, who sincerely wishes your happiness and desires to promote your pleasure, you will both read and attend to them. But if you consider them in their opposite and very false light, as the dictates of a morose and sermonizing father, I am sure they will be not only unattended to but unread. Which is the case you can best tell me. Advice is seldom welcome, and those who want it the most always like it the least. I hope your want of experience, of which you must be conscious, will convince you that you want advice, and that your good sense will incline you to follow it. Tell me how you passed your leisure hours at Leipzig, and I have too good an opinion of you to think that, at this age, you would desire more. Have you assemblies or public spectacles? And of what kind are they? Whatever they are, see them all. Seeing everything is the only way not to admire anything too much. If you ever take up little tale-books to amuse you by snatches, I will recommend two French books, which I have already mentioned. They will entertain you, but not without some use to your mind and your manners. One is La Manière de bien penser dans l'ouvrage d'une spirée, written by Père Bonheur. I believe you read it once in England with M. Kodurk, but I think you will do well to read it again, as I know of no book that will form your taste better. The other is L'art de plaire dans la conversation, by the abeille de Belgar, and is by no means useless, though I will not pretend to say that the art of pleasing can be reduced to a receipt. If it could, I am sure that receipt would be worth purchasing at any price. Good sense and good nature are the principal ingredients, and your own observation and the good advice of others must give the right color and taste to it. Adieu, I shall always love you as you shall deserve.